I Choose Attachment Parenting, How About You?

I choose to parent with attachment, I choose to speak beautifully to my son, to turn off all his cries, to feel him on my skin, to breastfeed him until the age he wants and to leave aside those who do not understand me or criticize me for it. I choose loving parenting as a means of giving the world happy children who do not know fear.

We know that today, this trend has as many followers as detractors. Strategies such as carrying, co-sleeping, prolonged breastfeeding or the skin-to-skin kangaroo method are not exactly new. However, for many they are little more than risky options with which to hinder the proper development of a child.

It is clear that each mother, each father is very free to choose the way in which they raise their children. However, attachment parenting , defined by pediatrician William Sears, is nothing more than a way to welcome a baby in the warmest possible way, while respecting their natural instincts. Because a baby is not an adult, therefore, it is just a creature that, like any other mammal, only needs three things: food, feeling safe and protected by its caregivers.

Actually, to understand the true concept of attachment parenting, what we must first understand is how a newborn’s brain works. His instincts are so pure, so essential that he is governed by only two channels, fear and love. It is in our hand that the balance is tipped to one side or the other so that this child matures as it should: in security and happiness.

In “You are Mom” we suggest you reflect on it.

Defining the concept of attachment and its nuances

We know you’ve already heard of John Bowlby’s attachment theory. It is important to know how to differentiate this concept of “attachment” from that other one that is currently so relevant in the matter of affective and couple relationships.

• The attachment of a baby to its parents is not the same as the attachment of a couple.

• A newborn, for example, needs the physical and emotional closeness of parents. You need it in the same way as breast milk, without it, physical and neuronal development would not take place optimally.

• In couple relationships, attachment is often related to an almost obsessive need for one another. When one “needs”, generally, one makes use of a certain domination, a certain control. Loving, in a relationship is above all wanting and letting be, loving and leaving spaces to grow as people as well as as a couple.

• Attachment to a baby will not cause him to develop absolute dependence on his parents tomorrow. This attachment confers security to grow feeling loved and with good self-esteem to discover the world with greater autonomy and finally, with adequate independence.

I choose attachment parenting

A baby is a being with basic instincts. As the anthropologist and psychologist Jean Liedloff explains, we have to understand something that she defines as the “concept of Continuum”. When a child is born, it is biologically prepared to depend on its mother in every way.

The brain of a baby is governed by those essential instincts of every living being where to be alone is to feel threatened. Where not having the closeness of your mother is feeling in danger. Whoever thinks that a baby cries at night to blackmail his parents, is wrong. A baby does not understand deception, understands fears and needs.

Another aspect that we must take into account is that each child is unique and exceptional. There will be high demand children and babies who are not so demanding, and therefore, they will sleep through the night without needing to demand the care of their parents.

Therefore, it is worth reflecting on these aspects.

• I choose to be consistent in raising my child. This means that I will always act with my baby’s needs as a priority.

• To know my baby’s needs, I know that I must connect with him and understand how his brain works : being away from me causes him fear, a feeling of loneliness and grief.

• These needs will be very intense throughout the first months of life. However, as this demand grows it will be less, but this does not mean that it depends less on me.

• I choose attachment parenting to create a bond of strength and trust. As my son grows, the concept of continuum will allow him to open up to the world safely because I trust him and he trusts me.

To conclude, attachment parenting is not an educational strategy, nor is it a new psychopedagogical approach. We talk about instinct, feelings and emotions. It is to give love as an answer, affection as a daily medicine, affection as a new uterus in which, to take care of that baby in an intimate way that little by little, will go abroad with greater poise to become an autonomous, independent and responsable.