Author: API Blog

APtly Said, Formerly API Speaks launched in April of 2008 as part of Attachment Parenting International's larger effort to offer interactive content through their newly-redesigned web site: http://www.attachmentparenting.org. All contributors to APtly Said, as with so many of API's staff, are volunteers who donate their time and energy to promote Attachment Parenting world wide.

Babies in the Workplace

One of the first questions expecting mothers get when sharing their good news (after “Is it a boy or a girl?”) is, in my experience, are you going back to work? It’s a tough question. It’s a loaded question. And now, thanks to Carla Moquin of the Parenting in the Workplace Institute, it’s a question that can be rephrased:

Are you taking baby to work with you?

Out of financial necessity, Carla had to make the unexpected choice to return to the workforce four weeks after the birth of her second daughter. Years later, she runs the Parenting in the Workplace Institute, has written both an ebook titled Babies at Work: Bringing New Life to the Workplace, and just released a how-to guide for parents and companies interested in implementing a babies in the workplace program.

I spoke with Carla last week about the great potential these types of programs have for fostering community and providing parents who choose to return to work with options beyond traditional daycare.
Continue reading “Babies in the Workplace”

Parenting Courage

Becoming a parent makes us part of one of the world’s largest fraternities. Suddenly, we have something in common with most of the adults we ever meet, which can be a wonderful way to establish bonds with a wide range of people.

The potential down side is that since so many people have experience as parents, they often also have advice and opinions for us. Of course, many times more experienced parents may have valuable insights, reassurance, and support to offer. But we are often also faced with suggestions that aren’t in line with our values and beliefs.

It is especially difficult to maintain the courage of our convictions when something we are doing as parents doesn’t appear to be working. Perhaps the early days of nursing have been painful and frustrating, or we are exhausted because our baby is waking up every hour during the night. When someone suggests giving the baby a bottle, or letting him cry for a while to see if he’ll settle down, it can be harder to stick with our personal ideal of exclusive nursing or being responsive to our baby’s cries because the course we’ve laid out for ourselves isn’t going as smoothly as we’d like.

In cases like this, we need to remember that parenting is really about long-term goals. It’s about who our children turn out to be when they’re 30, not about how easy they make our lives today. As attachment parents, we believe that the relationship we have with our children is critical to this objective, and we choose not to use parenting techniques that might damage that relationship — even when it might be more convenient, easier, or more in line with the views of others.

One of the big challenges I’ve been facing in my own parenting is dealing with my 18-month-old son’s hair pulling, biting, shoving, and hitting. He’s been a hair puller for about a year. I’ve intervened every single time. I’ve told him at least a thousand times that hair pulling hurts, and that it’s not OK to hurt people. I’ve tried everything I could think of to change the behavior.

I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law thinks I should spank him, though she has too strong a sense of boundaries about what it’s appropriate to say to her daughter-in-law to actually say so. This idea, and other parenting techniques I wouldn’t normally engage in, are a lot more tempting precisely because what I’m doing now doesn’t appear to be working.

In the end, I have realized that this is a behavior I cannot change. My son can change it — when he acquires enough impulse control. But right now, I know he doesn’t have it. If there’s something he wants to do badly enough, he’ll do it even though he got hurt the last time he tried it, and the time before, and the time before that…

And so, I know that my job right now is to respond to this situation in a way that minimizes his ability to hurt other people, makes clear that the behavior is not acceptable, and teaches him skills he will some day (soon, I hope!) be able to use instead of hurting people. In the mean time, I need to maintain my commitment to positive discipline, irrespective of conflicting advice I may receive from the vast fraternity of parents.

The Sling Fairy

For those of you who are keen on sewing, yet are not familiar with a sewing machine, first should gain proficiency with the entirety of the essentials with a straightforward sort of sewing machine and from that point, you can advance to one that is further developed. Attempting to sew when you are not accustomed to it tends to be very ungainly and badly arranged for anybody to stay there and start pushing on the foot pedal. In any case, there are some that are moderate and for a tenderfoot.

One of the initial moves towards figuring out how to sew is for you to think about sewing, similar to what a bobbin and a weighted foot and furthermore a mobile foot are. As a rule, the sewing machine was constantly present in a greater part of homes wherever for a long time and is a serious supportive instrument at whatever point it comes to sewing.

Once in the past, the sewing machine innovation was not especially advanced. Just a customary sort of was utilized by individuals for sewing garments. In any case, as innovation propelled it likewise contributed towards these machines as well. Today there are such huge numbers of various highlights and usefulness. A genuine amateur may become befuddled while picking one that is for fledglings. For any individual who is searching for one that is useful for apprentices, best sewing machine for beginners 2019 can help you to buy the best sewing machine.

With respect to any sort of other hardware, before you choose to buy one, you will be required to know exactly why you are getting one. Recording your essential explanations behind why you truly need one will assist you with choosing the best sewing machine that suits you as indicated by the entirety of your necessities and your needs.

Since you are a learner you will need to ask yourself a couple of things. Do you truly require a basic one or one that is propelled, what is the scope of your financial limit and exactly what amount are you arranged to spend and furthermore will you go through the machine for running stylistic layout assignments at home or perhaps trendy apparel, will you use it for any weaving, will you need a lighter or a compact one and exactly how much space do you have and need inside the house.

In the wake of thinking about the entirety of the related inquiries, you will need to consider its usefulness which is required with these kinds of machines. Whichever one you choose to pick, be certain that is will accompany highlights like a decent crisscross, straight join, movable foot pressure, simple usefulness for making some catch openings and furthermore fasten with lengths from zero to six.

Should you be a tenderfoot then you will need to remain with a low spending plan. You will have the option to discover some with great highlights at extreme ease. For learners, it is a smart thought for you to stay with a fundamental sort and not an increasingly mind-boggling one.

There are numerous brands and types that are only incredible for amateurs. At the point when you are all set out and purchase a one, you will need to go to a hardware shop and request that the sales rep show one of them for you, so along these lines, you will know exactly what it will take for you to work it.

A day in the life…

This week, I’ve been struggling with what it means to be a parent-activist. Because, whether we call ourselves activists or not, that’s part of what comes with the territory when you choose to parent outside the mainstream. Some of that is good–I love it when someone approaches me with compliments or questions about my Baby Hawk carrier, or when someone comments appreciatively on the way I (try to) gently handle my son’s tantrums. I love that I have become a breastfeeding resource not just to my local support group members, but to my friends and family.

But where I struggle is with the uphill battle API faces as an organization committed to challenging, and eventually changing, society’s perception of what the parent-child bond should look like from punitive and controlling to loving, empathic, and respectful. As a relatively new member of the API Volunteer Staff, I catch myself looking at things through rose-colored glasses: if we’ve got intuition and research on our side, AP should be an easy sell!

However, as with any grassroots organization that is trying to affect major cultural change, we have a lot of work ahead of us if we want Attachment Parenting to be a household name.

Every day, as API educates parents about safe sleep practices that promote bonding and breastfeeding–two of Dr. Sears’ original Baby Bs–there are organizations who use fear to motivate families to isolate their children in a crib in a separate room from parents. Every day, as organizations like Lamaze International, API, and BOLD attempt to spread the word about making educated decisions about birth, some members of the medical community attempt to pass resolutions to limit a family’s choices to hospital birth.

These are just two examples of the challenges we face. But, to remind everyone that progress is being made, I’d like to share two little victories:

The first, if you can stand the video and audio being out of sync, is a wonderful video in which Phyllis Diller, fantastic funny lady behind the voices of many children’s cartoon characters–including the Queen in A Bug’s Life, speaks out on the importance of breastfeeding.

She shares her experience of breastfeeding six children (sadly, only five survived infancy), of feeding her NICU baby pumped milk, and her vision that mothers be willing and allowed to take a year off of work after birth so that they can form the important bond of breastfeeding their child. Well done Phyllis!

The second is an article by Tabi Upton of the Chattanooga Times Free Press entitled Parenting Strategies Today, which features Attachment Parenting. Although I do not know the name of the API member who is referenced in this story, I want to thank you–today you were a parent-activist for API, perhaps even without meaning to be, and you not only made a difference, but you made my day!

Positive Discipline-Need Ideas

By Heather (A Mama’s Blog)

I thought having a second child would not be as hard as having one. After all, I had already been through it once, how much harder could a second child be?

I found out within hours of Cole’s birth (my second child) that having a second child does not mean he or she will be like your first child. In fact, in some ways it is harder. Instinctively, you seem to do what worked for your first child, with your second child. Sometimes you are lucky and it works- but in my case, it seems more often than not, what methods worked for my first child, Ryan, do not even come close to working for Cole.

So many times I have not felt like an experienced mother with Cole. I feel like I am a first-time mother again, figuring it all out. At times it does feel harder, because I try to use something on Cole that worked with Ryan, and it backfires- and then I am back at square one, and wondering why my techniques that worked so great with Ryan do not have the same outcomes with Cole.

Of course I know Cole is not Ryan and is a totally different person. It makes sense that the same techniques do not and should not work the same on two different children. But, that doesn’t make me wish they would at times.

A big issue we are facing right now with Cole is positive discipline. The methods we used with Ryan worked instantly and effectively. However, Cole laughs at us when we try to correct him and ends up hitting or biting us.

I think some of this is just his general frustrations in not being able to speak fully yet. Like most two-year olds, he has some vocabulary, but can’t fully communicate his feelings or thoughts yet. I know when he is mad, instead of communicating his feelings (because he can’t,) his first impulse is to hit, or bite, or yell.

We have tried almost everything we can think of from talking to him, holding him, diverting his attention elsewhere, to removing him from the situation, in hopes of trying to have him to stop biting and hitting, but he always ends up laughing, and at the very next episode, he does the undesirable behavior again. He really only does this when we tell him he can’t be doing something- like pinching his brother or running dangerously close to the street. Naturally, nothing that worked with Ryan in these situations is working on Cole.

So, I am hoping that some of you may have some suggestions for us to try. Ryan was never a hitter or a bitter, so we really are at square one with this. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so we can guide Cole and help him to understand that he can’t bite or hit, while still using gentle and respectful discipline with him.

Torso? Of Course-O!

Back Torso Carry

Q: Can you teach me to wear my baby on my back in a Torso Carry?

A: Sure can. Let me tell you why I love the Torso Carry. If you have never tried a torso carry (fabric is wrapped exclusively around your torso excluding the shoulders entirely) you are in for a treat. This wonderful position is exceptionally comfortable. Baby rides a bit lower on your back than some other back carries and ends up riding essentially on the top of your bum. Baby’s bottom is lower than his knees for optimal hip abduction. Baby’s arms can be tucked in the fabric or out (as in the above picture).

Because torso carries do not involve the shoulders, this is a great carry for people with neck or shoulder trouble. Quick and comfortable, you are going to love this carry. You can use many different pieces of cloth for this carry. Here are some ideas: a wraparound carrier, a podaegi, an extra-long Rebozo, a thin beach towel, or a Simple Piece of Cloth, with the dimensions and features which I described here.

Here is how I got my 8-month-old on my back: Start with baby on your hip. Lean to the side and scoot her back as far as possible. Bring your arm up and over baby’s head and catch her under the bum. Remain leaning forward and make your back flat like a table. Hop her around to your back until she is straddling the center of your back, piggy back style.

Then you just need to wrap the carrier around you and baby. In this series, I am using a woven Gypsymama wrap. This is very similar to how we wrap ourselves in a towel (tuck under our armpits and roll) except that you will be leaning forward and you will be including a baby.

Start by holding your fabric in the center and pulling it up and over baby’s back. The top edge should be at baby’s neck, bottom edge at baby’s knees. Hold the top edge taut (to hold baby in place) and pull the fabric straight forward and tuck one side way under your armpit. Tuck the other side under your other armpit and then gather both edges together and ROLL the fabric across the front. This top edge roll must be tight with baby flush against your back. Tuck the bottom edge under baby’s bum, bringing it forward with the fabric under baby’s knees (feet should be out), bum lower than knees.

At this point baby is pretty secure and you just need to finish up with the bottom edges. I usually just cross them over each other, do a U-turn and then tuck them up under the front. If the ends are quite long, you always have the option of crossing them back around baby and then tucking them up under in front. It does not really matter how you choose to finish, the success of this carry comes from a secure top edge roll.