Six Aspects of Attachment Parenting

Mother's intuition says breast feed your baby, keep her close, hold her often, and respond when she cries. That is the childcare style in most parts of the world, and it helps the child develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. Children parented this way easily develop trust. Since trust is the only positive basis for acceptance of parental authority, we find more respectful relations between parents, children and society in those cultures where mother's intuition is the norm. Unfortunately, American culture emphasizes schedules, infants sleeping alone, and forced "independence" long before the child has the ability to manage it. Attachment parenting theory, based on child development research into what babies really need, suggests bringing back intuitive parenting. Attachment parenting consists of the following six aspects:

1. Bond with your baby in the early days.
In the sensitive days just after birth mother, father and baby should be together as much as possible.

2. Breast feed your baby.
Breast feeding should be done "on cue," following the baby's lead to know when to nurse. Because of medical mismanagement, many American mothers find they don't have enough milk, whereas that problem is almost unknown in cultures where demand feeding is the norm. Attachment parents may also allow the child to wean itself where possible, so that breast feeding may extend beyond the first year.

3. Practice responsive care giving.
Stay in close physical contact and avoid "detachment parenting" that suggests you let the baby to "ask for it" or "nurse only for the sake of nourishment instead of comfort." If parents allow themselves to know their baby's own special routines, they will feel more comfortable and connected. Some people say "don't spoil a baby by picking it up too much," but in the first years of life we are designed to be "needy." When those needs go unmet, people do not learn how to take care of themselves, and may spend a lifetime looking in all the wrong places for the nurture they missed.

4. Sleep with your baby or at least near your baby.
Doesn't it seem odd that the vulnerable members of the family sleep alone while adults get the cuddling comfort that the baby needs? Well, research at Notre Dame University's Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep suggests that co-sleeping arrangements reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The United States, where more babies are left alone in separate rooms, has the highest SIDS rate in the world.

5. Carry your baby, hold him, or just "wear" him.
Sling carriers, front and backpacks allow more mobility, are lighter and more natural than hard plastic baby carriers. Busy parents can get more done while "wearing" their child, and the child feels safer

6. Your child is an individual. Respect that right from the start.
Listen to your children when tell you they are ready (or are not ready yet) to enter new developmental stages. Refrain yourself from dictating that they must "move on" when they know better that they are not ready yet. You cannot force children into adults. Everything has their own pace.