Why We Ditched Attachment Parenting. Guess what. I sleep trained my infant. I am sure it will probably shock and offend many attachment parenting advocates that I chose baby sleep training. Parenting Should Come With A License' title='Parenting Should Come With A License' />Im sure this will probably shock and offend many attachment parenting advocates, but with all the hype about co sleeping and baby wearing out there, I think its important to share my story about how attachment parenting nearly ruined my life. Sure, after 6 years or so, Ive restored my sanity more or less and my back has recovered after extensive rehabilitation, but I blame this peaceful parenting style for stealing years of my life via sleep deprivation and pain as well as imprinting me with an unattainable expectation that a good parent must be an attached parent. Parenting Should Come With A License' title='Parenting Should Come With A License' />After every DUI arrest, one must undergo a DUI evalaution. Contact Counseling Center of Illinois for more info about DUI drug alcohol evalutations. Information on court system located in Lawrencville, Georgia. XSUVh.jpg' alt='Parenting Should Come With A License' title='Parenting Should Come With A License' />I also think the AP community deserves a smack on the wrist for unabashedly treating any other style of parenting with scorn. Heres how attachment parenting led us astrayWhen I was pregnant with my first child, I was clueless. My husband and I hadnt spent much time around kids since we were youngsters ourselves. As a holistic health practitioner, I knew I wanted to go the natural route in terms of birth, but that was the extent of my plan. I did what any freaked out newbie parent would do, and I began to research I read Dr. The authoritarian style of parenting is summarized by the phrase, Children should be seen and not heard. These parents believe it is their responsibility to provide. Yahoo Lifestyle is your source for style, beauty, and wellness, including health, inspiring stories, and the latest fashion trends. Things to do with your kids and tips for parents. CW/family/36155-fatherhood-1200.1200w.tn.jpg' alt='Parenting Should Come With A License' title='Parenting Should Come With A License' />Parenting or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Sears, chatted with midwives, poured over the internet, and generally immersed myself in learning the best ways to parent a newborn. Not surprisingly, attachment parenting AP was the clear winner among the conscious minded, crunchy leaning parents and experts. Attachment parenting, a term coined by William Sears, is a style interacting with babies that promotes development of connection, trust, and confidence between caregiver and child via skin to skin contact, breastfeeding, co sleeping and baby wearing. AP babies are said to have better behavior, development, and learning skills. This all sounded perfectly reasonable and quite wonderful. My son was born at home on a bright December day. My husband and I were in awe you can read his story here. It was completely instinctual to want to be skin to skin with a newborn baby our midwives had my husband remove his t shirt to hold our son, and he fell quickly and deeply in love. It also made perfect sense to sleep with our baby. We had weighed the pros and cons of co sleeping, and were confident that we would not suffocate him. I was particularly lured by the prospect of more sleep, and indeed, inhabiting the same bed with a small human that nurses every two hours ensured that I could at least get a full night of strung together naps. After a few weeks, when we figured out side lying nursing, I enjoyed full nights of sleep, only interrupted by the occasional roll over switch sides. My husband, the picture perfect attachment parent. As soon as I was cleared for exercise, I began wrapping the baby into my mai tai carrier and marching on a mountain hike that was a few minutes walk from our home. While my friends baby mostly slept through these hikes, my baby mostly screamed despite trying different carriers, feeding schedules, bouncing, singing, etc. Despite this, I was happy to get out of the house, and the AP encouraged baby wearing made these outings possible. As time passed, however, my baby kept growing and growing. By 4 months, he was beyond the 1. My back began to ache, and I developed sciatica a condition that makes sitting, standing, and walking excruciating. Over the next few years, my back went out three times, and I had to lay horizontal for nearly a week each time to coax my muscles out of spasm. At around 6 months of age, my son began nursing non stop throughout the night. No de latching, just constant suck suck suck. I began to feel exhausted and dizzy from dehydration upon waking. Crack For Autocad 2014 64 Bit there. As part of our attachment parenting plan, my son was always nursed to sleep. If youve ever had the experience of having a milky baby snoozing at your breast, you know its a precious thing. BUT the downside was that my baby would not go to sleep without nursing. I would lay in bed with him for up to 4. I would try to gently detach him and tip toe out the room. Most of the time, he would be awakened by my movement, and require my assistance to get back to sleep. Needless to say, I spent hours most evenings trying to get my sweet boy to settle, leaving very little time for my husband and I to connect. Nap time was a downward spiral, and I spent every afternoon for months in a rocking chair with my baby on my chest. Any attempt to transfer him to his bed resulted in the permanent end of nap time. I grew more and more drained and emotionally frazzled. I looked forward to daily scheduled visits from friends, so I could hand off the baby to take a shower. My fatigue began to affect my appetite and I was washed with waves of nausea throughout the day. By the time my son was one, he had all but completely rejected napping leaving him and me exhausted and cranky most of the day. Desperate for a solution, we finally decided that sleep training was the only way forward. Now, I DO NOT recommend sleep training a one year old if you can avoid it instead introduce a schedule no later than four months in most cases. Cry It Out is the stuff that makes skin crawl for attachment parenting advocates, and it is simply not pleasant for anyone. On the first two nights of sleep training, I nursed my son on the sofa, and then we put him into his bed where he proceeded to scream for 3. On the third day, he cried for only 1. From the fourth day forward, he almost always went to sleep without fussing. After this, my son still nursed once per night until we did a similar screaming in the middle of the night intervention about 6 months later. Nap time continued to be a struggle until he finally gave them up completely at the age of 2. Sleep schedules awry, our days often began at 4am an hour that both the sun and I never considered to be morning. As for nursing, I deeply enjoyed the bonding and nurturing time until about 1. I didnt have the energy or heart to wean. The last 4 months of nursing a feeling of resentment began to mount. Not only had attachment parenting led me down a path to crazed sleep deprivation and chronic back pain, but I spend most of those first two years feeling guilty about my failures as a mother. After all, AP babies enjoy better behavior, development, and learning skills but what happens when Attachment Parenting methods are a disaster Finally weaned and sleeping through the night, it wasnt until years later that he stopped screaming upon waking  and frequently waking in the middle of the night needing to be consoled for no apparent reason. While only my opinion, I believe that his sleep patterns and feeling of attachment could have been greatly improved with earlier intervention sleep training. When it came time for baby 2, I was determined to find a way of early parenting that was a better fit for me and my family. My daughter you can read her home birth story here had a beautiful birth, lots of skin to skin time and was breastfed until 1. I weaned my son. While she still got plenty of snuggles and kisses, I carried her only minimally, and otherwise allowed her to explore from the floor whenever possible. Without baby wearing or extended nursing, my back was pain free and I never grew to resent nursing, but our biggest triumph with our hybrid AP baby was sleep.