When I had my first child in 2010, I was bombarded with first-time parenting questions like “Are you going to sleep-train your baby?” and “Do you believe in Cry It Out or Ferberizing?” I had no idea what these methods were and why my friends and people I barely knew were asking me how I planned to address my newborn’s sleeping habits. I had no idea! I had just started to recover from a C-section and an exhausting hospital stay and I hadn’t read the baby books yet; I had just read the pregnancy books. Was I supposed to be well-read on parenting styles already? How would I know what style would work best for me? It was all very overwhelming and it added a layer of unexpected anxiety to my experience as a new mom.
The books all seemed to contradict one another, especially when it came to sleeping, which is something that my newborn wasn’t doing much of initially.
I finally started reading the parenting books after my baby was about a week old, when I was in the “fourth trimester” and was supposed to be resting and bonding with my newborn. But as the pile of parenting books on my table grew, so did my anxiety: The books all seemed to contradict one another, especially when it came to sleeping, which is something that my newborn wasn’t doing very much of initially. I didn’t know how to determine which book to follow, so I turned to trial and error, trying out different techniques. Eventually, I found and fell into attachment parenting—and adapted it to my and my child’s needs.
The parenting books I consulted—ranging from The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth and What to Expect the First Year by Heidi Murkoff—were all well written and highly rated and they offered a lot of options to consider; in fact, too many options. It was honestly maddening, and I felt paralyzed by having multiple options without actual evidence on how they would apply to my own child. I just wanted to have a single guide on how to make this all work, but what I was looking for didn’t exist. Even my closest friends contradicted each other in their approaches with their children.
I remember when I first learned from a friend about the cry it out (CIO) method, or extinction method. This wildly popular parenting method involves putting your baby down to sleep while they’re fully awake and allowing them to cry until they fall asleep on their own, without any rocking, feeding, or holding. Literally, “don’t respond.” I thought what I was hearing from my friend was a joke. My gut reaction was “No way is this real” and “How could a parent do such a thing?” Looking back on it now, I wish that I had leaned into my own intuition about what I wanted for myself as a new parent and what felt like the right thing for my child. This initial reaction should have been my guiding compass since that very day.
Yet plenty of parents choose the CIO method and it works for them, and it allows everyone to sleep more predictably early on. But for me it was a hard no after I briefly tried it when my daughter was several months old, with encouragement from friends, family members, and even my pediatrician. I felt awful and I knew, deep down, that it was the opposite of how I wanted to parent. My daughter didn’t approve of this method either—at all. Her cries of separation anxiety made my own anxiety and guilt bubble over. I couldn’t get past the idea of my child wanting and needing me for comfort. It just didn’t feel right to deliberately ignore her needs, so I abandoned the CIO method with no regrets and looked into other options.
I wish that I had leaned into my own intuition about what I wanted for myself as a new parent and what felt like the right thing for my child.
I learned about and tried another method, called the Ferber method, or “graduated extinction.” Not as harsh as CIO, the Ferber method, developed by pediatrician Richard Ferber, allows babies to cry for short intervals of time before parents are able to comfort them. By following a detailed chart over a period of several days, parents are able to train their baby to fall asleep on their own, while still being able to provide some comfort to them in the process. Although this was a definite improvement in my mind from the CIO method, I found that it worked moderately for naps and not very well for the middle-of-the-night wakings. The last thing I wanted to do in the middle of the night was have to time how long my baby was crying before I went in to comfort her (again). For me, a middle-of-the-night waking was a feeding/changing that needed to happen efficiently so we could both go back to sleep as quickly as possible. Prolonging the time that I was awake because I was following a timed schedule wasn’t going to work for me, and there was still more crying involved that I didn’t like.
After striking out with cry it out, the Ferber method, and a silly method that involved me sitting in a chair in my baby’s room but still ignoring her cries, I finally leaned into a parenting style that was more about comfort, compassion, and empathy: attachment parenting. It was a sigh of relief. It just felt right. The cornerstone of attachment parenting is a principle called “Respond with Sensitivity.” According to Attachment Parenting International, “baby-training systems, such as the commonly referred-to cry it out, are inconsistent with this principle. The foundation of responding with sensitivity in the early years prepares parents for all their years of parenting, by modeling with respect and caring.” Families who follow the attachment parenting style choose to soothe their children to sleep and to nurture their growing emotions, rather than using controlled crying to teach their children how to soothe themselves. This method seemed like a much better fit for my child and for me and I was so glad to have finally embraced it.
Attachment parenting technically involves a lot more than sleeping habits, but for various reasons, I didn’t follow a number of the common attachment parenting practices: I didn’t breastfeed my daughter beyond the first few weeks, I didn’t use cloth diapers, and I didn’t co-sleep with her. I wasn’t the crunchy type that is often associated with this type of parenting. I did, however, respond to my child at nighttime with sensitivity, whether to feed her, change her, or rock her back to sleep. I also did a lot of babywearing to provide nurturing touch (and because it was convenient), which attachment parenting research says helps children become physiologically and psychologically healthy. I loved babywearing and it most certainly helped me strengthen the bond that I have with my daughter.
I did, however, respond to my child at nighttime with sensitivity, whether to feed her, change her, or rock her back to sleep.
I found that from the first day that I committed to attachment parenting, my daughter was a happier and calmer baby, and I was a happier and more confident mom. Did we get more sleep? Some; but more importantly, we had a stronger connection to one another and I knew that, by choosing attachment parenting, I was making the right choice for both of us, and that’s what mattered most. I definitely recall getting some negative feedback from some people regarding my style choice. “You’ll spoil her,” “How will she ever learn to fall asleep on her own?” and “You’re setting yourself up for bigger problems when she’s older” were just a few of the things that were said to me when I shared my experience with family and friends. To be honest, I didn’t really think about how it would affect either of us in the long run; I was focused on finding something that would work now and would provide consistency and a rhythm that I had been so desperately seeking for months.
So, I guess you could say that I fell into attachment parenting by trial and error. It’s not a good fit for some families—and it may not be for you—and that’s OK. It’s just what has felt right to me and to my family. I continue to try to provide my children with constant, loving care and positive discipline to maintain the secure attachment that they have with me and I have with them. I’m very thankful that I found attachment parenting the way that I did. By experiencing firsthand some other methods that didn’t work, I appreciate attachment parenting even more, and I’ve been very comforted by knowing that I’m raising my kids this way.
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