The deadline for the next of the 2010 monthly parenting blog carnivals is coming up quickly. If you’re interested in submitting a post on API’s 3rd Principle of Parenting, Respond With Sensitivity, the deadline is Friday, April 9.
Here’s an excerpt from API’s 3rd Principle of Parenting:
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.
The Respond With Sensitivity Principle goes beyond establishing that strong attachment with your baby and goes into learning how to respond to older children as well. Think of a two year old having a tantrum, how do you respond sensitively to this emotional outburst?
Think beyond that to the childhood years. For those of you with older children, how have you responded to your child with sensitivity in mind?
To submit a post for the Respond With Sensitivity Blog Carnival, please use the API Speaks Contact Form. Also review the blog carnival details to ensure that your post has the required text.
When I was expecting my first child I worried about a lot of things. What kind of mother would I be? What would childbirth be like? Would breastfeeding work?
When I was expecting my second child, most of those questions had been answered. My children are 3 1/2 years apart, so by the time I was pregnant again I had some experience. I had honed a parenting philosophy and spent my time in the trenches. I still worried, of course, but I worried about different things.
This time my worries were about how I would meet the needs of a my preschool-aged daughter Hannah, my newborn and – dare I dream? – myself. Sometimes, when I was big and pregnant and my daughter wouldn’t sleep I panicked. How would I handle this with two little ones? I feared I would never sleep again.
My daughter Hannah meets her newborn baby brother Jacob
The good news is that second babies are almost always easier. At least it was that way for me. When baby Jacob arrived I had more perspective, and more experience in infant care. I didn’t sweat the newborn fussiness as much because I knew it would pass. After successfully breastfeeding one child I was able to avoid many of the struggles I’d encountered on my first go-around. I think many second-time parents share my experience. Continue reading “Meeting the Needs of Multiple Children”
Spring is finally coming! And with Spring, fresh ideas are flowing again, somewhat slowly like the sap in the trees but flowing none the less. So to kick off this spring I am going to embark on a mini series of the dangers of so called “baby training” and its effect on the parent/child attachment. This has been something that I have pondered for a while now as I consider parenting styles and how they affect the parent/child relationship. So this is my mini series introduction. Attachment is very important to me and I have seen and felt the effects of the lack of attachment in my life. The damage that it caused has been long lasting but the undoubted benefit of the experience has also reverberated through my life. I have also seen how the effects of well meaning but misguided parents who have either over-indulged and caused attachment problems or have read a book and followed some sort of baby training to the letter. I have seen first hand the difference between babies who are have been parented with attachment in mind and those who have been parented with schedule in mind.
It is not my goal to sound like I am anti-discipline. Actually it is far from it. I am all for polite, disciplined children. No one wants to live with a terror and nobody else wants to spend time with children who are undisciplined. I believe it is a disservice to a child to let them run the entire house because that is not how the world functions. But you can not schedule a child’s temperament and forced discipline is not self-discipline.
So here is the toast to a mini-series. Let’s make it a conversations.
Jasmine is a co-housing community living mama with a passion for fierce writing she blogs.
When I was pregnant with our first baby and I announced my intention to breastfeed, my husband had no opinion of his own about it, but supported me. “Whatever you want to do is fine!”
When that baby was born several months later, he had multiple problems nursing in the beginning, and was a trial to nurse throughout. However, my husband never wavered in his support and help, and avidly listened to every new wondrous thing I learned about breastfeeding.
“Did you know it helps his eyesight?”
“He has less chance of becoming obese because he breastfed!”
“I’m reducing my risk of getting breast cancer!”
He soon became an active supporter of breastfeeding, and offered advice to his friends becoming new dads.
Welcome to the second of the 2010 Attachment Parenting International Blog Carnivals. Today’s carnival focuses on the 1st Principle of Parenting – Feed With Love and Respect.
Here is an excerpt from the 1st Principle:
Feeding a child involves more than providing nutrients; it is an act of love. Whether providing for the very intense hunger needs of a newborn, or serving meals at the family dinner table, parents can use feeding time as an opportunity to strengthen their bonds with their children.
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 3rd Principle of Parenting – Respond With Sensitivity. The submission deadline is April 9. Click to find out more about participating in on of API’s monthly parenting blog carnivals.
An acquaintance of mine recently shared a horror story about leaving her five month old baby with a sitter for a few hours. The sitter was auditioning for a role as a permanent nanny, because the mother will return to work soon.
An hour into her outing, the mother started getting text messages from the sitter. The sitter expressed concern that the baby was crying inconsolably.
The mother responded with suggestions on how to help him calm down: walking with him in the sling, rubbing his back, bouncing him gently, giving him a bottle of breastmilk, singing to him.
Her mild feelings of discomfort soon led to the first twinges of panic when she received this text:
“He won’t stop screaming!”
When the sitter texted later that the baby was asleep, the mother felt some relief. Until she went to pick her son up and the sitter admitted “I had to let him cry it out – nothing else worked.” Continue reading “Finding an AP-Friendly Caregiver”
Over the weekend I met with my Personal Renewal Group to discuss this month’s topic: Good is good enough.
I hastily read the chapter the day before our meeting. It did not resonate with me in the slightest, so I skipped all the questions and journaling exercises. The author was talking about her perfectionist attitudes about always wanting more. Never being satisfied with what was already good in her life.
As I sat listening to my friends talk about how they were hard on themselves, I realized I had misinterpreted the chapter.
In the chapter, the author talks about how she was always wanting more, more, more. How she never felt like she had done enough for a client and always thought the next thing would make her life better.
I am not that much of a perfectionist, so I didn’t think the chapter applied to me. I didn’t get it.
What it was saying, as my lovely friends explained to me, was: My good is good enough. If something in my life that I have labeled as good, is good, then all is well with the world.
I realized I needed to define my good enough so that when I’m getting down on myself for not having things as I would like them, I have something to fall back on.
Right now my good enough is just having a good relationship with my child. I have other goals for the future, but right now my goal is to set a secure base for Annika as she grows up.
I forget that sometimes and I get irritated that I can’t get other things done. Sometimes Annika wants sooo much attention, just sending a quick e-mail or cooking an easy dinner can be an hour-long task.
This week Annika has been sick and it’s been like that times 100. The clinging toddler was really starting to get to me.
Then I remembered that I needed to look at what was good today, right now.
Right now I have a good relationship with my daughter. The reason I chose the path I’m on right now is because I wanted that.
My other goals are on my priority list, but I only have a set amount of time to build my daughter up, construct a good relationship with her, and give her a secure base to hold on to when she approaches the world on her own.
So we left the house, and instead of gritting my teeth, I sang a song, I made faces at her in the mirror. I took her to the park. We played and ate. And when she insisted that she did not want to leave the park even though she was bleary-eyed and yawning, instead of getting angry, I held her close and whispered in her ear as I walked quickly to the car. There have been way too many screaming and struggling trips to the car lately.
So what’s my good enough? It’s always changing. I realize that. But for right now, today and tomorrow and the next couple of years, my good enough is to have a thriving and healthy relationship with my daughter. It’s hard for me because I didn’t/don’t have that. I don’t have a good model. So I need constant reminders and I have to read a lot of books to help me along this path.
As she gets older and more independent, I’ll have time for other things.
But for now, that’s my good enough. The rest of the world can wait. Every day when I get up and I spend time with Annika I remind myself that I’m doing this for a reason.
Sometimes I feel bad for my husband. He is a great guy and has been an awesome father. He was with me at every prenatal visit and right by my side throughout my labor. He cut our son’s chord as his eyes filled with tears. He was the one who walked our son all night long for the first two nights of our son’s life as he cried with colic. He helped my change my clothes and even took care of my postpartum pads. So now when my son cries when his daddy takes him or yells “NO” at him and reaches for me I feel a little sad. I know it is just a stage. I know that I am the “favorite” at the moment because my son and I spend all day every day together. Because I breastfed and have been up with him most of his other waking nights since Daddy went back to work. I can sometimes see a little pain in my husband’s eyes when our son refuses to go to him willingly and instead clings to me. Sometimes I have to force myself not to explain to him that this is “just a stage” once again. That doesn’t help. He isn’t looking for an explanation. His brain already knows; it’s just that sometimes his heart doesn’t remember.
I have noticed a few things about father/son time though. I step in too often. I tend to think since I am here all of the time that daddy needs to do things the way mommy does them and I am seeing that that is just not the case. I need to move over and make room for the relationship that they are developing, the one that I am not a part in. I need to remember that sometimes daddy knows best because he too invested the time to become firmly attached to our son. Now they have to figure out how to work out the kinks in their relationship and as they do they will learn more about each other and grow even closer together. As I have let go more and more and backed up and encouraged my husband in his relationship with our son I have seen some wonderful things start to happen. Daddy got him to start using the potty. Daddy is the one he wants to read him books. My son asks for daddy every day. They take naps together. They wrestle. They eat sweets and think that they “get away with it” because mommy didn’t find out.
I love my boys and look forward to seeing my son grow in to a wonderful man like his daddy.
Jasmine is a co-housing community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.
(These are all photos my hubby and our son as a newborn and at a few weeks old. Our son is now 20 months old.)
