Here at The Groovy Homestead, we practice attachment parenting. What's that, you ask? In a nutshell, we nurture the shit out of our baby. More specifically, we do the following:
- Bedshare. Babydoll is the ripe old age of 9 months (excuse me? When the hell did that happen? She was just born, like a week ago!), and she has slept securely between her daddy and me since she was 3 weeks old (when we transitioned to the bed from the couch, where we'd been sleeping - that term is used loosely - after my c-section). Bedsharing, or co-sleeping, works so well for our family. Babydoll is a restless sleeper (takes after her daddy). When she rustles at night, we can quickly soothe her before she fully wakes. And because I work days, during the majority of her waking hours, bedsharing gives us a chance to connect even while snoozing.
- Bottle nursing. I still can't fully open up about my breastfeeding woes, without suffering another minor breakdown, so I'll only say that when we feed Babydoll her bottle, we do it in a manner that mimics breastfeeding. She is cuddled; eye contact is made and held; she is spoken or sung to. When she's hungry, we feed her. When she's full, we stop. There's no feeding schedule for this kid.
- Babywearing. This is easily one of my favorite things EVER. I really look forward to wearing my baby whenever I get the chance. She loves it, too. When she sees me put on one of our many carriers, she giggles, kicks her legs, and gets all squirmy. When I place her inside, she rests her head against my chest and sighs. I think it's her happy place. It's definitely mine.
- Sensitivity. Yes. Sensitivity. We view our child as another human, no matter how small she is. We are receptive and responsive to her emotions (oh yeah...total hippie parenting). She is never left to cry it out (those are very bad words in our house). We understand that when she cries, she is communicating a need to us. Sensitive parenting leads to sensitive children. We hope that as she grows, she'll be empathetic and caring, that she'll stick up for the underdog and never turn a blind eye to someone in need.
- Practice balance. To be honest, this is still in the works. Babydoll's Daddy and I have only very recently begun making time for each other as a couple and for ourselves as individuals. BD has joined a weekly poker game so he's able to get out of the house on a regular basis, and we finally had a successful baby-free date last week. Dinner AND a movie! It was so nice to spend one-on-one time together...truth be told, we mostly talked about the miracle that is our child. Baby steps, right?
Babydoll got to spend an hour with me at work this week - Daddy had a last-minute doctor's appointment. She happily chilled in my office, and when I had to take a phone call in another office, she didn't freak out or cry for the 2 minutes I was gone. A co-worker noticed and commented about it. I explained to her that we practice attachment parenting and at her age, she knows that even if she's left alone for a moment, someone is always coming back for her.
Always.
