Originally posted March 30, 2007, when my daughter was two and my son was five.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about weaning. Not as in, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that my daughter should wean”, but more like, “I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of weaning, and what that means to me and to my daughter.” I suppose I could have just used that as my opening sentence in the first place.

When my son was born, I set a goal of nursing him for two years. But because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with such a huge undertaking, I made it a series of smaller goals. My first mini-goal was one year. The next was 18 months. The final goal was two years.

Before he was 18 months old, he started cutting back his nursing sessions. He had been nursing eight to 10 times a day, but when he was about 15 months, he nursed just six to eight times per day. The next month he cut it back to five or six times. The next month was three to four times, and the last month was just once per day. I neither encouraged nor discouraged it. My son weaned completely of his own accord and on his own schedule. I had talked to many women during my time nursing him, and so many of them had told me that when their babies weaned before they (the mothers) were ready, they were heartbroken and disappointed. I knew I never wanted to feel that way. So when my son began his weaning process, I was surprised to realize that I was ready; I was at peace with the whole process. When he was completely weaned, I felt no sadness, no disappointment. It was a good transition that he and I made together. I didn’t make my time line goal of two years, but that didn’t matter, because the end had been so peaceful.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I did not set an arbitrary time limit, but as a more experienced mom, I knew I just wanted to follow her lead. I very soon realized that she was a completely different nurser than her brother. My son liked to do his bit, take in his nourishment, and then leave; he was never big on comfort nursing, or nursing at times when food is not the first goal, but rather the cuddle time and the calming effect of suckling. My daughter has always been a big comfort nurser. My son was a very difficult baby to nurse, (which I know now is because of all his oral difficulties) while my daughter has always been such an easy baby to nurse. He was a biter; she has always been so gentle. He was a concentrated little nurser, who focused on nothing but the task at hand; she has always been so distractible!

Time passed, and my daughter reached her first birthday, and she was nursing as much as ever. She hit 18 months, and showed no signs of slowing down. She’s now two years old, and is still as excited about nursing as she was 18 months ago. This was fine with me. I have no problem with nursing a toddler (either in theory or practice) so I just took it in stride. True to my beliefs, I continued to follow her lead. She seemed to still needed to nurse for comfort and security, so we continued happily.

But after a recent very bad day, where one of the many many things that went wrong that day was that my daughter started biting me seemingly out of the blue, I began to consider the possibility of weaning. My son was a biter, but being bit by a six month old is completely different than being bit by a two year old toddler! No comparison, really. I was in pain, I was angry, and as everything, everything had gone bad that day (with both kids) I was at the end of my rope and out of patience. I made the decision to wean.

Weaning lasted exactly six hours. Weaning is a huge decision, and I realized that I want my daughter’s weaning to be as peaceful as my son’s. To wean her suddenly would be traumatic for her, and that’s not how I wanted it to end. But she had reached two years old - the age that I said my goal was for my son. Was that not also my goal for her? We had reached two years!

Over the next two days, I flip-flopped between the decision to wean and not wean about twenty times. I finally realized that my decision to wean had been made when I was at a very vulnerable point, and I know myself enough to know that I don’t want to have to live with any regrets or guilt about weaning. But on the other hand, how wonderful would it be to wear pretty bras again? To have my body all to myself! To sit down and read the paper and not be asked to nurse! And she did have two years of nursing - I had given her a great start in life!

But, after a few days of experimentation with weaning, I realized the fact that my daughter herself is not ready to wean. She still relies on nursing for comfort and safety. That was made very clear to me during those days, as she was in obvious distress. How can I take such an important source of comfort and nurturing away from a two year old? It seems cruel. And I know that in my heart, I will not feel good about weaning unless my daughter is the one to initiate it, as my son had. I will not be at peace with with the process if I am the one to force her to wean when she is so obviously not ready. Instead setting the goal according to the calendar, my goal is set to her.

So here I am, still lactating after all these years. My daughter will nurse until she decides she is done. She will sleep with us until she decides she is ready for her own room. (My son was 2 1/2 when he chose to go to his own room. I suspect my daughter will be later.)

And no, she has not bitten me since that one day, and that is the only time she’s ever bitten me. It took me three days to heal enough to not wince when she latched on.

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the occasional pains and backache of hefting a baby in a sling or carrier, or to endure the separation of stroller use, choosing a method of baby toting is something all parents have to do. That is, of course, unless you intend to never leave your house. So, in the realm of unasked for advice, I offer you my viewpoint on babywearing.

As indicated in my initial API post, I fell into attachment parenting by accident. It was not a carefully thought out parenting style, but more a response to my personal desires as a mother and the needs of my children. At my baby shower for my first child, I received the usual land-yacht sized stroller and a Baby Bjorn carrier. I also received a lovely handwoven sling from Guatemala. Oh, it was gorgeous. When Monkey arrived, I was eager to place her into the sling, but lacked the knowledge and confidence to tuck her into what amounted to a bolt of fabric tied around my body. Instead, I used the Baby Bjorn. After all, it had the appearance of something scientifically developed. It had straps, and latches, and padding! Clearly, it was safer than a simple piece of fabric held together with a knot!

The Bjorn kept Monkey close to me and it was ergonomically correct, but there was a great deal of material and padding between us, and it was unbelievably hot to wear in the summer, for both of us. It was also a lot of hassle to strap me, and then Monkey into it. Additionally, it was huge, and next to impossible to carry around without my car as I couldn’t fold it up and slip it into anything.

I tried to get Monkey into the sling after discovering the downsides to my baby wearing tool of choice, but by that time she was used to the Bjorn, and didn’t want anything to do with the sling. She just couldn’t get comfortable in it. I sold the lovely sling to a friend for her sister’s shower, and went looking for a cooler and more compact solution. Luckily I found a compact hip carrier from One Step Ahead. While it didn’t allow me to carry her on long hikes, as it rested her on my hip, it did allow me to hold her more often, and for longer periods of time, by allowing my arms to rest. It was also significantly cooler in hot weather. This was the tool I used until Monkey was about three. It slipped into my diaper bag, and later my purse, and allowed me some additional options when she was tired out and wanted a ride on Mommy.

It would be nearly six years before I had another baby, so I had plenty of time to study those instincts I had discovered with my first child and figure out ways to encourage them with my second. I looked into babywearing and discovered a number of benefits I hadn’t known about before. I learned that progesterone levels in mothers increase with physical contact with their babies, which increases the maternal bond between mother and child. I read that babies who are “worn” have a tendency to cry about 50% less than babies who aren’t. I learned that the sling, when worn correctly, can lower backache by more evenly distributing the baby’s weight. I discovered that slinging my baby would allow me to nurse on the go, and even tend to the needs of my eldest child with free hands. I also learned that baby wearing can help prevent hip dysplasia, by helping my child’s hip joints develop deeper sockets. I figured the least I could do was try to sling again when it came time to have Otter.

A good friend of mine made me a Ring Sling, and I put Otter in it within days of his birth. He stayed comfy in his sling. I wore him around the house, out in public, in the grocery store, the park, you name it. I was able to nurse him, even while walking around, because the sling positioned him perfectly for feeding and hid my breasts from view. I can’ tell you how many times I was able to prevent a meltdown during grocery shopping by nursing on the go. Best of all, I could still hold Monkey’s hand when we walked around, and I could play more with her because I had two hands free. I found other uses for the sling as well; I have used it as a last minute picnic blanket, a sunshade when driving in the summer or walking with the stroller, and to secure my baby into a chair as a makeshift high chair at restaurants (once he was old enough to sit on his own).

Otter still loves his sling. He is also a very cheerful, happy baby, who rarely cries. We have seen the benefits of slinging, and I will stick to it if I have any more children. Of course, Otter is over 30 pounds now, so I had to switch from a Ring Sling to a Mei Tai, in order to get some additional weight support when carrying him around. (The Mei Tai crosses over both shoulders, which is helpful in distributing the weight more evenly). The Mei Tai is still small enough to carry in a diaper bag, so I can have it whenever I need it, and it is still significantly cooler than the Baby Bjorn was. It also still allows for skin on skin contact, as there is no huge padded support structure between me and the baby. We have just started wearing Otter in the backpack position, and we both love it. I love feeling his little head snuggle into my back when we are walking, and he enjoys looking around and being close. We alternate between the sling and the mei tai now, depending on how much carrying there is likely to be.

So… To Wear!! That is my answer. Babywearing has turned me into a full-time snuggler, and I am happy to have my baby close whenever I can.

Our four year old, Eudora, was a fairly hands-on big sister while I was pregnant with our most recent addition. She practiced for her sister’s arrival by singing Happy Birthday Tummy and You Are My Sunshine to my bulging abdomen on a daily basis. I was the recipient of numerous belly rubs, belly pats, belly raspberries, and even some elaborate belly painting. Eudora excitedly participated in our visits with the midwife. We prepared her for our homebirth by reading books on the subject, showing her age-appropriate videos and photos of births and newborn babies, and having frank discussions about her concerns for my well-being. I allowed her to relax in the birthing pool with me at night before bed. We also did our best to prepare her for our Fifteen Day Babymoon— baby and I planned to remain in the room where I had given birth for 15 days in order to ease her transition into the world and to facilitate my recovery. What we hadn’t prepared for was Eudora’s reaction to the shift in priorities once our new baby was here.

Eudora helped her Daddy cut the cord after Mathilda was born, and she said a few memorable and clever things as she gave the new baby a once over. She seemed to be doing well with the whole thing. Over the next few days, she enthusiastically ran up and down stairs to provide me with fresh nappies, with clean blankets, or with refills on my ice water. She snuggled up with me and read books to the baby after pre-school each day. My husband and I patted ourselves on the back for having done such a terrific job preparing her and making time for her.

However, when Mathilda was a week old, Eudora came home from Montessori with this drawing:

That’s me in the orange. I’m the one with the all-the-better-to-eat-you-with-eyes, and the Where the Wild Things Are monster hands. Her Daddy and Big Brother are the tall ones in the background with tiny (powerless?) hands and weak smiles. Notice how she took the time to make sure it was obvious that I was in front of her Dad and Brother. Her Big Sister—who is a very important person in her daily life—isn’t even in the picture. A happy (and naked) Baby Mathilda is nearest to her Daddy. The sad little girl without a face is Eudora. She is nearest to me with her hand reaching out in my direction. But it is clear that she feels like I don’t see her and won’t connect with her.

The pregnancy, the appointments with the midwives, the homebirth, the babymoon were really all about me, no matter how much we tried to include her, Eudora had seen it as it really was. Instead of spending time doing things on her terms, we were insisting that she conveniently fit into our new agenda–sharing story time with baby, getting things for the baby, helping us take care of the baby. The family had re-prioritized and no one took the time to send Eudora the memo. We had made one of our most vulnerable members feel out of balance and unwelcome. This picture broke my heart and made me resolve to put our family back in balance.

We started by committing to re-establish her bedtime routines, even if we were bone weary. We enlisted the help of family and friends to do special things with Eudora. My husband made sure he took some extra time with her doing “big kids” stuff that babies weren’t able to do yet, like going on nature hikes. And most importantly, by the third week postpartum, I made a heroic effort to get myself dressed and ready despite having a new baby (and an uncooperative post-baby body). After our family breakfast, I was able to drive her to school and spend special time—just the two of us—in the car where we could sing silly songs together at the top of our lungs, and have poignant four-year-old discussions about volcanos, bugs, space travel and super-hero kittens. The best part of these mommy-daughter rides was all the time I got to spend stealing glances at her bright little face in the rear view mirror.

This is the picture that Eudora brought home just the other day:

She is wearing her baby sister in a sling. I am by her side and we both are holding flowers freshly picked from our yard. Our cat, Marjorie, sits at Eudora’s feet wearing a flower tucked behind her ear. At first this picture concerned me because we were robots. I was worried that she felt emotionless or indifferent. But Eudora explained that we were friendly robots like when she dressed up as “Robota” for Halloween. She also explained that she was holding my leg, instead of my hand since my hand had a flower in it. However, we are holding the flowers out and away from our bodies. This could be because we are generously giving them to someone we love or because we are holding them at arms distance to keep them–like Eudora’s emotions– from getting hurt again.

It’s only been six weeks, so we don’t expect her to be the world’s most well adjusted big sister quite yet, but at least we know that she appreciates our efforts to include her in ways that matter to her, not just ways that are helpful to us.

We just broke the news to her that one of her favorite people—her former nanny—is having a baby in December. We are already planning activities for the two of them to do together so that Eudora won’t feel abandoned or left out. I’m so grateful that I feel tuned in enough to listen to Eudora—even when her words are too complicated for her to express. Her pictures tell me everything I need to hear.

Q: I am returning to my job shortly and will occasionally be slinging my baby on the days that I am in the office. Although I am very grateful that my employer is so open to this idea, I am also worried that despite having 3 babies worth of experience that I will run up against several obstacles. Do you have any tips for combining these two worlds?

A: Congratulations on your upcoming baby and on your decision to keep your baby with you when you return to the paid workforce. Your baby will certainly benefit from being close to you in these early months. This is a question that comes up often, the question of how to combine paid work with tending baby. I would like to share some of my thoughts based on both personal experience and the experiences of other mothers who have shared their stories with me.

At the core, tending to your baby while at work requires essentially the same set of tasks as tending to your baby at home. Whether at work or at home, you are faced with the age old question of trying to “get something done” while tending a newborn. But the stakes are higher because you are beholden to someone… you are being paid and thus you are accountable. Here are some suggestions to get started:

Maximize your maternity leave.

Be kind to yourself! Remember, taking care of a newborn is hard work no matter what the circumstances. One of my strongest memories of those early months was trying to get something done (other than tending the baby!) and never feeling too successful. Essentially, you are doing two jobs at once. Although you are not the first (or the last) mama to multitask, it is important to keep your expectations realistic

Accept right now that you will not be able to work at 100%. Even if you are incredibly productive and your baby’s age and temperament are perfectly suited to your work environment, you will still have to take the time to tend to your baby’s needs: diaper changes, clothing changes, position changes, soothing, etc.

Be flexible. Consider your baby’s age and temperament. It may be helpful to think ahead and plan different tasks at different times based on baby’s mood. Ask yourself: What can I get done when I am nursing, letting baby doze on nursing pillow? (This might be a good time to work at your desk.) What can I get done walking, bouncing, soothing baby in sling? (If baby is not being too vocal, just needing the walking and bouncing, this is a good time to return phone calls, make a trip to the break room/ the rest room/ the coffee pot/ a colleagues desk, etc) Where can I retreat if baby and I need to regroup (So you can relatch a nursing bra strap, nurse a distractible baby, change a diaper)?

Consider your set-up careful and have these helpful tools on hand. You will need a safe/clean spot to set down baby. I really used my wraparound nursing pillow while working at the computer so baby could nurse and nap. Nursing clothes with strategically placed nursing slits can facilitate discrete nursing on the job. You will want to bring along a familiar baby carrier and use your tried and true positions. Remember, babywearing is a tool not a solution. There will be times where it works well and times when it does not work so well. Some activities naturally lend themselves well to wearing your baby, usually those activities include motion: teaching, speaking at conferences (been there, done that!), standing at a reception desk. Desk work is not as obvious. Probably your best bet is planning to do most of your seated work while baby is nursing or already asleep in the sling. As baby gets older, you can anticipate naps and get baby settled on your back to maximize naps.

I came across this great article about on the job parenting, with these useful tips.

Most of all, keep your sense of humor and enjoy your precious bundle. Anyone else have ideas for combining baby care with “getting something else done?”

Originally published March 8, 2007 at A Mama’s Blog

Last night I had Cole down sleeping, and was trying to read Ryan a story to put him in bed (Joe wasn’t home), and sure enough, Cole started crying. I was hoping it would only last for a minute or so, and he would go back to sleep, but he started getting more and more upset. After a few minutes, it was obvious he was now fully awake, and despite having an upset three-year-old who was NOT happy his story was being interrupted, I had to leave Ryan to go attend to Cole.

It has been a week since I have started nursing Cole to sleep, and then putting him in his crib next to our bed. It is working a lot better than having him sleep in the bed, but he still wakes up a lot. So he was in his crib, and after my eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, what I saw, just about broke my heart.

I don’t believe in “crying-it-out.” I firmly believe that when a baby is crying, he needs something. He may be scared, and just need the reassurance that his mama is still in the vicinity of the house. I certainly don’t think a couple of minutes when I can’t get to Cole is making him cry-it-out. I am talking about leaving him while he is crying in a crib, obviously distressed, for a long period of time. I just don’t have the stomach for it. For me, there is nothing worse than hearing your baby scream and cry for you, while they are in a dark room alone.

Plus there has been some research from Harvard and Yale, that has shown “when babies who are routinely separated from parents in a stressful way have abnormally high levels of the stress hormone and lower growth hormone levels. These imbalances inhibit the development of nerve tissue in the brain, suppress growth, and depress the immune system.”

This subject was also brought up on a recent Dr. Phil episode that featured three of the Dr. Sears’s. Dr. Bob Sears said this about crying-it-out on the show:

When a baby screams for 10, 20 minutes, or a half-hour night after night, what actually happens to the baby’s brain? The blood pressure goes up. The pressure gets so high, new blood with oxygen can’t flow into the brain. So the brain can be deprived of oxygen, you guys. And that’s not all. It gets worse. The brain can be flooded with stress hormones, and we know that stress hormones can damage sensitive developing nerve tissue. So, night after night, weeks and weeks of crying can actually harm a baby’s brain. That’s why we encourage you both to respond to your maternal intuition. Robert, develop your fatherly intuition, so you can both really thrive as a family. Respond to your baby.

So back to Cole. In the few minutes before I could get to him, he stood up in the crib, put his hands through the slots, and was feeling / squeezing my mattress. I knew he was trying to find me. Even though he is in his crib now, he knows where I sleep, and he was looking for me–he needed me.

I picked him up, and instantly the crying stopped. I sat down with him on the bed, and even though his eyes were closed, he started cooing. I nursed him for a few minutes to calm him down. Then the most amazing thing happened. His eyes were still closed, and he took his hand and started tracing and feeling my face, the way a blind person would. It was like he was trying to memorize my face by feel.

I am in awe of the way a baby’s brain works, and I think there is so much we still don’t know about this. As he was feeling my face, I got a tear in my eye, and I felt so grateful that I have been able to follow my instincts on what feels right.

I couldn’t help but think, as my sweet baby was stroking my face, first, if I had gone against my instincts and had allowed him to cry-it-out, yes, he may have curled up and gone to sleep, after it was clear to him that his mama wasn’t going to come to him, but the way it was going, he would have just become more and more upset. He would have been very distressed, and he was looking for me! Two, I would have completely missed this tender moment with him, that I will never forget.

Today my daughter, Lily, is two years old. I’ve been feeling under the weather, so I took an opportunity to rest by napping with her this afternoon. As we snuggled up in my bed, her head tucked into its favorite position between my arm and my breast, I thought about the day of her birth. Lily is a child who knows what she wants and is not afraid to ask for it (it has been suggested that she is the spitting image of her mother in that respect). So minutes after her birth, I put her to my breast, she latched on, and, with the exception of a few trips to the bathroom and the occasional snuggle from Dad or the grandparents, she remained that way until we left the hospital just over a day later. Nurses who were not even assigned to our care popped in to see if it was true that she was on some sort of nursing marathon. I laughed, assured them that it was OK, and nursed on. We have spent much of the last two years this way, and I will be the first to admit that there have been many times when I was ready for a break.

I was reminded this week both why I have continued to nurse for as long as I have and how I managed to do so.

Why?

As if all the World Health Organization (WHO) breastfeeding recommendations, proof of health benefits of breastfeeding, and the obvious joy Lily experiences while nursing were not enough, this month the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death concluded that breastfeeding also reduces the chance of SIDS (or, as the British call it, cot death). And researchers in Canada and Belarus also finished a comprehensive study, for the first time controlling for education and socio-economic factors by dividing mothers in Belarus into two groups: one in which mothers were encouraged to breastfeed by their care providers and one in which no additional encouragement was offered. The results showed that breastfed children are smarter, and perform better in school than their formula-fed counterparts.

How?

Although the difference in IQ points and academic performance were the main thrust of the story, I was struck by another of the study’s conclusions related to the role of care providers in encouraging breastfeeding:

Those in the breast-feeding encouragement group were, on average, breast-fed longer than the others and were less likely to have been given f*rmula in a bottle.

At 3 months, 73 percent of the babies in the breast-feeding encouragement group were breast-fed, compared to 60 percent of the other group. At 6 months, it was 50 percent versus 36 percent.

In addition, the group given encouragement was far more likely to give their children only breast milk. The rate was seven times higher, for example, at 3 months.

If simply encouraging breastfeeding has such a huge and measurable impact on the success of breastfeeding, why do doctors still continue to pass out free f*rmula at prenatal and well-baby visits? Why are there so few hospitals with the WHO’s Baby Friendly designation, or with trained lactation consultants on staff? Why do so many store owners, airline stewardesses, and other members of the public ask breastfeeding mothers to leave, stop nursing, or cover up?

Why am I so lucky to live in a place where I am surrounded by other women nursing toddlers? This is the real answer to how I’ve managed to breastfeed my daughter for two years: support from other breastfeeding mothers.

Yes, my supply was so immense after Lily’s birth that she literally choked on my let-down. But I had someone there to tell me that it wouldn’t last forever (and it didn’t). Yes, Lily rubbed her tender gums on my nipples when she first started teething, the discomfort of which, especially at night when I was trying to sleep, was agonizing. But again, someone was there to commiserate and to offer advice and support. Lily has had periods of twiddling, pinching, poor latch, and marathon-nursing. But I have been able to find all the support I needed from my local API support group, various online groups and forums, and blogs like this one. It has helped me not only survive the past two years, but enjoy them in a way that would not have been possible if I had gone it alone.

- Julie

My 18 month old daughter loves to dance. At mother and toddler group every week she watches and tries to mimic the hand movements that the older children & mums do as they sing all of the nursery rhymes. She claps loudly at the end of each song and jumps up and down excitedly waiting for the next to begin. When we get home we sing silly songs and do even sillier dances as we try to remember all the different moves.

We also occasionally go to a toddler’s singing & dancing group which has its own special songs. Yesterday, during bathtime, I started singing one of these songs to her, it was about stamping on bubbles and clapping bubbles to make them pop. She stood up in the bath and started to stamp her feet along with my wonderful singing and then she clapped her hands along with the next verse.

What amazed me was the fact that we haven’t been at that group in about 2 months, she hasn’t heard that song in 2 months and yet the minute I started to sing it she jumped up to join in with the dance that she remembered.

Our children are like sponges, it is truly amazing how much they notice the world around them and how they store the seemingly irrelevant little details of life for future use. I once heard a wonderful description which was “play is the child’s work” and it’s true, every minute of every day as you sing songs, dance dances, bounce balls and push carts with your child, you are nourishing them and helping them with their important work, their play.

It is these little games, where the only props they might have are a dishcloth, a cardboard box and a wild imagination, that will give your child the tools they need for life. It may look like they are “wasting” time by playing pirates or shop, however they are actually hard at work developing crucial life skills, including concentration, problem solving and self-regulation. A report on NPR entitled “Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills” explains more about these skills and their importance in the child’s future adult life. This report also highlights a worrying trend in many schools today (even preschools), the reduction of playtime in favour of more study time.

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.

We should all make time to join in with our children as they go about their daily work and sing a silly song, dance a silly dance and, most of all, have lots and lots of fun together!

- Half Pint Pixie

Although I think we would have ‘found’ attachment parenting eventually, it was our daughter Sophia, born in Guatemala and now 5.5, who showed us the way.

As Ann and I waited for the adoption process to move through its steps we kept busy preparing for her arrival. We blindly went out and bought her a crib, a high chair, and all of the other products whose makers work hard to persuade parents-to-be that they cannot possibly parent a baby without. I enjoy shopping far too much and was only too eager to buy adorable pint-sized clothing, furniture and accessories. When the waiting felt hard, I would look into the nursery and visualize her sleeping in her crib.

Then, when she was 2.5 months old, we traveled to Guatemala to meet her. Her foster mother brought Sophia to our hotel to stay with us. She showed us how to rock her to sleep–an intricate dance with specific moves! We were able to easily rock Sophia to sleep in this way. We then gently lay her inside the crib in the hotel room. And she promptly woke up and communicated to us with her cries, “No, thank you, crib!” We tried this several times, and finally let her just lay in our arms…she slept like the proverbial baby. We mused that Sophia must co-sleep with her foster family, as this was the only way she would sleep with us.

On our last night during that first visit, I enjoyed dinner at Sophia’s foster family’s home. Poor Ann was sick in the hotel. I got to see where Sophia was living and being loved until she would come home to our family. There was a pack-n-play in Sophia’s foster mom’s room and a king-sized bed. I asked if Sophia slept in the bed with her foster mom. She sheepishly answered yes. She was hesitant to share this as it was against ‘the rules’ of the facilitator who thought American adoptive parents would expect their children-to-be to sleep in a crib.

I assured her that we simply wanted Sophia to be happy and healthy and she clearly was.

Ann and I returned home from Guatemala and immediately began looking for a new bigger bed for when Sophia came home. (New sheets, new comforter…I was on board for more shopping!) We also began exploring thoughts and ideas about co-sleeping, which led us to explore attachment parenting. Prior to this, my focus in reading and preparation as a prospective adoptive parent had all centered on adoption and transracial adoption issues. Now, I turned my attention to parenting approaches and found that Sophia had led us to the only approach that made sense for adopted children.

Adopted children endure the loss and separation from at least one family prior to their adoption, if not more than one. Sophia experienced the separation from her birth mother as a newborn and then the loss of her foster family, and all that was familiar to her, again at age 7.5 months when she came home to our family. Our next daughter, Olivia, born in a traumatic birth at 29 weeks of gestation, endured many losses including the loss of her twin sister at their birth, the loss of her birth mother, the loss of gestational time (early eviction on a 9 month lease!) and then loss of oxygen directly prior to her arrival. Even our youngest child, Walker, whom we met upon her birth, had spent nine months with her birth mother and was very suddenly without her voice and her bodily rhythms. Attaching and bonding clearly needs to be the focus for any adoptive parent upon a child’s homecoming.

Co-sleeping creates a powerful opportunity for attachment and bonding on so many visceral and primal levels. Sophia slept sandwiched between us and thus between the rhythms of our bodies. She craved skin-to-skin contact and curled up against us each night. Our bed felt and smelled like the combination of her and us.

It is in this way, night after night of cuddling and breathing in each other, that we began not only to begin identifying as an attachment parerenting family, but also how we became a family. In listening to our new daughter’s needs, she led us to an approach and parenting community that continues to help our family not only to mindfully listen to our children’s needs, but also to strive to balance those needs and create family harmony.

- Diana Robinson

During the last weeks of my pregnancy we decided to have our infant car seat installed by certified professionals at the local sheriff’s office. I was way too pregnant at that point to maneuver around in the cramped backseat of our little Honda, so the allure of not having to do it myself (or beg my husband to) was convincing. Did I mention that the service was also free? Seemed like a no-brainer.

The expert suggested ditching the base of the seat and simply installing the part that the baby needed to be strapped into since the backseat wouldn’t really accommodate the rear-facing seat and base. Meanwhile, a gun-toting officer (did he really need his gun at the car-seat safety check?) came over to comment and observe. He pointed out that this plan was going to be a hassle for us since we would need to re-install the seat every time we removed the baby from the car. We must have looked confused because he went on to the praise the virtues of using the car seat as a convenient baby carrier in addition to safety seat for motor vehicle use. Understanding his point now, I tried to diplomatically dismiss his concerns by explaining that we would simply use our arms or a sling to carry our new baby to and from the vehicle and would have no need to use the seat as a carrier.

Both the officer and the car seat installer stared and blinked at us for a full five seconds before the officer incredulously asked my husband and I if we were sure – really, really sure – that we wouldn’t like to move our child in one smooth motion from car to shopping cart and back again. What kind of reason could there possibly be for not wanting to streamline our busy lives as new parents? In his voice was the unmistakable air of cop suspicion, as if he were speaking to the last two people in the path of a hurricane who stalwartly refuse to evacuate. We managed to stammer out some random stuff about “parenting philosophy” and “brain development.”

The officer seemed to think we must have misunderstood him since our answer didn’t seem to have been particularly coherent, or even related to car seats as far as he could tell. He repeated, more slowly this time so that we would be sure to understand, how easy it was to remove the car seat from the base and place it into a shopping cart, so that we would never have to disturb the baby. This is usually the part where I attempt to share information about the benefits of attachment parenting and how wonderful it has been for our family. It was obvious by this point, however, that we were just coming from two very different places. Plus, the gun was a little intimidating so I decided to simply smile and nod for the remainder of the installation.

But this incident started me thinking about baby carriers, strollers, and swings vs. babywearing—was babywearing really the best choice for us? Maybe we had been making things much harder on ourselves all of this time by refusing to use all of the state-of-the-art gizmo’s and gadgets which were so popular nowadays. Had we become too rigid and idealistic about our parenting choices? With our fourth baby on the way, it was time to reevaluate what our family’s needs really were and whether or not we were parenting consciously and purposefully, or simply going through the AP motions. Perhaps it was time to revisit some of the literature that got me started with AP to see if it still moved me to parent the same way now that our family was adding a new member.

I decided to get reacquainted with the reasons we had chosen to limit our use of baby carrying devices in favor of keeping our babies close to us most of the time. Sharon Heller, PhD states in her book The Vital Touch:

Carry our babies to the car in a container, out of the car in a container, through the mall in a container, into the restaurant in a container, back to the car in a container, and home to a container, so that objects define our baby’s existence more so than our body, is not just a step away from tradition. It is a cataclysmic change far out of step with the rhythmic pas de deux to which our babies’ minds and bodies were choreographed… No species in a hundred years or so can turn the time-tested mother-baby relationship on its head without consequences. In the short term, diminished contact makes babies fussier than they need be and mothers more conflicted than they need be.

On the website, ConnectionParenting.com, Pam Leo, a founding board member of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children, says:

Many of the infant and child behaviors that are challenging parents in our culture are unheard of in cultures that practice high-touch nurturing. While our culture has changed dramatically to keep up with our technology, our biology has not. Babies are biologically programmed to expect the same high-touch nurturing that evolved millions of years ago. Just because we no longer need to keep our babies in close physical contact so tigers won’t eat them, doesn’t mean we no longer need to carry them. Research shows that carrying and keeping babies in close physical contact does far more than keep them safe from predators; it is critical to their optimal development.

Does this mean that I can never let my baby sit in a bouncy chair or cruise along in a stroller without hampering her brain development? Or that every minute of her day must be spent in a set of arms? Would falling asleep in a swing mean years of future therapy? I don’t think so. With six people in our family, two of which are adults, and two of which are teenagers, there will rarely be a time when someone isn’t available to hold, snuggle, or play with our new baby, so having a lot of stuff seemed excessive to us.

However, we decided that we should not limit our parenting choices by being dogmatic about following a philosophy to the letter of the law. We needed a parenting style that worked for our unique family. The only rule we came up with for our own personal AP style was: are we treating our children with love, human dignity, and respect for them as real people? When parenting does get hectic and stressful, we often remind each other to check on the state of our heart and to approach the situation with love. With the arrival of our new baby, we have realized that our family is our convenient baby carrier, deluxe swing, and super-duper baby entertainment-center. For us, Attachment Parenting is about our state-of-the-heart family rather than the convenience of state-of-the-art stuff.

And let’s talk about convenient! We have used our wraps and slings, not just as carriers that fit easily into our diaper bag, but as changing pads, nursing covers, blankets, nap mats, sunshades, seat belts for grocery carts & high chairs, toddler harnesses, and even pet carriers! And we sure could have used it to demonstrate what the heck we were talking about when we had the car-seat installed– they are probably still scratching their heads. It’s a lot easier to explain babywearing when you are actually wearing the baby; add teaching tool to the list of convenient uses for slings and wraps!

- Justine

Many people in the non-AP world are surprised when I make mention of one of my children sleeping with me. At 6.5 and 4.5 years of age, many seem to think that they are too old to be co-sleeping. Some of these parents co-slept with their infants but their children moved on to their own beds at some point. Mine did as well, but not for long.

I am truly thankful that I fell into the attachment parenting practice when my first was a newborn, thankful for many reasons. These days I am thankful that I don’t have any preconceived notions of where children should sleep. This has proven beneficial not only to my children, but also to me.

Both of my children have varying special needs but a common thread between the two of them is anxiety. My daughter, who is 4.5, is also language delayed. She doesn’t have a solid enough understanding of language for us to be able to explain the things that cause her anxiety and fears. As night comes, she quickly becomes more anxious about her surroundings refusing to leave our sides. For a family who forbids a child from sleeping with a parent, this would become a stressful time for both parent and child.

When my daughter’s anxiety increased, it was simply a matter of bringing her back into our bed (she had transitioned to her own room for several months at the age of three). Now my daughter is able to get a full night’s rest without fear and so do my husband and I.

My son, at 6.5, also has major nighttime anxiety. Although he has a vast vocabulary, he doesn’t understand why he is so fearful after dark. After sleeping in his own room for years, without any problems, he has also transitioned back into our room. Unfortunately he is plagued by vivid nightmares which continue even in bed with us. It pains my heart to see him thrash about and cry out in his sleep but I am happy that I am able to be near him and provide comfort.

I know that our family’s decision to not place boundaries on our children’s ability to sleep with us is helping us all right now. If I were to insist that my children sleep in their own beds “like big boys and girls do” then no one, not a single one of us, would be getting any sleep. Nighttime parenting goes beyond the nursing years and does stretch into childhood and beyond. Knowing what your children’s needs are, and meeting those needs in a way that is optimal for everyone, helps the family’s bond grow stronger.

- Melissa