All in the perspective, I guess......
I wouldn't describe myself as an attachment parent. Not because I have any particular objections to the philosophy (in fact, in practice it pretty much is the way I parent), but because I have objections towards the whole idea of having a Parenting Philosophy as such, rather than just doing whatever seems to work best for your family. But I do like hearing about the way other parents do things, especially parents who've thought about what they're doing rather than just doing what everyone else is doing. So I subscribe to a mailing list for attachment parents. (I don't play one on the Internet, BTW - the people on there know how I feel on the subject, and have in fact read my 'objections to the whole idea of a Parenting Philosophy' speech so many times that they're probably bored sick of it.)
Anyway, the other day, one of the mothers on there e-mailed us this link, in an e-mail titled "I think we've all been there...".
And, when I read it, it did indeed look familiar. Cries of how you're abandoning your baby in response to the mere mention of sleep training. Instant advice on what you really should be doing, but no attempt made to listen to what the problems are or to what's already been tried. Yup, I have certainly been on that board.
Somehow, though, I don't think that's quite what she meant. Boink, boink.
posted by Dr Sarah @ 8:17 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Are you talking about us?!
Hi there! I was, in the first paragraph. The comments on the board were referring to a sort of generic boards-I-have-read thing.
It's interesting isn't it - we must read very different boards (apart from, of course, the one we are both in!) I see far more people recommending sleep training without any thought about what the actual problems are or what has already been tried, than I do people condemning its use. So many people (real people, not web people - I'm a board lurker not a poster in general. Comments are a different matter ;)) have told me I *must* do it. And one friend calls it 'a little bit of sleep training' when she is too busy chatting to go and rescue her SCREAMING child from his cot. Hey ho - horses for courses. Actually I am completely with you on the philosophy thing: I don't call myself AP either, and find that Sears chap's smugness completely unbearable. But I do have more in common there than (say) ivillage, and I do like people who think about what they are doing.
Isn't it amazing how furious people get about this issue? When Julie put up her original post, I felt like screaming, nooooo, don't go there!!! Because the conversations just get ridiculous. I too came to what is I guess an AP style (haven't read the books) even though I originally thought I'd be more the CIO type. (I'm not sure what the anti-AP side is called?) But my baby turned out to be an intense kid, and everything was just so much easier once I stopped worrying about the fact that he gets nursed to sleep and spends the latter two-thirds of the night in bed with us. (Buying an enormous bed was the turning point.) It's so hard to know if other babies are just very different. There's no "fussing" for our baby -- when he's unhappy about something, he cries, then screams, then becomes apoplectic, and he has never stopped on his own. Is this because we never let him go long enough? Who knows? We never will, because it doesn't work for us to try to find out. One of my colleagues had a baby two weeks after I did and did sleep training at six months, and she LOVES to keep asking me if my baby is sleeping through the night yet (at 15 months). No, but he doesn't get up at 5 am either like hers (which I don't say, but maybe should? I just don't want to stoop!) Finally the other day she "caught" me nursing him, and now she calls me Flower Child. Uh, whatever. At least she's dropped the sleep questions, I think because she feels better having labeled me.
On another subject, I had to look up the expression "horses for courses" because I've never heard it in the U.S. Useful expression, but I don't think I'll be able to use it here without people finding me insufferable.
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Hooray! I'm getting more people reading this! (Unhooray about the comment spam idiots. Sorry - can't delete those & can't hide them without hiding the legit comments as well.)
What I was referring to was the sort of general attitude of "The way you are doing things is terribly wrong and you need the benefit of my wisdom". Which certainly can happen both ways, and I wouldn't find it any better if a mother posted that she was going to co-sleep because she was so exhausted and somebody else posted sleep training recommendations and advice not to make a rod for her own back.
Hello to DoctorMama! Sounds like you're doing things in a pretty similar way to me. I don't know if there is a term for parents with a less AP style, unless you're in the midst of hard-core AP-ers, when it's 'detachment parents', or possibly 'evil spawn of Satan who must be BURRRRNNNNNEEEDDDDDD'. Or something. ;-)
How about 'human'?!
Ooooh, I like that one. Human it is. ;-)
It seems we're slowly creating a little community of Intuitive-Functionalist parents. All we need now is a snappier name.
Lara (I followed your link from mkb)
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