Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2003-03-06 - 5.25pm��previous entry��next entry
Attached Parenting
Wow.
I have loads I need to write about! I have more photos but they can wait for another day. Okay, amongst the various clothes and bits I've been buying at eBay and UKparents, I've got a book called, "Three in a Bed" by Deborah Jackson. It arrived yesterday in the post. Now, someone was selling this for next to no money and I was already buying other stuff from her, so I thought, why not? I'm vaguely curious after all.
You know, not so long ago I was thinking I'd have myself a cute lil baby, and I'd do all the normal stuff and be happy as Larry. I'd pop the little precious in handy disposable nappies and chuck them joyfully in the nearest bin so as to think no more of them when they got pooped in. I'd make the most beautiful nursery and buy the cutest cot and accessories in the WORLD, and delight in attending to my little one's night-time needs there. I'd buy one of those bouncy chair thingies to allow my darling to watch me as I busied around the house being housewifely. When we went out of the house, one of those cute carseats would do, like I've seen everyone else using to cart their wee ones round by a handle without having to disturb them by picking them up. I'd breastfeed, for sure. Absolutely. But I guess when solid foods started I'd wean the baby. I'd NEVER stick a child in a playpen and leave them behind bars, but a bouncy chair seemed okay. One thing I was NOT going to do was pump breastmilk. No way Jose. I learnt enough in my midwifery course to know that confusing a baby between rubber teats and real nipples causes them problems with breastfeeding, because sucking on a rubber teat uses completely different muscles and a totally different mechanism to sucking on a breast. This is a really good way to say bye-bye to breast feeding. So I will only pump if I have a baby sick in hospital and it's the only way they can get my milk. I planned to have my baby either in hospital, where I'd be absolutely darned straight about what I wanted and what I didn't, or in a birth centre, where the care would be MARVELLOUS but my bank account would take years to recover.
Well!
How things have changed. All because of Diaryland actually! First I read Leah's diary when she was first pregnant with Salem and the little angels she lost, and I read how she planned to cloth-diaper twins. Mad, I thought, and dismissed the issue. Then I found Mia's pregnancy diary and saw that here was another cloth-diapering nut!! This is when I got somewhat curious. As I followed her pregnancy diary I learned more about cloth nappies, and eventually saw photos of her daughter in some gorgeous nappies, which pushed me into conversion!! So I researched. Boy was I amazed at what I found - I had noooo idea how warped and old-fashioned my views had been, nor how potentially dangerous disposable nappies are to a baby's long-term health. That's all without the environmental issues. So yeah, a few more cloth-diapering mama diaries and that did it. I found nappy patterns, and made some nappies and as you now see (!) I am converted to the point of activist!
So while reading all these excellent diaries (!!) I kept on coming across the term "Attached Parenting", or AP. There's an AP diaryring. I know some of you who read this are on it. But I hadn't the foggiest what it meant. Did you know, I am ashamed to admit, I really really thought I pretty much knew it all about what to expect and what was best for my baby. I really did! Especially having done a year of midwifery training. Well, at least I did learn valuable stuff about breastfeeding there.
But anyway. I discovered that Mia's children never slept in cots or cribs or moses baskets. They all slept in bed with their parents. "Wow," I thought, forgetting that this was the same reaction to the cloth-diapering at first, "they must be mad!! Now that's where I draw the line!" I thought I would never get a child OUT of my bed if I let them sleep there from birth. I figured there'd be all sorts of clingy issues and problems with seperation later on. So I dismissed the issue like the cloth-diapering one before.
Lately I've wondered again. It keeps popping in my head. But it can't work because Neil is so unaware in his sleep and I get whacked sometimes, so it can't be safe for a baby. Can it....? Well! This book arrived, and I started to read it yesterday afternoon. Today I read more until about half way through the book. I have LOADS more to read and lots of unanswered questions as yet, but OH MY GOODNESS, I am once again amazed at my previous ignorance!!! The research in this book is sound and shocking. I mean, REALLY shocking. I could quote reams of it but I don't want a loooong ranty preachy entry. I am still not 100% sure but I am seriously thinking that co-sleeping is the way to do it. I know some of you guys out there family-bed and swear by it. I thought it's not practical for us. But it is, it really is. I had no idea! And as for safety, there's strong evidence that a baby is far less safe outside of its parents' bed than in it. In communities where nobody has ever put a baby anywhere other than in its parents' bed, there is literally no such thing as cot death. And I mean LARGE communities, like erm, China!! Or a huge segment of it. Specialists have never HEARD of SIDS/cot death out there, they don't know what you're talking about. There are ever so many benefits to the child, like, so many I can't write them all here. And it goes hand in hand with night-breastfeeding, which I had wondered how to cope with too. What coping?! It all makes so much sense when I read it because it's all going back to what is the absolutely most natural thing to do with your baby.
So I am really starting to think (in utter disbelief due to my strong opinions beforehand!) that we may not need a cot at all. What a thought! No cot? Ever?! Maybe.
I have been so impressed and affected by what I'm learning, and so shocked at how detrimental the type of parenting I was planning on can be for a baby/child, that I've started researching Attached Parenting, which seems to be called Attachment Parenting in the UK I think. I know NOTHING about it and want to know what else I've been missing out on, what else I haven't got a clue about when I thought I knew it all. What else I could be blessing my child with rather than just doing what everybody else does and thinking it must be right therefore. Hmmm.
Okay so I think I have a basic list of what AP encompasses (someone set me right if I've missed anything!):
� Co-sleeping
� Breastfeeding only
� No weaning (ie breastfeeding into toddlerhood)
� The "on demand" thing, no sustained crying, whatever it's called!
� Cloth-diapering
� Positive discipline (need to learn more about this)
� Baby-wearing (slings and stuff)
� Undistracted birth
So co-sleeping I am working on, or rather, it's working on me! Breastfeeding I was convinced about from all I learned in midwifery. No weaning I hadn't bargained on. But wow I've learned some stuff since, about the importance of breastmilk for older babies, so I'm happy with that one. Not letting a baby cry, and feeding, cuddling, etc, on demand - I am happy with that, oh yes. I think it's gotta be cruel to allow a baby to cry to "train" it out of them in some way. A baby will tell you when it needs something, especially food, and who am I to deny them? I also have STRONG feelings about the timing of feeds. They should be timed to whenever the baby asks for them. D'uh?! When else?!! Nobody can demand that a baby sticks to a routine! Babies work on instinct and reflex alone so their cries and demands are the most accurate sign of a genuine need that there is. Yeah.
Cloth diapering, well yes, I'm fully into that one! Positive discipline I don't know enough about and I need a book to read on it. Baby-wearing, ooh I had noooo idea about this one either! I am reading about the importance and thoroughly researched values and benefits of touch to a human baby. A child that is constantly held and touched is a child who will find independence and security earlier and more effectively than any of his/her friends who weren't treated in this way. So out goes my idea of the bouncy chair thingy, even though my mum said how much I loved mine. I'm sure I did, they look great fun. But I'm sure being held close all the time is much more fun and I would have like that a whole lot more. You can "wear" babies - there are beautiful slings that support your back as you carry a baby, or even a toddler, and you can breastfeed wearing them, go anywhere wearing them, do anything - your hands are free, etc. There's one on my list of maternity essentials now.
And the lil car seat idea..... EVERYONE at church who has a baby turns up with their child in one, from the first day their new baby is at church. They carry them in by the handle and everyone looks into it, and marvels over the new baby. They are handy to place on the floor next to you, and some even come with rockers on so a baby can stay in there and be rocked if it wakes up. At the end of church you pick it up again and put it in the car and strap it in place, and thus do not need to touch/pick up your baby unless it demands a feed, from leaving home to arriving back there. A while back, this struck me as marvellously convenient. Now somehow it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth after reading the research on touching and handling. I wanted to have my turn at church, of being the one with a new baby and turning up with a cute carseat and all the rest. But now I don't. I will be the odd one out, yes, because nobody has ever worn a sling at church with their baby in it. I'm sure I'll get comments about cloth nappies and holding my baby so much and especially co-bedding if we do it (which I have to say looks very likely). Not least from my family I think. Everyone is gonna think we've snapped if we say we're having the baby in our bed, period. I am bracing myself for those comments! But I truly believe now that I've researched and weighed up both sides, that these things are by FAR the best thing for a baby, and the most health-beneficial as well.
It's weird, but deciding big changes to my long-dreamt-about plan is kind of scary, even if they are beneficial things! Neil is really open to everything and quite excited about it all too, with the exception of co-bedding. Hmmm. But so far his only objection has been the safety of the baby with his thrashing arms at night!! So if I read on and find any info about that kind of problem our minds can be put at rest. I am almost thinking ways round it myself, like if we had one of those toddler bedsides I could snuggle right up to Neil and the baby could be snuggled right up to my other side, further from Neil. So if he hit out, I'd get hit and not the baby. Hmmm. I don't know though. I'll think and read some more. But after what I've read I am getting more anxious about putting a baby anywhere other than my bed, even like we were going to put a crib or moses basket next to the bed. That's no good for me anymore, because it's skin to skin contact that maintains normal temperature and regular breathing in babies at a vulnerable age for apnea and SIDS. It's a position where a baby can turn it's head and immediately be sucking at the breast which means the least disturbed night for all concerned and a baby whose needs are being utterly met, and uncracked nipples and no issues with engorged breasts. Oh yes, I am all for these things! :)
So this has been food for thought, definitely. I may have more to write about it soon, as it's kind of big decision changes, and I have yet to talk to Neil about all this stuff when he gets home, so that might give me things to write about too!
Oh and I'm absolutely definitely set on a homebirth now. Absolutely. Now I just need to be pregnant, which I am longing for more than ever these days. Four and a half months till we can try to conceive :)
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25