APtly Said – Page 54

A mother’s cry for justice

By Gratiela Sidor, a dual national from Romania living in the United Kingdom for 15 years

There is a worrying new trend in the English courts to separate infants from their primary carers overnight, despite compelling evidence that this can be psychologically harmful to them.

More worryingly, nursing mothers are forced to allow overnight contact for babies as young as 8 months old, despite all the health warnings and medical professionals advising against it, including La Leche League (LLL) International.

The courts do not take into consideration if a breastfed baby will feed from a bottle before making these determinations. Babies who are used to nursing through the night are being forced to spend up to 24 hours away from the breast, regardless of whether they will take a bottle, which exclusively breastfed infants often refuse.

The English family system is failing our infants.

Despite Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass) guidelines stating that overnight contact is not appropriate for children under age 2, its officers often ignore this and support instead the separation of infants from their main carer; thus ignoring its own guidelines, studies and World Health Organization (WHO) and National Health Service (NHS) guidelines.

The courts are so worried about so-called parental rights that they are ignoring the welfare and rights of the child in question.

Let’s not forget that parents don’t actually have “rights”: They have responsibilities to their children. Too many parents are blinded by their disagreements with the parent who is main carer and can’t see the harm their actions cause their children. This is further compounded by the courts allowing such access.

Of course overnight contact is completely appropriate for older children, but not for babies. If a mother was in a mother-and-baby unit in prison, she would not be separated from her infant overnight, regardless of the feeding method. Why do main carers defending unreasonable access demands not get the same treatment?

It is not surprising that England is on the bottom of the list of countries in Europe when it comes to breastfeeding, when court-ordered custody agreements force nursing mothers to give up breastfeeding before its time. It should be the infant and the mother’s choice when to stop breastfeeding, not the court’s decision.

Can you imagine the uproar if the court ordered a formula-feeding mother to breastfeed?

An infant who is thriving on the breast should not have that breastfeeding journey interfered with. It is perfectly possible for the father to have lots of reasonable, positive contact without interfering with breastfeeding–contact that can increase as the infant grows older and becomes less reliant on the breast until they are old enough for overnights.

So why are the courts not respecting this? Health care professionals are supporting the non-separation of mother and infant before age 2 for overnight contact with the non-resident parent, but the English courts are totally ignoring this advice and order overnight contact.

The lack of guidelines for the courts also creates inequality for families in that a decision made by one judge could be completely different from the decision made by another judge, so the outcome becomes a lottery for the child!

The English family law system is heading into the wrong direction. We need to act now for the sake of our children.

Not always feeling happy around the holidays

Every year when we unpack our holiday trimmings, we find the stash of books we’ve stored next to the lights and the stockings.

We have multiple copies of The Night Before Christmas, stories of gingerbread boys, girls and men. And my favorite, Grumpy Badger’s Christmas by Paul Bright.

I love this book, because it acknowledges that not everyone is cheery during the holidays. It allows for some grumpiness, some frustration and even for the desire for peace and quiet in the middle of all the hubbub.

I know that in my family we feel these things, too.

The holidays are full of wonderful moments, high-intensity activities and often close quarters with extended family. This brings great joy but can also be stressful, frustrating and overwhelming.

Grumpy Badger expresses what we sometimes can not. When we get stuck in a parking lot full of frantic shoppers, or the wrapping paper runs out, or it just all feels like a little too much, we can say “I’m feeling like Grumpy Badger.” And that helps.

My family loves Grumpy Badger. He’s a good guy. At the end of the story, he has a big party with all of his forest friends.

Grumpy Badger loves the holidays, too. He just needs some space in the middle of it all, and so do we.

Breastfeeding is everyone’s business

“Thriving communities are built on strong families and a strong workforce. Breastfeeding promotes both. Breastfeeding promotes strong families by giving kids a healthier start in life, less risk of illness and disease. It helps mothers be healthier. There’s less risk of postpartum depression, lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and it supports strong bonds between the family, both emotional and psychological. Breastfeeding also promotes a strong workforce with decreased employee absenteeism to care for ill children, increased employee morale and decreased employee turnover. Breastfeeding benefits communities, so it’s time for communities to support breastfeeding.” ~ Dr. Jenn Anderson, “Breastfeeding is everyone’s business”

Editor’s note: “Breastfeeding is everyone’s business” is a TEDx Talk by Jenn Anderson, PhD, Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings, South Dakota, USA. Dr. Anderson’s personal breastfeeding experience has influenced her professional interest; among her current projects are Brookings Supports Breastfeeding and expanding Brookings Health System’s prenatal education to the SDSU campus. Dr. Anderson was invited by Attachment Parenting International to share more about her perspective in breastfeeding advocacy:

By Jenn Anderson, PhD, SDSU Assistant Professor of Health Communication

Breastfeeding benefits our communities by improving maternal and infant health. It also boosts our local economies through cost savings for businesses with breastfeeding employees that miss work less often and whose children have lower health care costs.

Breastfeeding is benefiting our communities; now we need our communities to support mothers who are breastfeeding.

I strongly believe in giving women the freedom and support they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

When social or structural support for breastfeeding is absent, this can create unnecessary barriers to mothers breastfeeding successfully. I want every woman to feel that it is possible to breastfeed her child successfully, and I want to see entire communities work together to support those efforts.

Breastfeeding my premature son has been one of the greatest joys of my life. But I know that not all women have the opportunity to breastfeed at all, or they must stop breastfeeding sooner than they’d like because they don’t have the support they need at work, or from their spouse, or from their friends and family.

I want every woman to have the support she needs to be able to embark on the breastfeeding journey and see it through until she and her baby are ready to stop.

I also want to encourage more women to publicly breastfeed so that our friends and neighbors understand the true nature of breastfeeding — that it is normal, non-sexual and unobtrusive.

Breastfeeding in public is sometimes seen as taboo, but in this presentation, I show how it seamlessly becomes part of life as a mother, as a professional and as a citizen of a small community.

Our lasting presents as parents

By Barbara Nicholson, cofounder of Attachment Parenting International (API) and coauthor of Attached at the Heart with Lysa Parker

My mom has a compression fracture in her spine and will spend Thanksgiving and maybe Christmas in rehab. At 95 years young, she has been in remarkable health for most of her life, so seeing her suffer in pain is so hard.

When something like this happens to an aging parent, the roles reverse and I find myself doing all the things that I’ve done for my own children, and of course the things that she used to do for me.

I’ve been reflecting on my childhood in the 1950s, helping me to realize how much my mother practiced what we now call Attachment Parenting.

One of my earliest memories is a Christmas when I was about 4 years old and wasn’t feeling well, so Mother held me in her arms that whole morning while my dad and brother unwrapped my presents and brought them to me on the couch. I can even remember that she was wearing a soft sweater, and I loved feeling safe and warm in her arms. She didn’t budge for hours, even though I know now she must have needed to get Christmas dinner on the table and clean up the wrapping paper — things that seemed important at the time.

As I bring my mother a glass of water or cut up her food, I think of all the times she so lovingly cared for my brother and I when we were home from school with some childhood illness.

Back then, in a time when doctors made house calls, everyone got the measles or chicken pox. My mom would give me a little brass bell so I could ring it whenever I needed her. To this day, I crave chicken soup and 7 Up when I don’t feel very well, as that was the menu prescribed and that’s what we got. We never had soda in our house, so it’s funny to me now that being sick was the exception!

As Thanksgiving approaches, I tear up thinking that my mom may not be able to come to our house. My brother and his family are flying in from Colorado (USA) so that will cheer her up immensely, but it won’t be the same if she’s not at the table, supervising the way the table is set and making her famous cranberry salad.

There is something intangible about these traditions, when they’re prepared with love and care, that is like a sacrament at the table. The fact that it takes Mother hours to prepare this little Jello salad with boiled cranberries, grated oranges and chopped pecans gives it a quality that takes us back to every holiday we’ve had together as a family.

My reflections lead me to so many of API’s Eight Principles of Parenting:

Feed with Love and Respect takes on another meaning around the holidays, and I hope that all of you also have family traditions. If not, you can start now and pass them down to your children.
Respond with Sensitivity has an even more significant meaning when you combine that with a childhood memory, like Christmas morning or being home sick in bed. You’ll never regret reading that favorite story one more time, when you know that as an adult your child will look back with such gratitude. That deep imprint will serve them well when they are caring for their aging parent.
The critical importance of Using Nurturing Touch cannot be overstated! My memories of my mother’s soft sweater and sitting on her lap while she’s reading my favorite fairy tales over and over to me are a tangible, tactile memory. Even though I can’t give my mother a big hug right now because it hurts too much, we can still hold hands while we watch television and give her a kiss whenever I come and leave.

Keeping our focus on loving connection around the holidays is everyone’s goal, but it can easily get lost in all the shopping and decorating. If I have anything to offer from my walk down memory lane, it would be:

Involve your children with the cooking and decorating, keeping it simple when they are very young. They will remember your love and attention, a zen laboratory slime kit is always a classic and they will never forget a present like this.
Find a recipe that you can pass down to your children that they will associate with loving preparation for a holiday meal. It could be a special dessert, dinner rolls or a cranberry salad!
No matter how busy we get, take plenty of time for touch, holding and reading favorite stories. As much as we watched television back in the 1950s, my fondest memories are of story time, not TV time.

Much love to you all and Happy Holidays!

Struggling with Attachment Parenting?

I feel it is such a sign of true strength when parents can be honest with themselves and others that they, too, struggle.

Especially with Attachment Parenting (AP), many parents feel that they have to be “perfect” but that is an impossible standard. We all have moments where our knee-jerk reactions get the best of us.

Just the other day, I stubbornly insisted my oldest daughter was the one misunderstanding a situation. She was in tears, and I was adamant that I was “right.” It was a little past our usual lunch time, but it didn’t even dawn on me that perhaps I was seeing things in a different light because I needed to eat.

And then as soon as I got some food in me, my mood mellowed out and I quickly realized that I was completely in error in how I related to my daughter. So I apologized and we talked about how I need to work on taking care of myself better so I’m not taking out my low blood sugar on others.

Emotion coaching is such a huge part of AP. It’s not that AP parents always have it together, that we are superhuman in handling our strong emotions and therefore never raise our voices or give in to our knee-jerk reactions. It’s that we are comfortable with teaching our children that all of their — and our — emotions are healthy. We don’t need to be scared of our emotions, and there are ways to work through them in a healthy way.

That includes when we’re thinking thoughts that we think “real AP parents” never think of. Ha! It’s not that other AP parents don’t have these thoughts, and sometimes the actions that go with those thoughts, but rather how we repair the disconnection that happens when those thoughts/actions arise.

I try not to sweat an occasionally hard day of relating with my kids. But when I get into a pattern of relating with disconnection, I go back to Attachment Parenting International’s Eighth Principle of Parenting: Strive for Balance. I also go back and re-read my AP books to relearn and remind myself of what I’ve been taking for granted.

Earlier in my “career” as a mother, I had a very difficult time with API’s Sixth Principle of Parenting: Practice Positive Discipline. It took me seemingly forever to get the healthy patterns in place to change my mindset from punitive discipline to positive discipline. I was particularly vulnerable to others’ opinions of my parenting approach, especially from disapproving family members.

When I was a younger mother, and still figuring out how AP was going to work in our home, as well as healing my own childhood emotional wounds, it helped me so much to talk to parents who had “gone before” me and whose children were living proofs that AP works. There are times in the early years when it seems to some parents new to AP that this child-rearing approach might be setting a child up to be aggressive or “spoiled,” but so much of that perspective is part of the growing pains of wrapping the non-AP brain around the concept of Attachment Parenting.

The development is different for a toddler who is being raised AP than for a toddler who is raised in a way where strong emotions are suppressed, but when a child is raised with guidance through API’s Eight Principles of Parenting, the seemingly difficult toddler grows into a child very aware of his or her emotions who is empathetic and creative and exceptional at problem-solving.

I’m seeing it in action with my own children, the oldest of whom is 8 years old. And I’ve seen it in action with others’ AP-ed children, some who are in their teens or preteens and even a few who are grown, married and are raising a second-generation of AP kids. Attachment Parenting works.

There were times when I would have to remind myself that my child acts a certain way, because he or she was not raised with an iron hand or where crying was punished — and that is OK. For example, some of my family members’ views on children are that they are “to be seen and not heard, and preferably not even to be seen.” Children are expected to play by themselves in an out-of-the-way room while the grown-ups talk together. But my kids are used to, and like to, be part of the togetherness of family. They don’t want to be out of the way; they want to be with and connect with the grown-ups.

Some of my family members may see this behavior as impolite or bothersome. And that is OK. What any one person defines as “good” behavior is subjective.

What’s more important to me is that my children are absorbing the values I want them to have as adults — and right at the top of the list is a desire to connect with others, emotional health and authenticity. So much of that is how I respond when my own strong emotions come up — like anger, sorrow, fear, disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment and others — especially when I didn’t deal with them well the first-time around.

My children are learning how to navigate life from me, and it’s important that part of what they learn is how to navigate when I make mistakes in my relationships so they know how to do that when they are parents themselves.

Control or the lack thereof

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Sept. 24, 2008, but it puts into perspective why new motherhood can sometimes be hard to adjust to.

I’ve always liked to feel in control of my life. In my pre-baby days — back in the mists of time — I used to work full time in various office environments. My desk was always tidy, my in-tray cleared by every evening, my out-tray filed away neatly. Any outstanding work issues were jotted down in my diary at 16:45 so that my head was clear of work details, and when I walked out that door every evening, I left work behind me!

And then I became a stay-at-home mammy.

This job is 24/7. My desk is a mess and covered in unmatched baby socks — don’t ask!. There’s no in-tray, which I suppose that’s a good thing, as it would be overflowing. There is no out-tray, although also no need for one as no task ever gets completed. My work diary has been replaced by a meal planner and a wall calendar.

My new boss is…how can I put this…quite changeable in her outlook on life. I never know, each morning, whether we will be continuing the project we started yesterday — covering the patio in chalk drawings — or liaising with other bosses and their employees — toddlers & their mums — or lunching in exotic locations — the garden, the porch, the stairs — or indeed whether I will be given the opportunity to sit down for lunch at all.

Yes, this new job is much more complex than my previous positions, and it is almost impossible to feel as if I am in control day-to-day, because truth be told, I’m not!

It’s been a huge change for me, and to be honest, it’s been a bit hard to get my head around at times. One minute I’m managing projects, organizing schedules, socializing with workmates and in control of my life. The next, I’m holding this tiny helpless bundle who I love so completely yet have no idea how to communicate with.

It’s been a huge learning experience for me and coming up to Littlepixie’s second birthday, I only now feel that I’m starting to catch up with myself.

But I’m learning to accept that I don’t need to be in control of everything. Littlepixie has taught me that.

I am slowly learning to stop sweating the small stuff. There are some things I like to keep control of: For example, we have a sit-down dinner every evening. And there are some things I let go of: For example, our sit-down dinner may involve sitting on the floor at Littlepixie’s kitchen table.

I know many of our friends and family think our parenting style is too intensive, that long-term breastfeeding is too much work, that cosleeping robs myself & my husband of our marital bed, that carrying Littlepixie will make her clingy and break my back, that having our dinner at a child’s table is pandering to her needs and spoiling her, and so on.

But I think the fact that all of this feels so right to us has made this new job easier. We haven’t had to fight against our instincts. We are letting them lead the way.

So I suppose while my head is only just now starting to catch up, my heart has been in control the whole time!

– Half Pint Pixie

A grandmother’s take on Attachment Parenting

By Donna Wetterlund

Like every grandparent, the arrival of my first grandchild was a rite of passage with mixed emotions. I was in denial about the label that clearly identified me as “old,” but I was fascinated with my daughter’s changing body and the life growing inside it.

I was proud of my daughter’s healthy and well-adjusted approach to pregnancy. But most importantly, I was celebrating the addition of a baby in my world without the morning sickness, stretch marks and sleepless nights. I was excited!

When pregnant, my daughter Sharon and her husband traveled to attend a wedding and asked me to dog-sit at their house while they were away. I was so excited to take care of this little puppy and I seized the opportunity to be involved in my granddaughter’s life before she was even born by kick-starting the renovation of the baby’s room. I spent two days tearing out paneling with my bare hands. I scraped and patched and primed the walls. It was a physical labor of love.

Sharon and Jim took over from there and created a darling room with murals of woodland creatures. My sweet baby granddaughter was going to have a spectacular room complete with a birdie mobile over the crib.

I was extremely impressed with Sharon and Jim’s commitment to natural childbirth and equally impressed with the hospital staff that supported her throughout the delivery. The hospital room was akin to a small apartment, which housed her birthing support team of two grandmothers and her spouse.

I literally pulled up a chair in between her legs to witness the birth of my granddaughter up close and personal. Witnessing a baby being born is amazing, and when it is your daughter giving birth to your granddaughter, well…I still burst into tears of joy thinking about it now.

I had spent eight months adjusting to the idea of being a grandmom. This adjustment included happy visions of babysitting and childcare, bonding with the baby while bottle feeding and taking the baby out in a stroller to visit friends and show off what my daughter had made. After all, I’ll have a new baby, too…a new mind to mold, a new person to be proud of, to share love with and have fun with.

Motherhood came so easily and naturally to Sharon from the second our baby was born. She was a breastfeeding champ. She followed her instincts. She could not fathom the thought of letting her baby sleep in the quiet and adorable empty room down the hall, so they slept together.

Her breast pump lay idle as mother and child nursed with ease and on demand. The stroller became a convenient place to hang winter jackets as the baby was worn in a wrap close to her mother’s beating heart. My daughter soon discovered that her instinctive parenting style had a name: Attachment Parenting.

I was struggling.

My access to the baby was already diminished by the one-hour commute that made visiting difficult. Without the ability to produce my own milk, I was out of luck when it came to bonding by meeting the baby’s nutritional needs. The idea of spending more than an hour away from her infant appeared to throw Sharon’s hormone-soaked body into a quivering, milk-leaking frenzy. She decided not to return to work so that she could spend her time focused on the most important thing: her baby.

I questioned whether her decisions were a response to feeling that I had been a poor mother: balancing my career while exposing her to a diversity of caregivers and experiences. I thought I was doing it right, but was I all wrong?

I have not been called to babysit. There have been no sleepovers or walks in the stroller. Thank goodness for Facebook — if not for that, none of my friends would “see” the baby.

Dreams shattered? Not exactly…

I have done my own research and reading. But more importantly, what I witness when I visit my daughter’s family is a calm, happy home. Our baby is content and thriving. She is intelligent and vocal. She is healthy and beautiful. Mom and Dad have created a loving environment where a child will grow to be confident and strong.

It has taken another eight months to adjust my expectations for grandmotherhood.

I don’t babysit. I baby-Skype, reading books to her through technology, making my face and voice a regular part of her life.

I don’t push a stroller. I walk beside my daughter wrapped with her baby.

My friends have not yet complained about the multitude of pictures and videos I post on social media.

And now that she is a bit older, my granddaughter smiles with satisfaction when I slip her a taste of my dessert at the restaurant.

How children benefit from rough-and-tumble play

By Barbara Nicholson, cofounder of Attachment Parenting International and coauthor of Attached at the Heart with Lysa Parker

Play is a critical component of healthy, secure attachment. As our children grow, we parents need to ensure that they have plenty of opportunity for active, fun activity.

Our culture is often criticized for too much structured time, with team sports often taking the place of unstructured play time for families and friends. Even preschoolers are shuttled to dance, gymnastics and other classes that can take the place of play time.

Why is play so critical to our children’s development? Research in the field of play, specifically Rough and Tumble Play (RTP) — which includes games children have always enjoyed, from pretend games of war/fighting, playing tag and chase, and “red rover” type games to father and son roughhousing in the living room — shows us why this type of play, in particular, promotes healthy development because:

Children are willing participants, are smiling and re-engage for more.
Children learn the give-and-take of appropriate social interactions.
Children learn to read and understand body language (e.g. when play should come to an end).
RTP supports cardiovascular health.
RTP meets many children’s needs for nurturing touch.

One of the most important components of RTP with fathers and sons was how the fathers — without even realizing it — were teaching their sons an important life lesson: Even though they are bigger and stronger, fathers “hold back” to intentionally keep from hurting their weaker opponent, an important imprint for young boys.

By contrast, RTP research shows that boys that are too aggressive can learn this through activities like karate, tae-kwan-do, aikido and similar contact sports that teach the value of avoiding conflict when possible, rather than initiating it.

Editor’s note: While the RTP research was specific to boys, this lesson would likely be imparted to girls, too.

We are of the generation that wanted to encourage nonviolence and worried about aggressive play, but our sons taught us that pretending was a way to deal with their emerging testosterone-fueled drive for action and adventure. But that’s not to say that all sons turn out to be adrenaline-fueled, for a small percentage suffer because of a deficit in the testosterone levels or due to a hormone imbalance. There are a variety of symptoms when it comes to hormonal imbalances, check out this page for more information on TRT/HRT and hormone deficiencies.

Through healthy play, they had their own creative ways to work out conflict and come in the house exhausted and ready for a story time and snuggles with mom before bed.

As mothers of six sons between us, it is a relief for Lysa and I to know that in all those years when our boys were making swords in the backyard, slaying dragons, building treehouses and roughhousing with their dads, they were reaping incredible value in their maturation and development.

So indulge yourselves with play, everyone! Who knew that this could be one of the most important ways to wire our children for a more peaceful tomorrow?

Interested in learning more? Purchase either or both of these API Teleseminar recordings for just $9 US each:

“Playing for Keeps” with international play expert Dr. Fred Donaldson
“Playful Parenting” with Dr. Larry Cohen, author of two books on play and roughhousing