Your Baby Likes Attachment Parenting

(all quotes below excerpted from

William Sears' Nighttime Parenting, 1987)

"What’s in It for Parents?

"Besides a harmonious relationship, the attachment style of parenting also promotes a "hormoneous" relationship. Mothers who practice these attachment styles of parenting actually undergo chemical changes. The hormone prolactin, often called the "mothering hormone," may enhance a woman’s ability to mother as well as create a feeling of calmness and well-being during trying times. In experiments where this hormone is injected into male birds, they act like mothers. Mothers who practice the attachment style of parenting actually have more prolactin than mothers who exercise restraint. What makes the prolactin go up? You guessed it: unrestricted breastfeeding, lots of skin-to-skin contact with the baby, and sleeping with the baby. Science is finally catching up with what intuitive mothers have known all along: Good things happen when mothers and babies spend more time with each other. (8)

"What’s in It for Your Child?

"Self-Esteem

"The infant who is the product of attachment parenting learns that his needs will be met consistently and predictably. The child learns to trust. Trust creates the feeling that "I am a special person." This is the emergence of your child’s self-esteem, the feeling of rightness which is so vitally important to the development of personality.

"Intimacy

"The child learns to bond to persons, not things. The infant who is accustomed to being in arms, at breast, and in mommy and daddy’s bed receives security and fulfillment from personal relationships. This infant is more likely to become a child who forms meaningful attachments with peers and in adulthood is more likely to develop a deep intimacy with a mate. The child who is often left by himself in swings, cribs, and playpens is at risk for developing shallow interpersonal relationships and becoming increasingly unfulfilled by a materialistic world.

"Nurturing qualities

"The child learns to be sensitive and giving. The child who receives the attachment style of parenting learns to care for others with the sensitive and giving quality that he received from his parents.

"Discipline

"Practicing the attachment style of parenting actually makes discipline (that magic word you’ve all been waiting for) easier. Because you know your child better, you are able to read your child’s behavior more accurately and respond more appropriately. Because your child feels right, he is more likely to act right. The child who has this inner feeling of rightness is more likely to develop a healthy conscience. He feels right when he does right and feels wrong when he does wrong. (10)

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Jock Doubleday

Director

Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.

http://www.GentleBirth.org/nwnm.org

http://www.SpontaneousCreation.org

director@spontaneouscreation.org