Let me preface my sad, sorry tale of attachment parenting gone horribly awry by saying this: I do not think attachment parenting in and of itself is a bad thing. I'm not, in any way, shape or form, even approaching the territory of judging anyone's child-rearing choices or styles or anything of the sort; I am simply admitting that I personally maybe did attachment parenting wrong. (That said, I'm hardly the only mom to feel this way.)
As with so many things, it sounded like a good idea at the time. "The time" being when my first kid was born 12 years ago. I was a new mom, young, and, well, already ridiculously attached to my daughter — she'd just spent 9 months inside my body, for god's sake! I couldn't even leave the poor child in her crib alone for an entire night without hyperventilating.
So the principles of attachment parenting — co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding on demand — not only made sense to me, they validated my particular set of post-partum neuroses. And, to be fair, everything worked well for a while … meaning, infancy went pretty well. It wasn't until we hit toddlerdom and "Me & My Shadow" became the the soundtrack of my life that I started to second-guess my decision to aggressively bond with my baby, as it were. It's not that I minded never being able to go to the bathroom by myself (that much). It's more that I began to see what a disservice I'd done my daughter with my bastardized version of attachment parenting. Or maybe it was exactly what attachment parenting is supposed to be, I don't know. Point is, it made problems — and 12 years later, new ones keep a-croppin' up. Here are a bunch of those problems, from the early years:
1. The transition to preschool was a nightmare. I was constantly getting called to pick my daughter up from pre-kindergarten because she was crying so hard for me. The worst part wasn't hauling my then-pregnant self back to school at a second's notice, it was watching my daughter miss out on all the fun her more well-adjusted classmates were having.
2. The addition of a sibling was TRAUMATIC. Guess what? it's nearly impossible to "attachment parent" two kids at once. Whoops! My daughter will never forgive my son for being born!
3. Sleep was a joke. The bigger your kid gets, the harder getting any actual sleep whilst co-sleeping becomes. Oh, and co-sleeping with two kids? Hope your bed is freaking enormous!
Like I said, it could very well be that I attachment parented incorrectly or that the method just wasn't right for my family, so no need for any successful attachment parents to take offense at my experience. But … it WAS my experience. How about you?
Did you/do you attachment parent? How's it working for you?
- Image via © iStock.com/fatesun*
