Welcome to this month’s edition of the 2010 Attachment Parenting International Blog Carnivals. Today’s carnival focuses on the 3rd Principle of Parenting – Respond With Sensitivity.
Here’s an excerpt from the Principle:
You can build the foundation of trust and empathy by understanding and responding appropriately to your infant’s needs. Babies communicate their needs in many ways including body movements, facial expressions, and crying. They learn to trust when their needs are consistently responded to with sensitivity. Building a strong attachment with a baby involves not only responding consistently to his physical needs, but spending enjoyable time interacting with him and thus meeting his emotional needs as well.
Below is an excerpt from each contributor as well as a link to read the post in its entirety. If you didn’t get a chance to participate this month, join us next month as we celebrate API’s 4th Principle of Parenting – Use Nurturing Touch. The submission deadline is May 14. Click to find out more about participating in on of API’s monthly parenting blog carnivals.
Without further ado, here’s how other attachment parenting families Feed With Love and Respect. Please note that these links will open in a new window.
Focusing on our children…
My husband’s grandmother was visiting last January. She had been staying with my in-laws, and my children and I drove 45 minutes to pick her up so that we could spend the day with her and so that she could stay overnight with us. My children were really looking forward to having her stay with us.
Cortisol, T-Rex, and Your Baby
The debate centered around “spoiling” a baby vs. cry-it-out (CIO) extinguishing methods normally focuses on parental life style. Even when framed in an argument that children need to learn to “self-soothe” the primary argument still seems to be that sleeping through the night is the primary goal for the sanity of the parents and the maturity of the child.
Respond With Sensitivity – Why Yelling Is Wrong And How You Can Avoid It
Intuitively, most of us know that yelling is wrong. It just doesn’t feel right. In most cases, when a parent results to yelling, it’s because he is tired or has used up other resources. It is not because you are in control.
Big emotions are not manipulation
I have big emotions frequently. I love big. I fear big. I anger big. I feel big. I can only imagine that I’ve always had big feelings. I know that my kids have big feelings, too. It’s never something that I’ve felt the need to apologize for. Having feelings and expressing them is a healthy.
Preparing Yourself for the New Sibling
When I became pregnant with my second child, Elea, I did my very best to prepare my eldest, Brianna, for her sister’s arrival. Brianna came with us to many prenatal appointments, and my homebirth midwife Davi would involve – and educate – Brianna about her sister. Brianna would help take my blood pressure, and would listen with us to Elea’s little heartbeat. She loved it.
My son recently received two books with “object lessons” on manners. Both books begin with the “antagonist,” a sweet little elephant who is about 4 or 5 years old, expressing a need. They follow the same basic storyline.
He Won’t Be Comin’ Round the Mountain
My dad has a bad habit of telling the same story over and over. The rest of us just listen and nod, then laugh at the not-so-new punchlines. One of the stories he regularly recycles is the time he drove baby me to the mountains. My parents at some point decided an effective strategy for soothing me as a baby was driving me around, because I often fell asleep in my carseat.
Yesterday Mikko was directing us as if we were, as Sam put it, an improvisational jazz troupe. It’s hard to tell you what was so intriguing about this exchange to Mikko, and when I describe it, you’ll probably be thinking, What the hey? But here goes.
Ducks: number line, song vlog, painting
If you’re trying to nurture a new skill in a child I think you should always take your cue from them. Think about what they love and enjoy and use this as the medium to teach the lesson. Little currently adores ducks. She got a little yellow duck in a party loot bag which is accompanying her everywhere – and she quite likes ‘being’ a duck herself.
From the moment Dylan was born, he liked to be held. He was happy and would sleep soundly as long as he was in someone’s arms. During the first few weeks, I’d spend hours on the couch at home with him nursing on my nursing pillow. He’d slowly drift off to sleep and would have long, lovely naps as long as he remained on the pillow close to me. As soon as a tried to move him and put him down, he’d immediately wake up screaming.
