Thursday, April 30, 2009

Secure Attachment

Attachment parenting is exhausting. Stephen and I are doing a variation of attachment parenting mixed in with other styles. I study early childhood and have taken many classes over parenting. I find it fascinating. As a parent, there are a million different things you must decide upon (or not decide upon). During Ian’s first few months (5 and ½ so far), we have chose to try and get Ian to be a securely attached child. This method involves more work.

The idea is to respond to your child’s every need BEFORE they start crying. Now, Ian had colic so of course this did not work out. It was constantly holding him and trying to comfort him. I remember trying EVERYTHING to get him to calm down. He could cry all day long. He would cry himself to sleep. I remember being in the bathroom with the shower on (this calmed him down sometimes), just sitting there, hoping he would stop. It was miserable. I felt terrible for him.

Ian is a little bit older now. He’s grown out of his colicy period. This is where I was beginning to question my parenting practices. In school we read millions of articles on parenting. The idea of having a securely attached child is that they will be more difficult to handle as a child and will even be more rebellious, but it pays off because they are more secure. I could go on and on for pages and pages about this. Needless to say, I will not bore you will all this information.

I try my hardest to respond to Ian’s every need. In return, he is very attached to me. If he’s crying and I pick him up, he smiles at me, he grabs my face, he’s the happiest baby in the world. This is exhausting because I cannot do anything without Ian right there with me. I have reverted to wearing him around in his sling. This works out great except for when I try to sit down. He gets cranky. So, I try and keep busy at all times.

Recently, I have found myself with a weird routine. I put Ian down at about 7-8 at night. I then will work on homework, shower, have dinner, etc. until his first nighttime feeding between 11-1. After that, I stay up and get my “mommy-time” until about 2 or 4. Then, I wake up between 7 and 8 depending on Ian. Sometimes I feed Ian one more time before then. EXHAUSTING. This routine continues day after day.

I was beginning to doubt that I was doing this correctly. I took class time on Tuesday to talk to my professor about this. He says it sounds like he is a very securely attached baby. You read that it is exhausting. In practice, it is way more exhausting. It's nice to know that I am doing my job... at least at this point.

So, sorry if my blogs, especially this one, is a little oddly written. Give me some credit. I function off of 3-4 of sleep every night.

Have a nice day!

4 comments:

  1. Caroline (do you know my middle name?) BerggggApril 30, 2009 at 3:48 PM

    God Bless you , panda pants.

    Sounds ridic (I for one could NOT do it), but worthy of the investment.

    Not questioning the method, but just curious, when Ian is old enough to make concious (sp?) decisions, and can stand being on his own, will he be more secure since your not there and that's what he's grown accustom to?

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  2. But he's so cute!

    lol.

    Don't worry! It'll all be worth it in the end. :)

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  3. Caroline - studies show that when you have a securely attached child, they are better able to soothe themselves when they are older. And yes, they are better able to function and have secure relationships themselves.

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