I can read her so well,” a new mother proudly exclaimed as she brought her one-month-old infant in for a checkup. “She loves to nurse, and I love to watch her.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“Everyone tells me what a bright baby I have,” said the mother of a cheerful six-month-old who caught my eye and smiled as I listened to his mother. “Andrew hardly ever cries. He really doesn’t need to.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“I saw that look in his eye, and I knew he was headed right for the street,” recalled the mother of an almost-two-year-old. “I called out, ‘Stop,’ and Ben instantly turned and looked at me. Maybe he read the alarm in my voice. It made him stop even before I could get to him and pick him up.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“My daughter marched off to kindergarten last week, excited and proud to be going to ‘real’ school,” said the relieved mother of a four-year-old. “I was concerned because we tried preschool last year and she just wasn’t happy there. But now she’s more confident, and she seems happy to be on her own for part of the day.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“Kris’s best friend has been having some trouble getting along with the other kids,” said the mother of a fourth-grader. “But Kris seems to know how to humor this kid and help him relax and have a good time.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“Yes, we trust our daughter with the car on her own (no passengers yet, though),” the mother of a sixteen-year-old told me. “She knows what kind of behavior we expect of her, and she generally lives up to our expectations.”
These are the experiences of attached parents, parents who know their children well and whose children trust them. Parenting seems to come naturally to them, yet they also spend time and energy discovering and paying attention to their children’s needs. These parents got to be attached parents by working at it. They have been rewarded with warm, open, and trusting relationships with their children. Being attached has made parenting easier and more enjoyable.
The Baby B’s of attachment parenting.
Attachment parenting is an approach to raising children rather than a strict set of rules. Certain practices are common to AP parents; they tend to breastfeed, hold their babies in their arms a lot, and practice positive discipline, but these are just tools for attachment, not criteria for being certified as an attached parent. So forget the controversies about breast versus bottle, crying it out or not, and which methods of discipline are acceptable, and go back to the basics. Above all, attachment parenting means opening your mind and heart to the individual needs of your baby and letting your knowledge of your child be your guide to making on-the-spot decisions about what works best for both of you. In a nutshell, AP is learning to read the cues of your baby and responding appropriately to those cues.
As you’ll find out, attachment parenting is not an all-or-nothing approach. Realistically, you may not be able to do everything we recommend all of the time, perhaps because you are working outside the home. This does not mean you cannot be an attached mother or that you cannot use the AP tools effectively. In my pediatrics practice I see mothers of all kinds, from stay-at-home moms to moms who work full-time, and they are able to practice AP quite successfully. In fact, attachment parenting is the ideal parenting choice for working mothers. Building a strong attachment can actually make it easier both to work and to parent your baby. In chapter 11, we offer tips for keeping your attachment strong before and after you return to work.
Babyhood, the beginning of attachment. Raising a child is like taking a trip to a place you’ve never been. Before your baby’s birth, you imagine what the journey will be like. You read guidebooks. You plan your itinerary. You listen to friends who have taken this trip. Once your baby is born and you’re on the road together, you recognize some of the sights and know some of the highlights. But you also discover that in many ways the place is nothing like the guidebooks described, and at times you seem to be on an altogether different journey. You encounter good weather one day, unsettling storms the next. Sometimes you have lots of fun; other times you feel like catching the next flight home.
Fortunately there are signs to follow along the way that tell you whether you’re on the right path. People you meet share their knowledge of the road ahead. By listening to your baby, you pick up the language. The more you learn about this challenging new place, the more comfortable you become. Eventually you discover that this is a wonderful place to be and that you have learned a lot about yourself here as well as about your baby.
Like any journey, parenting requires adjustments along the way. You can’t see everything, and some days you don’t go anywhere. You and your baby will devise your own way of covering the miles. But if you are flexible and pay attention, you will arrive together at your destination as a connected parent and child.
Help along the way. “Okay, certainly I want to be attached to my baby,” you may feel, “and I want to be able to figure out what’s best for her. But how do I get there?”
Your journey to become attached to your child will be different from other parents’ journeys, because your child is an individual, and so are you. But at the outset you rely on the same means that other parents use: the tools that will help you be attached to your baby. All these tools are part of the style of parenting we call attachment parenting. Your relationship with your child is the real destination of your journey. Attachment parenting is just a way to get there.
Actually, attachment parenting is the style that many parents use instinctively. When parents open their hearts and minds to their baby’s needs and emotions, they use many of the tools that we describe in this book to respond to those needs and emotions and fit them into their own lives. The important point is to get connected to your baby and stay connected as your child grows.
We did what we did just because it seemed natural to us. Only later did we find out there was a name for it, which validated what we did in the first place.
Attachment parenting, like any job, requires a set of tools. The better your tools are, the more easily and better you can do the job. Notice we use the term tools rather than steps. With tools you can choose which ones to use to do the job. The term steps implies that you have to follow all the steps in order if you want to get the job done. Think of attachment parenting as connecting tools, interactions with your infant that help you and your child get connected. Once you are connected, the whole parent-child relationship (discipline, health care, and just plain day-to-day living with your child) becomes more natural and enjoyable.
THE ABC’S OF ATTACHMENT PARENTING
When you practice the Baby B’s of AP, your child has a greater chance of growing up with the qualities of the A’s and C’s:
| A's | B's | C's |
| Accomplished | Birth bonding | Caring |
| Adaptable | Breastfeeding | Communicative |
| Adept | Babywearing | Compassionate |
| Admirable | Bedding close to baby | Confident |
| Affectionate | Belief in baby's cry | Connected |
| Anchored | Balance and boundaries | Considerate |
| Assured | Beware of baby trainers | Cuddly |
| Curious |
Our shorthand name for the tools of attachment parenting is the Baby B’s. These Baby B’s help parents and baby get off to the right start. Use these attachment tools as a starting point for working out your personal parenting style—one that fits the individual needs of your child and your family.
What I learned from attachment parenting is that there is no expert better than me for my baby.
The attachment tools you use with a new baby are based on the biological attachment between mother and baby as well as on the behaviors that help babies to thrive and parents to feel rewarded for their efforts. Take advantage of these tools when your child is a baby, and you’ll have a head start on understanding her as a preschooler, as a ten-year-old, and as an adolescent.
Some parents rely more on some tools than on others. Some will use all the tools all the time and use them intensively. Others will use some of the tools some of the time and may not need others, depending on baby’s temperament and their own. Sometimes, because of medical or family circumstances, parents can’t practice some of the Baby B’s. Do the best you can with the resources you have. That’s all your child will ever expect of you. And keep your goal in mind: getting—and staying—connected to your child.
Birth bonding. The way baby and parents get started with one another helps the early attachment unfold. The hours and days after birth are a sensitive period when mothers are uniquely primed to care for their newborns, and newborns display their almost magical power over attentive caregivers. Spending lots of time together after birth and beyond allows the natural attachment-promoting behaviors of the infant and the intuitive, biological caregiving qualities of the mother to come together. The infant is needy, and the mother is ready to nurture. Both members of this biological pair get off to the right start if they are constantly together during the first six weeks. Dads also can enjoy birth bonding. While they don’t share the physical experience of birth and breastfeeding, in the days and weeks after birth, they can tune in emotionally to their fascinating newborn.
Breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is an excellent exercise in getting to know your baby—something we call baby reading. Successful breastfeeding requires a mother to respond to her baby’s cues, which is the first step in getting to know your baby and building a trusting relationship. The maternal hormones associated with lactation—prolactin and oxytocin—give intuitive mothering a boost, since they help women feel more relaxed and calm around their babies.
Babywearing. Carried babies fuss less and spend more time in a state of quiet alertness, the behavioral state in which babies learn most about their environment and are nicest to be around. Also, when you “wear” your baby, you become more sensitive as a parent. Because your baby is so close to you, you get to know him better. Baby learns to be content and to trust his caregiver. He also learns a lot about his environment in the arms of a busy caregiver.
Bed sharing. There is no one right place for all babies to sleep. Wherever all family members get the best night’s sleep is the right arrangement for your individual family. Most, but not all, babies sleep best when they are close to their parents. Sleeping close to baby can help some busy parents connect with their babies and care for their babies’ needs at night as well as during the day and evening. This is particularly true for mothers who return to work after their maternity leave. Since nighttime is scary for little people, sleeping within close touching and nursing distance minimizes nighttime separation anxiety and helps babies learn that sleep is a pleasant state to enter rather than a fearful one. It is also easier for mothers to do nighttime breastfeeding with baby close at hand. It may work for you some nights and not on other nights.
Belief in baby’s cries. A baby’s cry is a baby’s language. Crying is a valuable signal designed to ensure the baby’s survival and to develop the parents’ caregiving abilities. Babies, therefore, cry to communicate, not to manipulate. The more sensitively you respond, the more baby learns to trust his parents and his ability to communicate.
Balance and boundaries. In your zeal to give so much to your baby, it’s easy to neglect your own needs and those of your marriage. As you will learn in later chapters, the key to putting balance in your parenting is being appropriately responsive to your baby—knowing when to say yes and when to say no, and having the wisdom to say yes to yourself when you need help.
Beware of baby trainers. Once you have a baby, you may become the target of well-meaning advisers who shower you with detachment advice, such as, “Let him cry it out,” “Get him on a schedule,” and “Don’t pick her up so much, you’re spoiling her!” This restrained style of baby care, which we dub baby training, is based upon the misguided assumptions that babies cry to manipulate, not to communicate, and that a baby’s cry is an inconvenient habit that must be broken to help baby fit more conveniently into an adult environment. As you will learn in chapter 10, baby training, especially if carried to an extreme, can be a lose-lose situation. Baby loses trust in the signal value of his cues, and parents lose trust in their ability to read and respond to their baby’s cues. A distance can develop between baby and child—just the opposite of the closeness that happens with attachment parenting. Throughout this book we want to help you learn to evaluate parenting advice. Attachment parenting will give you a sixth sense, so that eventually you’ll become so confident about your own style of parenting that you’ll be less vulnerable to the advice of baby trainers.
You will learn more about each of these seven attachment tools in later chapters.
How these tools shape your parenting. The Baby B’s are about things you do as a parent, yet they will also shape what kind of a parent you will be. Breastfeeding, birth bonding, baby-wearing, and the other Baby B’s will make you more sensitive to the cues of your infant. When his needs are met quickly and his language is listened to, the infant develops trust in his ability to give cues. As baby becomes a better cue giver, parents become even more responsive, and the whole parent-child communication system works better. Attachment parenting is a style of caring for an infant that brings out the best in baby and the best in parents.
This style asks a lot of parents, especially in the first three to six months. You give a lot of yourself to your baby—your time, your energy your commitment. But you get back a lot more in return. Parenting is like investing in an IRA. The more you put into your child in the early years, the greater the later returns. If you work hard at the beginning, later on you can relax more and enjoy the fruits of your labors.
I feel emotionally invested in my children. I have spoken to other parents who don’t seem to be as emotionally invested in their children, and I think they are missing out on one of the best experiences in life.
Attachment parenting means more than breastfeeding your baby, wearing your baby, or sleeping with your baby. It really means developing the ability to respond sensitively to the needs of your child. These seven attachment tools help that happen.
ATTACHMENT TIP
Mutual Giving
The list of Baby B’s may lead you to think that attachment parenting is one big give-a-thon, that you will be constantly giving, giving, giving to your baby. You may wonder how you will survive with so much energy flowing out of you. But as the communication between you and your child becomes more sophisticated, the more connected you will feel. You will find yourself more confident as a parent. The more responsive you are to your infant, the more responsive baby is to you, and the more you both will relax. This may take longer to develop in some mother-infant pairs than in others. Also, you’ll notice the carryover effect: you’ll become more sensitive, perceptive, and discerning toward other relationships in your family, marriage, and work.
Attachment is a special bond between parent and child, a feeling that draws you magnetlike to your baby. For a mother, it begins with the sense that baby is part of her, a feeling that starts in pregnancy. As the attachment develops after birth, the mother continues to feel complete only when she is with her baby. When separated from her baby she feels as if part of herself is missing. This level of attachment doesn’t grow overnight. Nor is it created in one hour of after-birth bonding. It’s more like a weaving that is created over time out of many mother-infant interactions.
AP IS LIBERATING
During the first month, especially if you are a first-time mother, the bond that you read about may feel more like bondage. It’s common to feel helpless and worry that you’re not a good mother. These feelings may be compounded by circumstances, such as not having the birth you planned to or not getting the dream baby you pictured. Other energy drainers, such as feeding problems, sleepless nights, and the drastic changes in lifestyle that your childbirth educator warned you about (but you may not have been ready to listen to or didn’t want to hear), finally occur. Then, after this initial month of high-maintenance problem solving, the attachment switch seems to click on. When and how this occurs will be unique to every mother-infant pair, but it does happen! Then you begin to think less about what you are giving up and more about what you are gaining. Gradually, attachment parenting becomes liberating. You are now free to tap in to some basic instinctual drives, and you find the confidence to follow your gut feelings for caring for your baby. You are now free to be a mother.
He seems influenced by my moods. I’m part of him, just as he’s part of me.
Attachment is harmony. Mothers often describe being attached as being in tune with their infants. When musicians are in tune, they produce tones that vibrate in harmony with one another. When you are in harmony with your baby, it’s as if something inside of you vibrates in response to your baby’s needs. The baby’s cue, such as crying, fidgeting, or a certain facial expression, sets the mother’s response in motion, and her response is at exactly the right frequency. As you rehearse cues and responses with your infant, you will fine-tune your harmony, and your baby will make adjustments along with you. Eventually the two of you will be singing in tune, and it will feel wonderful.
FATHER ATTACHMENT
In the early months, in most families the mother-infant attachment is more obvious and more intense than that between father and infant. This does not mean that fathers do not become deeply attached to their babies, but it is a different type of attachment. It’s neither of a lesser quality than mother’s nor better. It’s just different. A father can also use the Baby B’s to build his attachment to his child. By being responsive to his baby’s language and comforting his baby when she cries, a father can build his own strong attachment to his baby. (We discuss father-infant attachment in detail in chapter 12.)
By being connected to my children I learn their rhythms.
Attachment is a connection. Like love, attachment is wonderful to feel and impossible to describe, but it is always present. There are times when you are happy to be holding your baby times when you feel ecstatic about your relationship with her. There are also times when you need to be alone, but even then, the connection continues.
I feel right when we’re together and not right when we’re separated. When I have one of those days in which my baby’s needs are all-consuming, I may take a much-needed break when my husband arrives home from work, but after a short time, I really crave getting back together with my baby.
When we are traveling, Martha keeps her watch on home time. This can make getting places on time a bit complicated. I asked her why she doesn’t reset her watch. She explained: “Knowing what time it is in California keeps me connected to the kids. I know what they’re likely to be doing from moment to moment.”
Attachment is knowledge of a person. When you’re attached to your baby, you see her as a little person with distinct needs and preferences. You know exactly what these are, and they add up to a unique little personality. “I can read her so well,” a first-time mother confidently said when discussing her toddler’s efforts at exploring her environment. When you’re attached to your baby, you become an expert on your baby. This knowledge of her behavior will help you know when she is not feeling well, when she needs reassurance, and when she needs to work out something on her own. Because you know your baby so well, you will be able to help your pediatrician provide appropriate health care for her. In years to come, you’ll be able to help your child’s teachers better facilitate her learning.
My attachment to Jessica empowers me to be a smarter mother.
Attachment is about fit. This tiny word beautifully sums up how parents and infants adjust to one another in the early months of life. Fitting together brings a completeness to a relationship, a rightness that brings out the best in parents and baby.
Some babies and parents fit together easily. An easygoing baby fits in well with a mother who may be worried and anxious. Baby’s happy nature gives this mother lots of positive reinforcement, and she learns to relax and enjoy her baby. A baby with a more difficult temperament may fit in well with a mother who is very nurturing. Mother responds to baby’s high level of needs in a positive way, and baby eventually mellows out. Fitting together is more challenging when baby is fussy and mother is either unsure of herself or has rigid ideas about what babies need. This mother will have to make some alterations in order to fit well with her baby, or she will need to take more baby breaks, but if she changes her approach to her baby, she will find that baby responds by becoming easier to live with.
From baby’s viewpoint. To a newborn life is one big puzzle. Mother shows baby how to put the pieces together. Mother interprets the world for baby, demonstrating, for instance, that hunger is satisfied by nourishment, that distress is followed by comfort, that cold is replaced by warmth, that it feels better to relax than to stay tense. To a baby, particularly in the early months, mother provides food, comfort, warmth, sleep, and meaning. She not only fills baby’s need for nourishment and security, she helps him make sense of the world. Babies, like adults, naturally cling to the persons who best satisfy their needs.
Whereas attachment for a mother is a desire to stay close to her baby, for a baby, attachment is a need to stay close to her mother. Not all mothers feel an intense desire to stay close to their baby right from the start. You might care for your baby out of a sense of obligation or some other complex set of emotions that you might not necessarily describe as love. This can be a difficult stage to go through, but using the tools of attachment parenting, including taking baby breaks, will help you want to do the things you have to do for your baby. Your desire to be with your baby will grow if you let it, until you will feel that you need your baby as much as he or she needs you.
I like being with my two-year-old. I can’t imagine anything that’s more fun or more satisfying.
Consider AP a starter style. Attachment parenting means first opening your mind and heart to the individual needs of your baby. If you do this, eventually you will develop the wisdom to make on-the-spot decisions about what works best for both you and your baby. Do the best you can with the resources you have. That’s all your child will ever expect of you.