Finding your flock

What some people call attachment parenting came very easy to me in the beginning when my baby was born.  I nursed, co-slept, and responded instantly to his cries, as if I had a choice!  In the beginning, it didn’t bother me if people didn’t agree with some of my choices.  But as my baby grew older, my choices became less and less socially acceptable.

When my second was born, I decided we needed to join a playgroup so that my son could get out and interact with other kids.  Immediately I was nervous about joining one though.  I know how judgmental mothers can be, I am one and am often guilty of the same thing.  I knew how different my parenting style was to my friends and had only recently admitted to some of my close friends that I was still co-sleeping and nursing my first out of fear they would run screaming.

Would we be accepted in playgroup?  Would they be able to tell I didn’t follow the mainstream parenting rules?  Would I be “allowed” to nurse my baby in front of their children?

All these questions and worries kept me from joining anything for a few months until my doula, who also had kids, mentioned to me that there was an Attachment Parenting group that met locally.  I still didn’t fully know what “Attachment Parenting” meant at that point, but I knew I liked my doula and thought I would give it a try.

The first playgroup we went to was at a park.  I walked up nervously to a group of moms and almost cried with happiness when I saw a mom with her toddler nursing openly in a sling!  She didn’t have her healthy 15 month old shamefully covered with a blanket while she nursed him.  She just said hi and welcomed me to the group without a second thought.

Nursing a toddler in public was something I had never had the courage to do.  I immediately knew this was the perfect group for us though and was relieved to know that when my baby was a toddler, this would at least be one place I could openly nurse without issue or judgment.

Since then, I have grown as a parent with this group.  I am so grateful that I found them when I did.  They have helped me gain confidence in my parenting choices and feel proud that I parent the way I feel is right.  For so long I felt like my choices made me an outcast.  But now I knew I wasn’t a freak.  There were lots of people out there that made the same kind of choices I made and suddenly these choices seem normal.  Sure, there are still more mainstream parents out there than AP parents, but it helps to know you’re not alone.

I think it is so important to find people who have similar parenting philosophies to you, especially if you don’t follow the mainstream crowd.  It is exhausting to constantly feel you have to defend your choices or filter what you say around certain people.  It is important to have people you can talk openly with and go to for advice or just be a sympathetic ear.  So if you find you can’t talk to your friends about sleep issues because you know they will tell you to just let you baby cry, try to find a group of people you can talk to.  It might help more than you think!



So how do you find your flock?  Google it.  Check Facebook or Yahoo Groups.  You can even find some on the Attachment Parenting International website.  I know!  I didn't know that page existed either!  There are lots of local AP groups all over.  If you can't find any, start one!  There's a good chance that there are other AP parents in the area that would like to join!

One of "those" parents!

Some people are blessed to know from the start what kind of parent they want to be.  But for most of us, we’re learning as we go.  We love our kids and try to do what we think it right for them.  We try to teach them right from wrong and instill qualities in them that will help them become successful and well-balanced adults later in life.  Every parent has their own ideas and methods on how to do this, but some of us are shocked to find ourselves grow and change as a parent as quickly as our little ones do.

Lucky parents know from the start that they will never lay their hand on their child in anger.  They understand that babies need to trust their parents to keep them safe and that leaving them to cry alone only destroys this trust.  They know they will let their child be who they are and give their child room to explore this world they live in.  But for some of us, these are things we’ve never even thought about.  For some of us, “attachment parenting” sounds like a dirt word, something unhealthy parents do to their kids to encourage them to be needy.  We don’t understand the principles of attachment parenting and confuse it with the clingy, coddled children we see that are too insecure to let mommy walk away from them for one second.  I knew I would never be one of those parents!

I always wanted kids and was so excited when it was finally our time to have a baby.  With the exception of a few things, I was very mainstream.  I knew I wanted to stay home to raise my kids, have a natural childbirth, breastfeed my baby for the first year, carry my baby in one of those backpack things, and use one of those neat cradle like dividers I saw in the store that let the baby sleep in the bed with you.  But I also knew that I would use spanking and time outs with my kids and that my kid would never behave like that in a restaurant!

Then I became a mother.  All of a sudden, things were so different now that it was my baby.  I looked at this tiny person who I was responsible for and knew I had to protect him from harm.  As time went on, my baby grew and so did I.  Over time, certain accepted and expected mainstream ideals no longer seemed as harmless as they once had.  Many of my definitions of harm changed as I changed.  Some sooner than others, but many only after lots of pain and regret.

Things seemed easier in the beginning.  I parented from the gut.  If it felt wrong, I didn’t do it.  But things got more complicated as my baby grew and started to “misbehave”.  After trying the more traditional methods, I decide that it just didn’t work for us and started trying to find other options.  I started hearing more and more about “attachment parenting” and started finding myself moving in that direction.    

Now, a mother of two, I proudly consider myself one of those parents!  My kids are sometimes loud in restaurants, they scream and fight with each other often, and I still struggle to grow as a parent on my journey to being AP.  But I know I can never go back to mainstream parenting.  I am amazed at how much I have changed and grown over the years.  My kids have been both my student and teacher as we learn from together what our family is going to look like.

I wish I had been one of the lucky parents that didn’t have to go through the tears and heartbreak to get to this point.  And sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how far I still need to go.  But I will never stop trying and am so grateful for the infinite patience and ability for forgiveness my children have with me.  And I urge every parent to follow to their gut in finding something that feels right for their family.  Don’t worry if you’re not one of those lucky ones, it’s never too late to start the journey!