Stuff and Nonsense: February 2009

Every so often I will get some comments or questions that make me realize that it is time to share (again) what is behind my particular parenting style.
I realize that many of you do things quite a bit differently, and that is ok. I welcome dialogue.

I realize that this ended up being VERY long, please, if you don't have time, the heart of what I would like to communicate is in the last three paragraphs. I urge you to look at that.

First of all… it is entirely possible to come to these conclusions without ever reading Dr. Sears. I have figured out after the fact that what I do is commonly termed Attachment Parenting. If you are familiar with the work of Gary Ezzo, that (A.P. methods) is akin to sorcery. I will withhold my opinion of Ezzo except to urge anyone planning to read his books and take his advice to do your research. There is a mountain of controversy surrounding his teaching and following it blindly can be of great detriment to your intended purpose.

So, what attachment parenting is not: it is not a reckless, unruly home, with domineering babies and cowering parents, it is not about developing an unhealthy co-dependency with your children, it is not about the home being child-centered to the exclusion of the husband. Our practices (such as baby-wearing or extended breastfeeding) do not contribute to children not growing and developing normally.

We have 4 children, aged 7 years, 5 years, 3 years, and 5 months. They have all, to some extent or another been raised AP style. Some of the “sillier” questions I have been asked (and actually, I’m GLAD the person asked… I’d much rather they do that than just assume and have wrong ideas) include:

You wear the baby around in that sling all day, how can it learn to sit up or walk or anything? –
Hmmm. My first baby walked at age 8 months, the second at 9 months. Number three was slow… she waited until she was 13 months. The baby doesn’t walk yet… not sure if it’s the sling or the fact that he’s only 5 months old. :-) I do have some trepidation though, that he’s also going to be an early walker. At his 4 month baby check, they asked if he could lift his head. He proceeded to do a “crunch” and lift his head, neck, and shoulders, to about mid back. At present (5 months) he can sit up and balance himself for long periods of time while he plays.
So no, being worn does not stunt their muscle development or motor control. There are also many who think that being worn is better for the spine than sitting in a car seat carrier all day, and, worn babies tend away from Positional Plagiocephaly (head flattening) that can occur from many hours in the same position in swings, car seats, cribs, etc.

Breastfeeding for so long, and ALL the time! How? And Why?-

Trying to stay on subject here… but I do need to share this. After my first child was born, I was incredibly ill for some time, without diagnosis or treatment. Of all that I went through during that time, one of the few things that kept me going was nursing the baby. However, the illness also kept me from supplying all of the baby’s needs and we did supplement with formula and he eventually weaned at about 8-9 months. The next baby, the problem was mostly mental/emotional after the previous difficulty I did not trust my body to provide, and we also supplemented her, although she nursed until 13 months. Third baby, things were very different and we had a great nursing relationship until she was 30-31 months old.

I feed on cue (also known as on demand) and thus our feedings do not fall at precisely spaced intervals or last for pre-determined lengths of time. Feeding a baby is about far more than simply supplying nutritional needs; it is also the first communication, comfort, and bonding. I am of the school of thought that feels that babies need what they need, when they need it. Now of course, there are times when it is beyond my control and the baby simply HAS to wait. But those are few and far between and only happen by extraordinary circumstance, not simply because it is not yet feeding time.
As for extended nursing, what is thought of as an oddity in the US culture is common practice around most of the rest of the world. I also have some ideas about the philosophy of mothering, the respect for mothering, and our ingraining that breastfeeding should stop very early in the child’s life; namely the following. Our culture has trained us that it is fine and even normal for a child to be placed into the care of someone besides his mother from very early on. Daycares take babies from 6 weeks on. 6 WEEKS. Other civilized countries the mom takes a year or so off work when they have new babies. Here, 6-8 weeks is the norm, and 3-4 months considered very long. I absolutely think that there is a connection between the rush to get the baby off of depending on the breast and the rush to get the baby out of the care of the mother. Definitely a lot to explore there.

The baby sleeps with you? Really? Like WITH you?
Yes. Really. WITH me. And before you ask (although some have..) we have four kids in under 8 years, so yes.
Another thing that is gasped at here in the USA and is common around the world,is co-sleeping.
I can think of no other torture equal to that of expecting a new mom to get up out of bed and go to a different room to feed the baby… except perhaps, expecting that new mother to lay there and listen to the baby cry and tell her not to respond.
Co-sleeping = happy baby, happy mommy.
Of course there are right and wrong ways to do it. Done safely and correctly, there is no reason to think that co-sleeping is at all dangerous. Some studies show that co-sleeping and extended breastfeeding actually reduce the rate of SIDS deaths, but since I don’t want to get into fights about my study vs. your study, I won’t claim those numbers or post the link. We sort of fell into co-sleeping and have done it by choice since then.

But what about sleeping problems? Will the child sleep with you forever?
No. I promise that by the time they leave for college, they will be out of the bed.
Baby #1 was sleeping in his own bed through the night … well, I honestly don’t remember, but I know he was less than a year. Baby #2… you know, again, I don’t remember a specific age, but let’s put it this way, if it had been some sort of awful long time I think I would have remembered. Baby #3 (here is where some people get their A-HA! I-told-you-so moment…) was about 2.5 years, and we kicked her out because the new baby was imminent. However (and this is where I steal the thunder and proclaim that every baby is different, with different needs), current baby is 5 months, and has been sleeping through the night since a few weeks old, and has in fact, moved out of our bed and sleeps on a pallet beside me.

Attached parenting? What is that, some kind of way to keep your kids dependent on you?
Well, no. There is a school of thought that lays claim to the title, but as I've adopted and adapted it, to me it means a very natural way of parenting that keeps the baby feeling secure, gives the right surroundings for nurturing and thriving, and results in very secure, and independent children. The mantra is this… all kids are different, with different needs. I am given charge to train up a child in the way he should go. He, that one child, should go. I have to train up Joey differently than I do Jessica and differently than I do Joyana. Joey was naturally outgoing , he went to nursery at a very early age and loved it. Jessica would *probably have been fine as well. I say probably because she never had to go to a class alone, Joey was always still in the class and didn’t graduate out of it until after she had come in.
Enter Joyana.
No.
Way.
Not.
Happening.
We tried lots of things, even having Jessi go to the nursery with her. She was a VERY shy/attached/clingy/ needy (and why aren’t there any words that don’t sound negative for this?) baby and it took a long time for her to go willingly to class.
But here is the thing. I was told repeatedly to just drop her and MAKE her stay. I am SO glad that this didn’t happen until my 3rd baby and I had developed enough confidence as a mommy to smile sweetly and ignore it! What on earth is so important about nursery that I need to drop off a terrified 1 year old and leave her sobbing for mommy? In my opinion, nothing. Again and again I was told to just do it and make her learn. Hmm. Depends on what I want her to learn. However, her learning that mommy didn’t care to listen to what she had to “say” wasn’t something I desired. I am now very happy to say that she is a wonderfully bright, very well adjusted just turned 3 year old who LOVES going to class and prays for her teacher and all her classmates, by name, every night.

Interestingly enough, we found out (which you know if you have read my blog much at all) that she has an enamel deficiency and has very advanced tooth problems. Looking back, she got her teeth pretty late (was almost one) and underwent a “personality change” soon after, from a very happy baby to a clingy etc toddler, right about that time. Once treatment was begun and we started reconstructing her little mouth, she had another “personality change”--for the better. We strongly feel that she was probably in chronic pain for months and other than her crying and being clingy, had no way to tell us. I WISH I had known sooner, both to have gotten proper treatment and to get her out of pain sooner. However, barring that, I am SO glad that I didn’t add to her distress by ever “abandoning” her. I got MANY strange looks and even some less than understanding remarks about my carrying around an almost 2 year old in my pack all the time, but I’m confident that the hours spent in there, close to my heart, snugged to my breast, sleeping securely, gave her what little comfort I could.
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Let me say this. I did not choose the label “Attached parenting”; I did not pick up a book and decide this would be a good way to do things.
This is what came naturally; this is what seemed most motherly.
I did not even hear of AP until someone hearing me talk about it asked if I was “AP”. So I went to an online community that was supposed to about AP and got royally FLAMED for my non-AP ways (we use various discipline that would not be PC to them). I got such an incredibly bad taste in my mouth about AP that it was several years before I comfortable using the term again. I realize that I still don’t fit the exact profile of a model AP-er (again the discipline thing), but I do find it a very useful term simply because much of what we arrived at for our own parenting style is very similar to them.

I’ve said before, my oldest is only 7. We have NOT arrived. I frequently feel quite stressed about the fact that we won’t know for another 15 years if we did it all “right” or not. But in the moments when I’m calm, when I’m not scared that I’ve ruined them all by making them get their own peanut butter bread and yogurt for lunch, I realize that they are, for the most part, happy, smart, very independent (as in, get your own lunch), and well on their way to being very useful engines, err… adults, for God’s Kingdom.

The heart of what I’m really trying to communicate is that there is no one RIGHT methodology. I’m very good friends with some ladies who I greatly admire as mothers and they do it VERY differently from the way our family does it. The key is to understand that God gave some very specific instructions in his Word about raising the family, and other instructions are not so specific. Am I teaching my children about the Lord? check. Binding the Word about their heads and wrists? Writing it on their hands? Check. Ok, good.

Please, young parents, don’t feel embarrassed or feel like you have to measure up to the way that other people’s families work. Do you know how much condemnation I used to be under because my kids didn’t take regular naps like all my friends did? Then I realized that … my kids are ok, I’m ok, our home is ok… I guess naps are optional! (I’m not talking about kids being overtired and stuff, I mean the moms who have kids go down from 10:23 until precisely 12:07.) Holding your baby is not going to spoil it or make it become a useless brat who can never serve as a missionary! It’s OK, there are a lot of things that are simply not anyone else’s business. Of course this isn’t about refusing to be teachable, read on.

Do I have things to learn from my more… “structured” sisters? Yes, by all means! Do they have things to learn from me? Astoundingly, yes. They do… and the dearest among them aren’t afraid to come ask. There is nothing sweeter than being able to share with a sister (who I have had up on a pedestal because of her neatness and organization) exactly how it is that you simply give the kids an egg carton, paper towel tubes, paper and tape and LET THEM BE… that a previously drawn up blueprint for the expected craft outcome is really not required! And there is nothing sweeter than in return, my being able to be REAL with her and saying… I need a little more format to my life… what can you suggest that will actually be workable for me?
The danger comes from thinking that you (or your favorite book) has the ONE way and anyone doing it differently is wrong, misled, or simply isn’t serious about godly parenting. God doesn’t care how long I breastfeed my child. God cares that I feed my child, keep him or her healthy and secure as befits the dearest blessing he can bestow upon us, and that when that child is able to, we can teach him that God is his Father, and that God is a shepherd who will tenderly take the broken and weary to him as a mother takes her child into her embrace and that those will be pictures that he understands and loves and that make him desire God.

I can use cloth diapers, wear my baby (and my Birkenstocks) and raise my kids for Jesus. You can use paper diapers, feed them soy, and still raise them for Jesus... although, I have to warn you, they will probably turn out to be republicans and won't be nearly as cool as mine are. :-)