Attachment parenting, us?

 Parenting can be very confusing. You think you are going to do things in a certain way and you end up surprised at the choices that end up being best for your family or particular child.

I try hard not to subscribe to any parenting philosophy. I like to have my own opinions, discuss and parent according to our own mish-mash, that we make up as we go. And I reserve the right to change my mind as well. People can get very radical (they don't call the phenomenon "mommy wars" for nothing). But there are no black-and-white solutions, no "right" way to do things  and every kid is different.  What works for one child, does not work for another. We are all trying to do the same, raise happy, healthy, children. (Anna, said it best*).

Yet, I found myself shocked at our  'attachment parenting' tendencies. When I first heard about the movement, I cringed. Hippy, dirty-looking parents (because soap is bad), hanging out in a field of flowers with their 7-year-old kids that are still breastfeeding and don't study math because they hate it; the kind of people who will only eat fruit once and if it has fallen off a tree and don't believe in discipline or limits because it could harm the fragile feelings of their offspring**. To each its own, but I did not see myself like that. And I swore I was going to raise independent children. Then I watched that documentary, Rauw*** (Raw) about a mother who imposes her diet to her son, and continuously tells him "the others are wrong, one day they will realize", where perhaps, the most telling moment of the whole film is when the kid tells her mom something along the lines of "everyone can make their own choices and they should be honoured and respected".

I always thought our daughter was going to sleep in her own crib from day one. I thought it was just a matter of putting her there, oh naive me. Then she was born too early and we wanted to have her close to us, so she slept in her Moses basket, by our bed. And she slept fairly well. When she was 5 and 6 months she started sleeping through the night, mostly (well, from 11 pm to 6 am without any feedings or wake ups in between). At about the same time we went to Mexico for a month, where she continued to sleep (on one of those giant American-style cribs); but when we came back she had grown so much she did not fit in her Moses basket anymore, so we decided it was a good time to transfer her to her own crib, in her own room.

At the beginning it went well, for a few nights. But then, she started to wake up every 3 hours, then every 2 hours. At one point she was waking up  e-v-e-r-y   s-i-n-g-l-e    h-o-u-r. This happened gradually, the lowest point happened sometime around November, when after trying everything from sleeping on a mattress by her side, to rocking her, stuffing her with heavy food (like potato) and milk, we went to see a baby sleep coach. You can imagine how tired we were, from bringing her back and forth to her crib, soothing her, only to have her wake up, again, and again, and again.

We read, and read, and read. We concluded this probably had to do with separation anxiety and maybe teething, which took a long time for her and started around that time. In the end, in a moment of desperation, Mark took the baby and put her in our bed.  I started crying, left the room in desperation and told him that if we did this now, there was no going back. I was also still very scared of SIDS and did not want her to choke under a blanket, pillow, or be crushed by us like a tiny piglet by its mom. But we really had tried everything and we were both so exhausted we could not continue functioning as it was.

She started sleeping better, waking up less. I started enjoying it. I read some more, realized that maybe it was OK if she still needed the security of being close to us, that she would become independent at her own pace and time.

 Co-sleepers are extremely expensive so we ended up doing the famous IKEA hack... which is quite simple really: just the cheapest crib, without one of the fences which is then attached to the bed with rope.

We hope  and assume that when she is mature enough for the change she will let us know herself. (Or we will reassess in the future). In the meantime she knows her room and crib very well, as she sleeps her day time naps there without any problems.

Did you end up doing things way differently than you ever imagined you would?

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* You should read the whole post, but I just had to quote this because it encapsulates these feelings very well:

"Yes, I worry, as any overly informed middle-class mother would, about their sleep, their appetite, the number of wet diapers, my breast milk supply, whether I’m giving them equal amounts of time and attention, whether we’ll crack the impossible equation that is childcare. Quite frankly, though, those concerns feel superficial. Below all this is a thick, solid layer of serenity. We’re ok. The kids are all right. We’re drilling down to the bare essentials: food, sleep, love, laughter. My daughters are healthy, happy children. My husband is an incredible, bright, loving father. Bath time is a party, playtime is hilarious, nap time is my fun time, their morning smiles are rays of sunshine."

** That is a caricature I invented in my mind, probably based on some documentary I watched sometime. I do not mean to be judgemental, I am just trying to illustrate a point.

*** The documentary (Rauw)  is in Dutch, but you can watch it here.