CENTRAL TO attachment parenting is meeting the needs of your child in all the ways we have described. At the same time, balance and boundaries, concepts that go hand in hand with meeting those needs, are also important. Attachment parenting a baby can make great demands on parents, physically and emotionally. When these demands are high and your ability to cope is low, you can lose your balance, becoming frazzled, overtired, and anxious. You may find it hard to enjoy your baby. Your marriage may suffer from lack of attention. Or you may struggle with how to set boundaries for your toddler. Boundary setting is a natural element of attachment parenting, because it addresses a basic need that children have, too—knowing what the limits are. Attached parents will strive for balance and boundaries for both their children and themselves.
If a mother is feeling out of sync with her baby, she needs to arrange her life so that she can focus more on her baby; the other chapters in this book tell you how to do that. When a mother is feeling overwhelmed by her baby’s needs, she must find ways to care for herself, so that she can care for her baby. This chapter is about that side of parenting—balancing baby’s needs with mother’s needs, and father’s as well. When AP gets out of balance, it is no longer true attachment parenting. Mothers burn out, fathers tune out, and babies don’t get the happy parents they need, or the boundaries they need.
ATTACHMENT TIP
Setting limits should be easier for AP families than for others. Because you know your child so well, you are more likely to set appropriate boundaries. Because your child trusts you, he is more likely to accept them.
While the definition of “out of balance” will vary from family to family, here are some clues that the way you are meeting your infant’s needs may not be as healthy as it could be.
ATTACHMENT TIP
If you’re worried about getting too attached to your baby, don’t. Attachment is healthy, and there’s no such thing as being too healthy. Getting the proper balance back in your life is relatively easy. Just back off a bit and pay more attention to your own needs. Not being attached enough, on the other hand, can take years to fix, and you’ll feel like you’re playing catch-up all the time your child is growing up.
What’s out of balance: On an airplane when flight attendants are explaining emergency procedures, they always tell parents to put their own masks on first and then to assist their children. If Mom isn’t getting enough oxygen, she can’t help her child. Likewise, if your emotional tank is drained, you can’t be as calming and reassuring with your baby as you could be after a refueling. What your baby needs most is a happy mother. Mothers forget this when they are trying to take perfect care of their babies.
Solution: Okay, so maybe you don’t need a shower every day. But you do need time to yourself, even if it’s just fifteen uninterrupted minutes in the bathroom. Be sure to take some time for yourself every day. If baby won’t sleep, have Dad take him for a walk while you hit the easy chair or lounge in the bathtub. Take time every day to fill your own emotional tank. (See the related sections Avoiding Mother Burnout, page 112, and The Eleven Commandments for Balanced Attachment Parenting, page 118.)
What’s out of balance: Resentment and anger are signs that you’re being pushed too far. You’re giving beyond your boundaries. Perhaps your baby came blessed with a high need level. Perhaps your lack of confidence in your parenting skills makes it difficult for you to be responsive. Maybe you’re not getting enough support from the people who care about you.
Resentment is tough on your baby. Children—even babies—are quick to pick up on mother’s mood or her attitude. Your sour feelings may make your baby even more demanding and anxious. Sure, AP will s-t-r-e-t-c-h you, but it shouldn’t break you.
Solution: Many kids ago we learned a valuable survival principle: IF YOU RESENT IT, CHANGE IT.
You need to find joy in attachment parenting. You’re not going to feel happy all day every day, but you should feel good most of the time. You want to mirror positive reflections to your child. Resentment leads to negative reflections. Remember, attachment-parented children, because of their sensitivity, are quick to pick up on your feelings.
Certainly there will be days when baby care feels like a grind, and you don’t feel very joyful. That’s real life. But remember the Caribbean saying, “Don’t worry, be happy.” That’s the overall impression you want to leave on your baby.
One day five-year-old Matthew was asked to complete a fill-in-the-blanks tribute to his mother. One line read: “I like being with my mother most when ________.” He filled in the blank with “she’s happy.”
So what should you change? There’s not too much you can change about your baby, at least not in the short term. Can you lessen the demands on you? Look at other areas of your life. For example, get help with household tasks. Let go of stress at work. Say no to volunteer commitments while your baby is young. Have scrambled eggs and steamed vegetables for dinner instead of a hard-to-fix meal.
CAN YOU BE TOO ATTACHED?
A therapist once told us: A mother came to me for counseling because she felt she was too attached to her child. I mentioned to her that we don’t need to use that term. Attachment is like love. How can there be too much of it? How can you know your baby too well? A mother can’t be “too attached.” If it’s unhealthy, it’s not that she loves or understands her baby too much. The problem is elsewhere; maybe she doesn’t have good boundaries herself. The answer isn’t to become less attached or to put distance between herself and her baby. The answer is to take care of herself better and to understand that the baby doesn’t need a perfect AP mom.
For attachment parenting to be good for the whole family, two conditions must be met.
For parents to be connected, the marriage must be satisfying for both of them. If the marriage is in good shape, the children will do just fine. We have counseled couples whose marriages are falling apart partly because they give so much to their baby that they forget to enjoy one another. In other cases, as Mother becomes more and more involved with the baby, Father withdraws because of his wife’s lack of attention.
Unhealthy attachment occurs when your parenting style is no longer an attachment tool, but a control tool. This is marked by signs of a mother who is fulfilling her own needs for attachment at the expense of the baby moving onward. Mothers with a history of forming unhealthy attachments in their own childhood are at greater risk of having attachment problems. Also, a mother who is the product of a detached style of parenting is likely to overcompensate. A red flag goes up if a mother finds it intolerable when her toddler goes through the normal stage of breaking away from her. An appropriately attached mother picks up on the child’s clues to separate and encourages that. An inappropriately attached mother gives her own cues of neediness, and the child follows, clinging when he should be separating.
Realize that while babies need lots of attention, not all of the attention has to come from Mother. Be willing to let go of the reins a bit in the areas where maybe you’ve come to feel you’re the only one who can do it “right.” Have someone else entertain baby so you can do something you enjoy. If Dad is home, don’t hover while he plays with your child. Take a walk, or take a bath. Pay a junior high student to come in and play with your baby while you garden or sew or have some uninterrupted time to yourself.
You can also deal with resentment by changing your attitude. Sometimes just acknowledging that you have a very demanding baby eases resentment. Stop wishing that he would sleep through the night; instead be happy that he is so bright and sensitive. Remember that your baby is a baby for only a short time. This intense season of your life will fade as your baby grows. Talk to other parents who also have demanding babies. They will be able to listen to your negative feelings better than people who just don’t see why you’re so overwhelmed by motherhood will. They may also have some ideas on how to find some balance, or perhaps you can brainstorm together.
HOW TO FIND AN AP THERAPIST
As we have counseled families experiencing difficulties with attachment parenting, we have come to realize how important it is to find the right therapist. We operate on the principle I learned the very first day in medical school: “First, do no harm.” A therapist who is working with AP parents should, first of all, not make suggestions that threaten to disrupt the mother-baby attachment. Instead, she should keep you on track to have a healthy relationship with your infant. Here’s what to look for and what to avoid:
While attachment parenting is healthy parenting that supports and encourages the child toward timely and appropriate independence, enmeshment is a dysfunctional family dynamic in which a parent, usually the mother, smothers the child, keeping him from developing his individual personality because of her own needs. In this case the mother is still functioning at the level of a child in trying to get her needs met by the child—needs that were never met when she was a child. Healthy attachment changes at each stage, as baby becomes more and more mature, and the attachment adjusts itself to meet the needs of the baby, toddler, and preschooler as he grows. Enmeshment occurs when a mother is not able to “let go” and gradually adjust her attachment physically or emotionally. If you are becoming enmeshed rather than attached, seek counseling.
In the meantime, take life one day at a time, and focus on the moment. If you’re awake and nursing in the middle of the night, enjoy the quiet. Gaze at your baby, meditate, think pleasant thoughts. Be careful not to worry or make endless mental lists of all you have to do. Jot things down if you need to have a list—then let go of the tasks until you can actually do something about them. If baby needs to be walked in the baby sling in the afternoon, go outside and enjoy the fall colors or the budding signs of spring. Sing as you walk along. Don’t worry about what you “should” be doing instead. You’ll get to those things eventually, when baby is less needy or someone else is there to help. What you’re doing right now, with and for baby, is more important.
Your child needs a mother who is predominantly happy. If you radiate unhappiness much of the time, your child is likely to take that personally. She may decide that you are unhappy with her, and that feeling may become a part of her personality. If you’re dealing with feelings of resentment and anger that are hard for you to fix, consider professional counseling. Discovering where these feelings are coming from and why they are so intense can help you put them to rest.
Shortly after the birth of our eighth child, Martha became overwhelmed with two little ones in diapers and the needs of four other children at home. She reflected stress in her face and didn’t often mirror happiness. Fortunately, she recognized what she was projecting to our children. She did not want our children growing up believing that attachment mothering is no fun or that they had caused her to be unhappy. She sought professional help, worked on her inner feelings, and polished her mirror so that the children could see a better image of themselves.
What’s out of balance: Some older babies and toddlers love to keep mother’s nipple in their mouth and nurse all night long. Some mothers are able to sleep right through this and wake up rested, while others cannot. You know whether this works for you or not. It does not mean you are not an attached mother if you can’t handle being literally attached for much of the night. It’s one thing to breastfeed in the middle of the night to fill a hungry tummy and give baby a chance to touch base with Mom. It’s another thing when you sacrifice your own sleep rather than deny baby any time sucking at the breast. All-night nursing can lead to sleep deprivation for a mother. If you’re tired and crabby from nursing at night, you won’t be a very happy mother during the day. If you’re beginning to dread going to bed because it’s work rather than rest, take it as a sign that you need to make some changes.
Solution: Breastfeeding may be baby’s preferred source of nighttime comfort, but it isn’t the only choice available. If baby’s prolonged sleepy sucking irritates you and keeps you from sleeping, you need to find other ways to comfort your baby while you discourage him from breastfeeding endlessly. For suggestions—from our own experience—on dealing with babies who would suck all night if allowed to, see Night Weaning from the Breast, page 98.
What’s out of balance: Healthy attachment parenting is about bonding, not bondage, yet many stay-at-home mothers in our society find themselves isolated. This problem arises not from the parenting style but from the way the worlds of work and home are separated in our culture. In traditional cultures baby grows up being cared for by aunts and grandmas along with his primary caretaker, his mother. Baby feels comfortable with caregivers besides mother, and mother is surrounded by other adults instead of being stuck at home with an infant whose conversational skills are limited at best.
Solution: Give your baby opportunities to become comfortable with other caregivers. When Grandma comes over for a visit, go to another part of the house and do something for yourself while Grandma plays with baby. If you don’t have family nearby, look for an adoptive grandma or a friend who is sensitive to babies and enjoys them.
Get involved in an attachment-parenting support group. (See the list of resources, page 177.) You’ll meet women who share your mothering style and who can respond to your baby in a sensitive way. You’ll get a break from being on your own, and you may be able to work out some shared childcare arrangements. A weekly playgroup with AP-minded friends was a sanity saver for Martha with several of our little ones, and it resulted in some wonderful long-term friendships for both the children and the moms.
With our fifth child, Erin, I was feeling the need for support. I made friends with another mother, Nancy, who had a child Erin’s age. Her child, like Erin, had a high level of need, and we responded to our babies in similar ways. We hung out together (sometimes several times a week), shared our joys and trials, even cooked and cleaned together, and would often trade childcare. When she and her husband needed a night out, I would care for her child, and vice versa. Because Nancy was a naturally nurturing person and very much into attachment parenting, I knew that Erin’s needs were being met while I was away meeting my own needs and the needs of my marriage.
What is out of balance: If almost all of your energy is going to your baby and very little toward your marriage (after the first several months), your family is out of balance. Your relationship with your husband will likely deteriorate, and in the years to come, this will affect your child.
Solution: Give your husband his wife back.
Romance doesn’t have to end when a baby enters your life. There are many ways to reconnect with your husband. Some are as simple as finding fifteen or twenty minutes every day to talk with one another about topics other than parenting and running the household. Invite your husband to take a walk with you after work and use this time to listen and share with one another. (Put baby in the sling and he will soon be asleep.) At bedtime, place baby in his crib for the first part of the night once you’ve nursed him into a sound sleep, so that you and your husband can enjoy some time alone. Leave baby with a sensitive caregiver and go out for lunch or dinner. Find ways to let your husband know that you are thinking about him, even when you’re busy with the baby.
Don’t shut your husband out of parenting. Ask for his help, and then step back and get out of his way. Explain to your husband that if he shares in the baby care and some household chores, you’ll have some energy left over for him later.
A child learns many relationship skills from watching her parents handle problems. Remember, you are raising someone’s future husband or wife. You want to provide good models for your children to follow. You don’t stop being marriage partners when you become parents.
What is out of balance: Attachment parenting works well for most families most of the time. If it’s not working well for you, there may be other challenges and issues getting in the way.
Solution: Get professional help.
Perhaps you need help with learning how to take care of yourself. Are you carrying baggage from your past into your parenting, and does that baggage need to be unloaded? For example, a woman who had a troubled relationship with her own mother may try to “fix” her feelings of being unloved by trying to be the perfect mother to her own children. Women with a history of sexual abuse may find it difficult to practice some of the Baby B’s and should consider counseling. If your marriage was shaky going into the pregnancy, or if you or your husband were not really ready for the demands of parenthood, both of you will benefit from marriage counseling. These are tough issues that need professional help from a therapist, particularly one knowledgeable about attachment theory and attachment parenting.
Burnout is a state of emotional exhaustion. A mother feels burned out when she has been out of balance for too long. With so much energy draining out of her, she reaches a point where she feels she has nothing left to give. Yet her baby continues to need her, and she has to go on coping. She becomes unhappy, angry, and tired. She questions her ability to take care of her baby and blames herself for not enjoying motherhood.
Women who are the most highly motivated to be good mothers are most at risk for burnout. You have to be committed to parenting and working hard at it in order to burn out. Mother burnout can be one of the side effects of attachment parenting, especially in families where there is a high-need baby.
Burnout happens when mothers, fathers, and babies get out of balance and stay out of balance for too long. The problem is usually not with attachment parenting itself. We believe that there is a law of demand and supply in attachment parenting. The baby may be demanding, but responding to the baby’s needs helps parents get the energy and resources they need to survive and thrive. Loving and connecting with your own baby can be a source of emotional healing for parents whose relationship with their own parents was not a close one. However, a number of factors can tip the attachment balance toward burnout, such as a high-need baby, an unsupportive environment, mother’s or father’s personal challenges, outside pressures, or unrealistic expectations for parenting.
We once gave a talk in Australia and used the term “immersion mothering” instead of attachment parenting. A wise grandmother in the audience later reminded us that “immersion” means getting in over your head. We dropped that term.
Modern mothers are expected to do it all: keep a perfect house, raise intelligent and creative children, provide their husbands with companionship and sex, and have a stimulating life of their own on the job or elsewhere. A new mother who tries to live up to this image of Su-permom is headed for trouble. Learning how to be your baby’s mother is a more-than-full-time job. When too many other demands are placed on a mother, giving her more to do and less time to care for herself, she is in danger of burnout.
Feeling tired is unavoidable when you’re a new parent, and there will be days when you wonder if you’re cut out for mothering. Burnout, however, is not an inevitable part of attachment parenting. Here are some tips on surviving and thriving as a mother while avoiding burnout.
Do what you can to get your relationship with your baby off to a good start. Being separated from your baby after birth or struggling with breastfeeding problems makes it more difficult to get a good start at parenting. If you are reading this book before your baby is born, take time now to make careful plans for the birth and the first days of your baby’s life. Take a good childbirth class and attend La Leche League meetings to learn about breastfeeding. (Two excellent resources for preparing for your baby’s birth are our Birth Book and Pregnancy Book.) If you are reading this book after your baby is born and still feeling the emotional after-effects of a less-than-ideal start with your baby, it’s time to let go. Tell yourself that you did the best you could at the time with the information you had. Then concentrate on the attachment that you are now building with your baby.
BABY BREAKS
Sometimes while caring for my baby, I wish someone would care for me that way.
Remember this Sears survival tip for attachment parenting: What your baby needs most is a happy, rested mother. Attachment-parenting mothers whom we have counseled often relate how they feel “touched out.” They spend so much time giving high-touch mothering to their infants that they have little time left for themselves as persons and mates. Try these baby-break ideas:
Take a walk. In addition to wearing your baby for a daily walk, take a walk by yourself now and then while Dad plays with baby.
Take a shower. One of the first questions Martha asks a mother during a “burnout” counseling session is how many days it has been since she took a shower. Even if your baby fusses, if you need or want to take a shower, do so. Place your infant on the floor in an infant seat and let her watch you. Oftentimes, the noise of the running water and any humorous antics you can do, such as singing in the shower, will calm your baby. Other times you can shower with baby if she likes it, or get into the tub together for “hydro-therapy” on a fussy day.
Nap-nurse. During those frequent high-need days, such as when a baby goes through a growth spurt and wants to marathon-nurse all day and all night, it helps to pick out a couple of times during the day that you are the most tired and lie down with your baby. While it’s tempting to use baby’s nap time to “finally get something done,” resist this temptation and nap with baby.
Hire help. If your spouse isn’t able to pitch in during the day with your toddler, hire a teen to come in for an hour or two at least once a week. Go do something just for yourself, even if it is only taking a soak in the tub and listening to music, getting some outdoor exercise, going to a spa, or going shopping.
Enjoy your hobby. If you had a special interest that was temporarily put on hold before baby came, resume it.
Take a class. Enroll in a dance class, jazzercise, aerobics, or a night class on a topic you’ve always wanted to learn about, or one to further your education. This is not a Mommy and me class, it’s something just for Mommy, while your infant has some “Daddy and me” time at home.
Get social. Contact other new mothers, perhaps those you met in your childbirth class or through La Leche League, and enjoy a weekly lunch together. Younger babies go along easily, and older babies can be watched by a shared baby-sitter at someone’s home.
Be spiritual. While motherhood is often a spiritually renewing experience, many new parents get so overwhelmed during the high-maintenance stage of the early months that they forget to take good spiritual care of themselves. Frequent mini-breaks with a few minutes of prayer or meditation will help give you that inner peace that both you and your baby need.
Go to the beauty salon. Indulge yourself with a new hairstyle. Or enjoy a luxurious manicure and pedicure—something you may not have time to do for yourself at home.
Get some rest. Don’t always feel obligated to go out and do something when you get a baby break. Sometimes just shutting the bedroom door and getting some much-needed sleep (without interruption) can be just what the doctor ordered. Or relax with a good book. Write a letter, send out some e-mails, or call a friend and have a pleasant phone visit.
Ignore negative advisers. Lots of people will tell you how to parent your baby, and their insistence that what you are doing is wrong can undermine your self-confidence. Don’t argue with them. Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about their advice. Remind yourself that you have good reasons for choosing the attachment-parenting path and that you are the expert on your baby.
Get Dad involved. I have never seen a case of mother burnout in a family where the father is actively involved in parenting and in caring for the new mother. Some dads are good at this right from the start. Others need encouragement. Mothers can help their husbands by stating clearly and calmly what their own needs are. Men can’t guess what it is women want from them, because most men are not as intuitive about other people’s needs as women are. Whether it’s dishes in the sink or a crying baby that needs attention, mothers have to ask. If a mother has trouble asking, it’s a red flag that some counseling is needed. She may have a severe tendency toward perfectionism, thinking she’s the only one who can do things right. Or, if she’s struggling with depression after the birth, she may be having trouble communicating her needs.
Don’t hover when Dad is caring for baby. Dad has to learn on his own how to soothe baby’s cries and play with a happy baby. If Mom is there, supervising every burp, pat, and tickle, Dad won’t learn to be a confident baby tender. Use this opportunity to take time for yourself. Go for a walk, do some shopping, or read a book in a far corner of the house. Dad and baby will be fine.
Father and Mother must work together to meet the baby’s and the family’s needs. This is especially true when they have a baby with a difficult temperament or special needs. If Mother is doing all the childcare, Father can be come very hesitant about handling the fussy baby. If all of Mother’s energy goes to the baby, Dad may resent being left out in the cold. He may immerse himself in work or other commitments outside the family. Mom then burns out, the marriage gets shaky, and the baby’s relationship with both his parents is at risk.
Dr. Bill’s father-to-father advice: Attachment parenting works best when husbands are sensitive to their wives’ needs. Ask your wife what you can do for her, and then insist that she relax while you take care of dinner, the baby, the preschooler, or whatever. Mothers find it hard to ask for help because part of them feels that they should be able to do it all—though, of course, this is an unrealistic expectation. Very few women discuss their ambivalent feelings about motherhood with their husbands. There are at least two reasons for this. First, women have a tremendous emotional investment in maintaining a perfect-mother image in their spouses eyes. Second, they know all too well that men want to rush in and “fix” things, and mothers don’t want to be bombarded with suggestions for change when all they really want is someone to listen to them.
Minimize outside pressures. Learning how to care for and respond to your baby is a big project. The first year of your baby’s life is not a good time to tackle other projects, such as remodeling, moving, or changing jobs (unless it’s scaling down to a less demanding job). If there are other problems in your life competing for your attention, such as financial pressures, a parent who is ill, or a demanding toddler, do whatever you can to get help. Reduce your stress level as much as possible, so that all your energy can be channeled to your baby and to the other people in your family. A toddler or preschooler may need a lot of focused attention from you, but he does not really need you to sew an elaborate costume or host a birthday party for twenty.
Set priorities. When you’re in the middle of a bad day, still in your nightgown at two o’clock, crossing a sticky kitchen floor to get to the rocking chair to nurse your baby for the third time since noon, you may feel as if you’re getting nothing done. You may also wonder what to do next, once baby has calmed down and you get a moment. Having a clear sense of your priorities helps. How do you this? Here are some tips:
Take time for yourself every day. If this weren’t so important, we wouldn’t say it as often as we do. You can’t be a good mother to your baby unless you are taking good care of yourself. It’s your job to take care of yourself. Remember that when you care for yourself, you are caring for your baby’s mother, and this is an important way to be sure that your baby will get everything he needs. Use baby’s nap time to do something you enjoy, something that recharges your spirit. Give Dad a chance to take care of baby daily, while you go for a walk or soak in the tub. Read a good book while baby nurses. Rent your favorite video and stay up late to watch it. (Take a nap with baby the next day to catch up on your sleep.) Buy your favorite healthy foods at the grocery store and look forward to lunchtime. Be good to yourself, because you are very important to your baby.
Get out and get going. Don’t let yourself feel trapped at home alone. Get out and go places with baby. Even a trip to the grocery store is interesting if you bring baby along. Go to the park, the library, the neighborhood coffee shop. Go places where you can meet other mothers. Being at home with a baby all day is hard if you don’t have other adults to talk with.
Let go of perfectionism. AP parents set high goals for themselves. They want their child to have the best of parents, and they want to do everything “right.” This just isn’t possible. Nobody has that kind of control over themselves or their family life.
Enjoy the moment. Attachment parenting brings rewards that make you want to give more to your baby and that make it easier for you to do so, but you have to be able to recognize them when they come. This means that when you are nursing your baby in the middle of the night, or walking your baby to sleep at bedtime, don’t think about what isn’t getting done or fret about sleep deprivation. Instead, appreciate the feeling of relaxation that washes over you as baby relaxes in your arms.
If you know exactly what we mean when we describe mother burnout, you need to know that it isn’t a permanent condition. You can recover from burnout and rekindle your passion for motherhood. If you use what you’ve learned about yourself to look at your life differently, you can avoid getting burned out again.
ATTACHMENT TIP
There is no such person as a perfect parent, and certainly this book was not written by perfect parents. Do the best you can with the resources you have. That’s all your child will ever expect.
A realistic appraisal of what life is like with a new baby is a good first step in the process of recovering from mother burnout. Babies need lots of care. They are unpredictable, and you can forget about schedules and sleeping through the night. Most important is to understand what your baby is like, and that your baby is different from the model babies you read about in books. Your job is to respond to your baby—not to turn him into the baby in the book.
Another lesson to learn as you recover from burnout is what you need to do in order to cope with the needs of your baby. Just as babies’ temperaments vary, so also do mothers’ personalities. If you are an impatient person, you’re going to have a harder time dealing with a high-need baby than would a woman who is more laid-back and easygoing. You may have to make a great effort to reduce the stress in other areas of your life so that the patience you do have is saved for your baby. If you are someone who is quick to care for the needs of others but less mindful of your own, you need to learn to identify your own needs and find ways to meet them.
All of the suggestions listed above under Avoiding Mother Burnout will also help you reorganize and regroup, so that you can come back from burnout and once again be an effective and happy mother to your baby. Above all, don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re the only mother your baby knows, and you are exactly the mother your baby needs.
Critics of attachment parenting are quick to point out that they have seen mothers worn to a complete frazzle by the demands of their babies. If you are approaching burnout or are wondering if you are “too attached” to your baby, you may also have some doubts about attachment parenting. In fact, parenting advice that promises to get baby on a schedule may be looking pretty good to you. However, if you have the kind of demanding baby that is pushing you toward the edge of burnout, you can bet that you have the kind of baby who will not do well with a more rigid style of parenting.
THE PARENTING PILL
Certainly, there is no pill that a parent can take that guarantees satisfied parents and emotionally healthy children. But attachment parenting comes close. Suppose AP came in a pill. The package insert would read something like this:
Purpose: To help you become an expert in your child and to increase your chances of rearing an emotionally healthy adult.
Directions: Take as often as needed and for as long as needed.
Side effects: It may seem hard at first, may derail career tracks, and if you overdose, it may lead to sleepless nights and mother- and marriage burnout. To minimize side effects, be sure to take the dosage that is right for your child, yourselves, and your family.
Keep in mind that balance is a very important part of attachment parenting. If mother is burning out, something somewhere is out of balance. Figure out what it is and what you need to do to improve the situation. One adjustment you may have to make is to change your belief that it is up to you, Mom, to stop baby’s cries. Baby’s cries need a response, but sometimes you won’t be able to find the right response. Many times, to give Mother a break, someone else—usually Dad—can take a turn at comforting and soothing baby. Attachment parenting is designed to make you comfortable with meeting your baby’s needs, not anxious about baby’s every move. Mothering is not very satisfying when you’re constantly worrying about doing it “right.” With time, attachment parenting will increase your patience and make you a more giving person. It will give you more confidence in yourself and in your ability to be not a perfect mother, but a good one.
THE ELEVEN COMMANDMENTS FOR BALANCED ATTACHMENT PARENTING