Sue Redmond

The best parenting advice I ever got was “don’t get bogged down in other people’s advice, everyone will have some opinion or another just find your own way as a parent, and trust your gut”.

So in finding my own way to parenting twin girls, I found attachment-style parenting. It resonates with me and my husband Mike as both something that feels right to do and as something that is logical, as well as an evidence-based approach. People still give lots of advice. I listen to what they say and if it doesn’t resonate with my values, I let it go. Let’s be honest, most of us have struggled at some point with the challenge of sleepless nights, giving up our freedom and suddenly having this little life we need to make conscious decisions about so we don’t f&*k them up.

I think most people like to give advice because they too have struggled with being a parent and found something that worked for them. So I like to think that from their desire to be helpful, they offer suggestions. Mostly out of concern for the exhausted-looking mother or father in front of them! They want to rescue and be helpful, but often times the exhausted-looking parent takes it as a personal attack on their parenting like they ‘should’ do something like sleep train, breastfeed, bottle feed, co-sleep, or cot train. You name it, there is always something that will possibly offend a sleep-deprived, exhausted parent when it comes to unsolicited advice.

When advice is helpful and supports a child-centered approach to raising kids, I’m all ears. I wrote this article when the girls were 2 years old (it promptly stayed on the laptop for lots of reasons), the photo above is from when they were just a few months old, fast forward, and now they are 4.5 years!! And now I am certain that all the effort I put into those early years paid off.

There were definitely times when I wasn’t 100% sure as thoughts of ‘“You’ve made a rod for your own back” emerged in my mind as my growing daughters still had lots of needs that needed to be met. They woke ALOT at night time until they were about 3 years old they started to sleep better( and not even through the night fully) and it was frustrating at times the inevitable comparison to other babies who were sleeping through the night from an earlier age would hit me and I’d wonder exhaustedly “Really, am I doing the right thing? Maybe cry-it-out is the solution?” but a deeper knowing down in the pit of my stomach knew it was not for me and I couldn’t simply ignore my babies cries in the hope of a few uninterrupted hours sleep.

I chose to be a responsive parent. No animal wild or domesticated ignores her baby. No dog ignores its puppies and puts them into a small cage. No lioness ignores her cubs and tells them to self-soothe! No monkey, dolphin, tiger, elephant, or polar bear practices cry-it-out. NONE of them! The clues are in nature, and we are part of nature.

I feel much more confident in writing and putting this article into the world now that my beautiful, fabulous daughters are 4.5 years old. I KNOW this works. I also know that for many of my friends who eventually sleep-trained their children, once those tiny humans moved into toddler beds and out of cots, once those bars were taken down, those tiny humans moved with all their might to be close to their parents. They sought them out, not all of them, but most of them. Some toddlers preferred the comfort of their own beds, some parents felt frustrated by this seeming regression and worked on rewards to get them back into their own beds, and some parents reveled in the beautiful snuggles as their toddlers toddled into their beds in the middle of the night. We continued to co-sleep through it all, naturally comforting them through potty training, wake-ups for water, and nightmares, all while getting the maximum amount of sleep for us as a family. We met their needs continually and responded appropriately. Now we have very self-assured, confident girls who are truly wonderful.

I share this as inspiration for the new parent, to have confidence that this approach does work and it is the best thing you can do for your tiny human.

One book that has been a reassuring cornerstone has been Sears & Sears book on Attachment Parenting. Here are some key aspects that I found particularly helpful in supporting me in nurturing our girls.

What is attachment parenting?

Attachment parenting is an approach to parenting that 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. It means being in tune with your child and yourself so that you can dance the delicate balance that becoming a family means and the demands that small people put on your limited resources. One way to look at it is that parenting is like investing in a pension, the more you put into your child in the early years the greater the returns later!

7 B’s of attachment tools

• Birth bonding
• Breastfeeding
• Babywearing
• Bedding close to baby
• Belief in baby’s cry
• Balance and boundaries (when to say yes and no!)
• Beware of baby trainers — well-meaning advisers that shower you with detachment advice e.g. ‘let him cry it out’, ‘don’t pick her up so much, you are spoiling her’. Based on the misguided assumption that babies cry to manipulate. This is not the case, they cry to communicate. It sees a baby’s cry’s as an inconvenient habit that must be broken to help the baby fit more conveniently into an adult environment. Baby training can mean the baby loses trust in the value of their signaling cues, parents lose trust in their ability to read and respond to the baby’s cues. A distance can develop between baby and parent. The opposite of the closeness that happens with attachment parenting.

It isn’t all or nothing, you don’t have to do all of the B’s, you don’t have to be a stay-at-home parent, and it’s not just for the mommas, dads can be attached parents too.

I bedshare with my twins, from when they were quite small. It is what worked for me, otherwise, I don’t think I would have gotten any sleep. I certainly found that trying to reach into a cot in the middle of the night was just a bridge too far and utterly amplified exhaustion. I followed the ‘Safe Sleep 7’ to do this safely

1. A nonsmoker.
2. Sober and unimpaired.
3. A breastfeeding mother 
4. Her baby is healthy and full-term.
5. Baby is on her back.
6. The baby is lightly dressed. (AND no covers that could be potentially pulled over the baby’s head. I used to sleep in a fluffy onesie that opened down the front with a strappy top underneath for easy access to the golden “super milk!”)
7. On a safe surface.

Responding Appropriately to Needs

Attachment parenting is more than breastfeeding, baby-wearing, or sleeping with your baby. It means developing the ability to respond sensitively to the needs of your child. The key here is responding to your child’s needs. People get caught up in telling you that you will have a needy child if you hold them too much. This is simply not true. Instead of seeing your child as a little being that is trying to trap you, if you view their desire to be held, the comfort and connection they get from it as being as fundamental to their survival as food and hydration then you wouldn’t want to isolate them from that nurturing.

Building Connection

It is a beautiful connection that builds your knowledge of your child and your child’s knowledge of you. It is about being in tune with your child. You sort of feel like a part of you is missing without them and you are kind of reluctant to not be around them. I also found that part of my nervous system was just on alert for them, I knew when they needed me. I still do, their little cells have my cells in them, we are connected and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise that connection. It is sacred. Imagine in the movie Avatar and how they were so connected with the planet, this is what it is like to be so connected that you literally feel inside your body when they need you.

It’s not spoiling

Attachment parenting is about responding appropriately to your baby. Spoiling is the result of responding inappropriately. It is not spoiling to hold your child, you can’t spoil your child with too much love. You can spoil them with overindulgence and permissiveness that signals a parent’s inability to set limits and provide boundaries. You spoil them when you give them things they don’t need, to replace your guilt for not giving them time and attention. You spoil them with too many things that overwhelm them when you aren’t fully with them to see that all they actually need is you and your face in front of them LOVING them. 

Smarter Children

Research (Swain et al., 2015) shows that babies raised in high-touch, responsive environments that are attachment parenting turn out smarter. As a baby develops the neurons in their brain grow and make connections with one another. These connections are how your child learns, and stores patterns and memories in their circuits. How well they hook up and how many connections the baby’s brain makes are directly related to their interaction with their environment. They build mental pictures of the cue-response events in their life “I’m hungry = I get fed”, “I’m scared = I get held”. This builds up a library of attachments that form the beginning of their sense of self and what the world is like. The brain is ultimately trying to understand this fundamental question, “Is this a kind and caring world or a threatening unsafe world?”. It does this so that it knows what it needs to do to survive.

Research by Bell & Ainsworth at Johns Hopkins University concluded that maternal sensitivity to the cues of her infant is the prime influencer of an infant’s physical and intellectual development.

Babies raised with limited amounts of interaction, which usually mean limited contact with loving, caring adults, don’t have the same opportunities to develop connections in their brain. Brain researchers believe that more and better connections make a child smarter in the long run.

As someone who works with adolescents, perhaps the most significant sentence is this one. “Replaying an expectant attachment scene and having that expectation fulfilled appropriately by a caregiver reinforces a sense of wellbeing that will forever influence future relationships: the ability to trust!”

Four elements in the caregiving environment:

1. Sensitivity and responsiveness to infant’s cues
2. Reinforcement of infant’s verbal cues and frequency of interchange during play
3. Acceptance of and going with the flow of the baby’s temperament
4. A stimulating environment with a primary caregiver and play that encourages decision-making and problem-solving.

Indulgent, Permissive Parenting?

Attachment parenting is not indulgent parenting. It’s not the same as giving your child everything they ask for. It is responding appropriately which means knowing when to say yes and no. It is important to distinguish between their wants and needs. In the first 6 months, their wants are their needs.

Attachment parenting is not permissive parenting where anything goes and they can do whatever. Instead, it is about shaping their child’s behaviour and making it easier for them to behave well. They quickly intervene and gently correct problems.

They don’t create overly dependent children because they allow them to do what they need to for themselves and don’t do everything for them. They see opportunities when they struggle as opportunities for learning and growth.

More Independent

People say you should put your baby down so that they won’t become clingy. Research shows that attachment parented kids become less clingy and more independent. If we look at our society it celebrates independence as some goal to attain, yes we want our kids to be self-sufficient but often that’s pushing them towards independence before they are really ready for it. Children naturally become independent in their own time, and the more we support them in that at their pace, then the more likely we are to maintain strong bonds that weather challenges as they grow and become adolescents.

Separation Anxiety

Most babies experience separation anxiety when their mother is away. Whether they are securely attached or not. Babies of mothers who practice attachment parenting may protest more strongly when their mother is away, or may happily accept another caregiver’s attention. “Active protest is actually a sign of how accustomed they are to feel right. Because they are used to having their signals understood, these babies let their mothers know when all is not well with them, they need caregivers who are sensitive to their cues and who will try to help them feel calm and comfortable” — Sears & Sears 2001

Resent it? Change it!

No matter what approach you take to parenting if you start to resent it, change it. If you are starting to feel resentment and anger they are signs that you are being pushed too far. You are giving beyond your boundaries. Babies are so quick to pick up on your moods and attitude, which will likely mean they get more demanding and anxious. Attachment parenting will stretch you, but it shouldn’t break you. 

Accept Support

Make time for yourself, do something you love, take up a new activity, and do what you need to. Accept help, definitely the hardest thing for new parents to do is to accept help when it is offered freely or ask for help when it is needed. There is no shame in accepting help or asking for help, it is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of self-awareness and strength. Tribally as humans, we raised children in groups of 6–8 adults minimum, which meant that children were exposed to different forms of parenting regularly and this nourished the tribe, the kids and meant that mums weren’t parenting alone. We now live in a very different structure of existence where the nuclear family is expected to be all things to a tiny baby, and women are given the message that they “should be able to have it all” and not complain about it or feel exhausted. However, all this does is lead to moma rage as she possibly now extends her caregiving to her husband as well, does all the work at home, and loses a sense of the independent vibrant free-spirited human she ultimately was before she had kids. This suppressed rage can leave her feeling powerless, hopeless and depressed. This moma needs support, to know that it is normal to feel this way, and to find healthy outlets to discover who this evolved version of her vibrant spirit is becoming. 

Parenting is one of the toughest gigs out there. You are always on with zero breaks and throw in a good dose of judgement from others all around you. It is a virtual minefield for the inner gremlins. Do not add to their ammunition. You are doing a great job!

Attachment Not Enmeshment

Attachment parenting supports children towards timely and appropriate independence, enmeshment is dysfunctional (usually the mother smothers the child) and where the parent keeps them from developing their individual personality because of their own needs. The mother is still functioning at the level of a child and trying to get their own needs for love met, needs that were never met when she was a child. Healthy attachment changes at each stage, it adjusts to meet the needs of the baby, toddler, and pre-schooler and teenager as they grow. Enmeshment happens when the mother is not able to ‘let go’. If you find that enmeshment is happening then it is wise to seek counseling.

Well-Meaning Advice

Other people’s advice can be frustrating and leave you vulnerable to doubting your approach to parenting, particularly when you are sleep deprived. One way to view this is to see other people’s advice as their well-meaning desire to pass on their experience motivated by love and a desire to help. Particularly when it’s your own family, remind yourself particularly if it’s your mother or mother-in-law that she did the best she could with the information available to her. Be careful not to imply that you are doing a better job than they did. You can give them some information as to why you are parenting this way, if you think it will be helpful but don’t argue or try to prove that you are right. When you feel a disagreement coming, best to avoid the issue and steer the conversation toward a neutral topic. When someone with little experience and fewer credentials criticises your parenting style, ignore it. It’s a waste of energy to even get into a discussion. Especially if it is hard-core baby trainers.

Sharing Vulnerability Creates Connections

We are all just trying to be the best parents we can be. Whatever we are doing and sometimes we have doubts about what we are doing because our kids aren’t measuring up to the cultural expectations whatever they are (sleeping the night being a key one). Never before have mothers been so isolated in rearing their children. Only a handful of decades ago parents were surrounded by their extended families who helped out and gave tired mothers a break. Now we are expected to do ‘it all’ and pretty much do it all in a nuclear family. This isn’t how our species was designed for this huge task of raising children. The saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, is true for a very good reason. And yet we all feel like we are failing because we can’t keep the house immaculate, the kids aren’t eating their vegetables, they are hitting or biting one another or insert the blank ____ of what they are or not doing. Then realise that comparing yourselves to other parents steals your joy. Comparing your children to other children steals your joy. Comparison is the thief of joy! We are all doing a great job, and the best job each of us can do with the information and emotional capacity we have at the time. In the words of Maya Angelou “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

I know for me some days it’s easier to get out of the house than have a full day at home, eternally trying to get them both to nap at the same time (which is virtually impossible I find unless we get out) so we get out. For others, this may not be the case and different stages bring different challenges. I think when we share our doubts and vulnerability this offers the opportunity for deeper connection, that shared humanity and vulnerability. It doesn’t even have to be to fix someone else’s problem or give them advice, just to share it and know you are not alone. 

So I’ll leave you with this, sometimes sharing our doubts and vulnerability with someone who doesn’t agree with you, can actually bring you both closer and make them an ally. It helps them to see that you aren’t really a know-it-all and you are just trying to do your best, like every other mother! When someone feels that you need her emotionally, even a little, they are far more accepting of the things you do.

It really is whatever works to get everyone in the house the most amount of sleep. But ultimately, all the advice in the world comes back to this, you know best, you are the momma bear and your instincts take precedence over everything. Some mum’s simply can’t breastfeed, or co-sleep because of medical conditions and that’s ok, they too will listen to their deep knowing and find their way to create a lasting bond.

The problem with our culture is that we live in a predominantly “they should be sleeping through the night…” because largely our parents sleep-trained us and that’s what was advised then and it worked for them. Or if we are honest did it really? The level of mental health problems is in epidemic proportions. Who reading this doesn’t have some sense of disconnection from themselves and their emotions? Some sense of not being good enough, or needs to fall into people pleasing to feel like they belong, or anxiety that they will be rejected and lonely? It may have ‘worked’ in the sense that the parents survived, but we know better now and we want both parents and kids to thrive.

The cry-it-out approach is essentially ignoring a baby's cries. Often it is our expectation that they ‘should’ be doing something that creates more desire within us and more stress as well. It is also tough when friends have kids whose babies are sleeping through the night. Personally, I love this little formula Happiness = Reality minus Expectations. This essentially means happiness is reality and let go of any expectations that suggest it should be anything else. It is simply reality!

A few things I did that also helped me included:

1. Taking magnesium helped me relax and get good quality sleep (when sleep did happen!) There is nothing as bad as being awake, staring at the ceiling when those beautiful little babies have finally drifted off to sleep. I also found that some of it would go through the breast milk and they would sleep a little better too.

2. I stopped looking at my watch to see the time. It would wake me up more looking at it and it would get my mind thinking “I should be sleeping” which induces an inner panic of sorts that you won’t have enough sleep for the day ahead.

3. Cosleep if you can so you don’t have to get out of bed to feed/comfort them back to sleep. Babies want to be near you, to feel safe, it’s exhausting and beautiful at the same time.

4. Keep reminding yourself you are doing a great job because you are, it’s the toughest of all jobs and what you put in now you will reap in buckets as they grow. AND remind yourself that one day you’ll miss it because it really does pass.

Best of luck Moma, you have got this!

Sue 

Reference:

Swain, J.E., Lorberbaum, J.P., Kose, S., & L. Stratheam (2015) Brain basis of early parent–infant interactions: psychology, physiology, and in vivo functional neuroimaging studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318551/