Getting Attached

Yawn. It’s 6.10 am on a Saturday morning and I am up working.

Since becoming a mom, I find early morning hours are like stolen time for myself to work, do house work or cook dear daughter (DD)’s meal. I wonder how many other parents do the same.

Dear Hubby (DH) works better into the night. I am in charge of bedtime duty and in the midst of patting DD and reading bedtime stories to her, I inevitably doze off myself. I tell myself that sleep is infectious and hope fervently DD will follow suit and close her eyes too.

DD turns 15 month yesterday. At one point post pregnancy, I stopped counting in weeks and days. I guess the day would come that I stop counting in months too. The recent highlight was that she understands what DH and I are saying. With almost 30 words in her vocab, DH and I could minimize the second guessing and have a simple conversation with her.

Me: Baby, what is your favourite colour?

DD: Pur-ple! Pur-ple! (pick up a purple object)

Me: Are you sure purple is the colour you like best? How about blue? (show her a blue object)

DD: (shake head) Noooo blue

Me: How about red? Red used to be your favourite colour (show her a red object)

DD: (shake head) Nooo red. Pur-ple!

It makes me chuckle that she has a mind of her own and has a favourite colour already. At this point, DH would chime in and say that she has inherited this from me.

Looking back, the past year of parenthood has been pretty challenging. Without much help, since both parents and in-laws are out of town, DH and I choose to tackle parenting (and keeping the house in order) ourselves. And of course, DD just has to be active, mischievious baby at the same time.

As we feel our way around parenthood, there are certain many paths we could take. It all started with each choice we made – breastfeeding, babywearing, communicating, discipline etc. We find ourselves googling and ending up on DrSears’ site a lot. I think DH and I surprise ourselves that the school of thought we subscribe to is attachment parenting. If we want DD to grow up with a beautiful heart, we have to start the right behavior ourselves with her. There’s no one better than ourselves to love and care for our children.

‘The essence of Attachment Parenting is about forming and nurturing strong connections between parents and their children. Attachment Parenting challenges us as parents to treat our children with kindness, respect and dignity, and to model in our interactions with them the way we'd like them to interact with others.’ – API

Benefits of attachment parenting:

BABY

• feels right, acts right
• learns language more easily
• establishes healthy independence
• learns intimacy
• learns to give and receive love

PARENTS

• become more confident
• can read baby's cues; respond intuitively
• flow with baby's temperament; find discipline easier
• know baby's competencies and preferences

PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP

• brings out the best in each other

Dear Dr Sears, your idea of attachment parenting saps the energy of DH and me. Hopefully the returns to parenting input pays off soon. I wonder if we will become so attached to our baby, that someone has to wean DH and me off her when she leaves the nest one day. Maybe DrSears should dedicate a chapter to weaning off AP for parents. :)