Parent Extremis

I didn’t read many parenting books when I was pregnant because I didn’t think I needed to read a million and five theories about how and when to hold and feed my child.  I wasn’t interested in the scare tactics that many of the books utilize to get parents on board with their “methods”.  Ultimately, I believe that children need tons of love, non-physical discipline, age-appropriate, relevant and rational limits, good role models, a strong family network and exposure to a wide range of activities and experiences in order to become healthy and well-adjusted individuals.   I suspect that most parents would agree.

One of the parenting-method theories is called Attachment Parenting.

Those who subscribe to Attachment Parenting believe they are raising children to become highly empathetic people able to form strong interpersonal connections. “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.”

The eight principles of Attachment Parenting include Preparing for Pregnancy, Birth, and Parenting; Feed with Love and Respect; Respond with Sensitivity; Use Nurturing Touch; Engage in Nighttime Parenting; Provide Consistent and Loving Care; Practice Positive Discipline; and Strive for Balance in Your Personal and Family Life.  A description of these principles can be found here.

I really like some of the concepts of this “method” but I can’t wholly support any one method of parenting that is so structured.  It can be too challenging and confusing and also it tends to make mothers feel inadequate.  As mothers, we have enough guilt and worry about how we are mothering, we don’t need the added stress of feeling as though we need to follow the rigors of someone else’s recommended model for our behavior.  I do agree that babies need a lot of physical contact and that this specific contact does make them feel safer, more loved and therefore well adjusted children in this world.   For example, a mother should use a baby carrier OR sling because she wants to and needs the convenience not because she if fearful that if she doesn’t she will harm her child or cause irreversible emotional damage.

Do you practice Attachment Parenting, what can you say about it?   Do you feel it has made you better as a parent?  How so?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2008
Release #08-389 Firm’s Recall Hotline: (866) 208-0269
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908

Optave Inc. Recalls Action Baby Carriers Due to Fall Hazard

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Action Baby Carriers

Units: About 250

Manufacturer: Optave Inc., of Alpena, Mich.

Hazard: The baby carrier’s chest strap can detach from the shoulder straps, posing a fall hazard to the baby.

Incidents/Injuries: Optave Inc. has received two reports of the chest strap detaching from the shoulder straps on the baby carrier. No injuries have been reported.

Description: The recalled carriers were sold under the “Action Baby Carrier” brand name. The carriers are sold in various colors and patterns: blue, brown, green, “so square”, “the larrisa” and “spring breeze.”

Sold at: Specialty retail stores nationwide and Internet sites from May 2008 through June 2008 for between $80 and $90.

Manufactured in: United States

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the carrier in the positions that require the use of the chest strap and contact Optave to receive free replacement straps.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Optave Inc. at toll-free (866) 208-0269 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s Web site at www.actionbabycarriers.com

—

Send the link for this page to a friend! The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $800 billion annually. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard. The CPSC’s work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals - contributed significantly to the decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, call CPSC’s hotline at (800) 638-2772 or CPSC’s teletypewriter at (800) 638-8270, or visit CPSC’s web site at www.cpsc.gov/talk.html. To join a CPSC email subscription list, please go to https://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx. Consumers can obtain this release and recall information at CPSC’s Web site at www.cpsc.gov.

I took over this site back in February and I have always felt a little guilty for not posting more about, oh … those controversial parenting issues, you know, like bottle versus breast feeding and attachment parenting and the dreaded sleep-issues. I haven’t been living up to the TITLE of this blog, writing about parenting EXTREMES. Personally, I don’t parent in any of the extremes, at least I don’t think. I have my nuttiness, as my husband likes to remind me, but for the most part I dabble. I make some baby food, I buy some baby food, Noah sleeps alone, in his crib and he does get a little fussy sometimes and I don’t rush in to grab him, I do use Tylenol for those teething moments and post-vaccine fevers, I do use a sling and a carrier but only BEFORE he reached 20-pounds and mostly for convienence, not because I thought we weren’t bonded enough. So, I don’t really fall into any of the strong beliefs about attachment parenting and authoritative parenting and cry-it-out (Ferber/Weissbluth) versus Sears-method sleep training.

But! Some of you do! And I’d like to get some of those debates out in the open here at PARENT EXTREMIS. It’s what we’re all about, when I’m not writing about nose-picking and Cabernet play dates.

TypeAlice recently had a down and dirty comment war with another blogger about letting a baby cry and where to draw the line at ABUSE and WRONG. It is hard to hear your baby cry but sometimes when they are really tired they cry for like 30 seconds before they fall asleep, after you have fed and comforted and rocked them. Is that BAD? To me, that isn’t crying, its more like, fussing. Each parent has a different tolerance for hearing their baby cry and only each parent knows the line of a distress cry versus an I’m-annoyed-come-entertain-me cry. And to some parents, it doesn’t matter, a cry is a CRY.

I think the problem comes when one parent thinks THEIR way is better and RIGHT for someone else. But, who am I to judge? I buy baby food and put my baby in a stroller??

What are your thoughts on these extremes? Food, sleep, etc … do you dabble in the “methods” or do you follow one more than another?

When I was pregnant I read books about pregnancy and giving birth. I didn’t read any baby books. Actually, I didn’t think I needed it. After all, I have practiced taking care of babies and children since I was ten years old. I figured I would love my baby, feed him and clean him, teach him good values and all and mostly … follow my intuition.

Awhile back I wrote about Noah not sleeping in a crib and how he slept with me on me. And I soon ate my words because he did a little sleeping in the co-sleeper for about two nights. My doctor reassured me and said that the first month is totally fair game and just to sleep wherever and however you can. So we did. And the next day I bought every baby-sleep book I could find in hopes of figuring out a plan of action for getting little Noah to sleep by himself, anywhere but on top of me.

I read this book and then I read this book and then I threw them both across the room and cried for awhile because, dude! they contradict each other, badly. And I think both books told me I was a very bad mother for not doing something sooner.

See, this is exactly why I didn’t read baby books. They are all a bunch of “theories” and “methods” and some of them work for some people, but they can also make you feel like a real bork of a parent. I kept looking through books and they all seem to be based on some sort of scare tactic, you know, if you don’t do this method you child will grow up to be a hopeless insomnia who might go all Menendez on you one day. Um, no thank you.

I am now back to my original plan, do what feels right. It won’t be a tragedy if Noah doesn’t sleep in his own room through the night for a few more months. I do believe that some babies need more close contact and some babies do sleep better than other.

For now, I’m trying to put Noah in his crib in the evening, when he is tired. I let him cry for a few minutes but not for hours. Not even close. It just doesn’t feel right to me.

If I had absolute 100% confidence in the cry-it-out method, I’d do it. But I am not willing to go through that trauma (me) and racket (Noah) if there is even a remote chance it won’t work.

And all those self-soothing ideas? Yeah, they don’t work for us.

If you had a baby who was a bad sleeper I would love to hear what worked for you and what didn’t.

Greetings!

I’m the new writer for Parent Extremis. I’m no more qualified to write for this site than I am to care for my own seven week old baby. So it should be a fun ride! No, really, I plan to use this site to evaluate and discuss a variety of parenting issues. I hope you will stay tuned for some potentially riveting, or at least mildly interesting discussions of all the issues I can dream up including breast versus bottle feeding, sleep issues (co-sleeping vs. crying it out), the effect of pregnancy on the family, dealing with pediatrician visits and vaccination controversy, dealing with toddlers, heading back to work, discipline methods and much more.

I recently became a stay at home mom, or a work at home mom who does some freelance writing, to Noah, born December 21, 2007. He is almost eight weeks old and I love him more than life itself. We live with my hardworking and devoted husband, Marc, four cats and a yappy little dog.

Dave Taylor at Attachment Parenting Blog says, “The more we travel and the more I interact with kids of other families, the more I wonder whether we have a pocket of quasi-Luddites, veritable Amish families who are actually hurting their children by turning our collective backs on the marvels of modern technology and electronic gizmos.”

Of course, we all know how necessary it is to own and use gizmos in order to live a rich and full life. That’s why everybody born before our generation lived boring, unfulfilled lives. You should buy a gizmo for a child today. It doesn’t matter what kind or color.

Significantly, Dave admits that gizmos attract him and his church. I think that admission is nothing to be ashamed of. It shows he knows what he’s talking about. I support him in his neo-Luddism. I practice it myself.

The truth is that, like a drug, technology has the ability to become more appealing than real life. For the long term, my advice is to bet on real life. Just say No to gizmos for your children. At least, say Wait.

Does attachment parenting teach children that they’re safe because mommy and daddy will never leave them? Or does it teach them that if mommy and daddy ever leave, they won’t be safe?

It seems more sensible to teach children, at some point, that mommy and daddy will leave them, that mommy and daddy will make mistakes, that mommy and daddy want to hold up a standard that they may fail to reach themselves.

Any thoughts?

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that a worldview without suffering is not a view of the world we live in. Raising them to live in a different world might make parents feel good, but I don’t think it’s not responsible. People can go on and on, asking why God doesn’t prevent earthquakes (though can you prevent them?), but the fact is that there are earthquakes. People suffer cold in the winter, and they suffer from heat in the summer. That’s the world your children live in.

Those who think that raising peaceful children means never spanking them should consider how the Amish raise their children. They raise them not only to be peaceful, but to be forgiving, even when a gunman seizes their classroom. But they don’t raise them without spanking them.

Some theories of gentle parenting are only compatible with vegetarianism. Parents are trying to teach their children that the world is happy and peaceful, in which case their view is probably not compatible with watching television either. They want to show their children a world without suffering, without sacrifice, but not without meat.

Farm kids know where meat comes from. For most of the rest of us, we let someone else, someone at the slaughterhouse, face the suffering and sacrifice that meat eating makes necessary.

Of course, it’s important to some parents to raise their children to be cheerful vegetarians. If not, here’s a challenge: help them to clean their own fish or process their own chicken. Then help them fit what they see into the view of the world you want them to have.