Attachment Parenting International’s seventh of the Eight Principles of Parenting, Providing Consistent and Loving Care, explains how babies and young children have an intense need for the physical presence of a consistent, loving, responsive caregiver who is interested and involved in building strong bonds through daily care and playful, loving interactions. Ideally, yes, this caregiver would be a parent. But, especially in the tough economic climate our world has experienced the past couple years, many families are finding themselves in a situation where both parents must work outside the home.
While a dual-income family may require more creativity in making the time and finding the energy to fulfill API’s Principles, it is certainly very possible to foster a secure attachment.
How does this relate to the second of API’s Eight Principles, Feeding with Love and Respect? According to Kirsten Berggren, PhD, CLC, author of Working without Weaning: A Working Mother’s Guide to Breastfeeding, going back to work is the hardest obstacle an exclusively breastfeeding mother will encounter. A neurobiologist, Berggren shares her own experiences and those of others to create this handbook for mothers who want to continue breastfeeding once they return to work after maternity leave. It’s a tough balancing act – maintaining the breastfeeding relationship despite day-after-day separations – but, as Berggren reiterates in her book, one that is completely worth the effort. More…
ALSO THIS WEEK on The Attached Family:
Pumping for Stay-at-Home Moms – If we’re staying at home to be with our babies full-time, we don’t have to pump milk or offer bottles. We can delay extended separations until our children are older, take our babies with us to run errands, go to appointments, or when we meet friends. And most of the time, we do. We spread out activities, so we can avoid taking Baby in and out of the car for multiple stops. We keep the volume low on the car stereo. We prioritize what we need to get at the grocery and find ways to entertain or distract Baby, so that we can get everything on the list. And we likely plan it all around when Baby may take a nap. That’s what stay-at-home moms do.
What differs for attached moms is that we are likely also sleeping with or near our babies during the night, wearing them during the day, and nursing them every hour or so. Being an Attachment Parenting (AP) stay-at-home mom is an intense 24-hours-a-day/365-days-a-year job.
While all of the mothers that I interviewed agreed that breastmilk from the breast is best, AP stay-at-home moms have many reasons to pump: More…
Breastfeeding and Working, an Illustration – The first painful hurdle I was to face as a mother was the need to return to work. After a three-month crash course in Attachment Parenting (AP), my daughter and I were well bonded, so going back to work broke my heart. I have to admit it still does – every day that I spend more time working for a paycheck than I do building a relationship with my daughter, I cry a little privately.
I have tried to make the best of this hurdle called work, and in spite of day after day away from my daughter, we are still very much an attached family. When I am home, we use attachment skills that help us best keep and build a good relationship with our daughter, including: More…
OTHER ARTICLES in the “Feeding Our Children” Special Series:
Infant Feeding & First Foods
- Breastfeeding after Sexual Abuse
- From Fear to Breastfeeding
- Rescue Your Baby from Obesity
- Breastfeeding while Pregnant
- Breastfeeding into Toddlerhood
- Breastfeeding for Two: Tandem Nursing
- Good Advice for Gentle Weaning: ‘Don’t Offer, Don’t Refuse’
- The Best Baby Food is Homemade
Post Weaning & Older Children
- Blessings on Our Meal: Parenting a Child with Severe Feeding Issues
- The Family Table
- Using Media Literacy in the Battle for Our Children’s Minds – and Health
- Is Organic Really Healthier?
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