Attachment Parenting Month

Attachment Parenting is based in the practice of nurturing parenting methods that create strong emotional bonds, also known as secure attachment, between children and their parent(s). This style of parenting encourages responsiveness to children’s emotional needs, enabling children to develop trust that their needs will be met. As a result, this strong attachment helps children develop the capacity for secure, empathic, peaceful, and enduring relationships that follow them into adulthood.

This month of October is “Attachment Parenting Month” over on the Attachment Parenting International website and at events in many different locations.  The theme this year is “Giving Our Children Presence.”

From API:

“More than ever, parents are seeking to offer their children every possible advantage, and research confirms the immense emotional, social and cognitive benefits to children from receiving one-on-one, unstructured time with their parents,” said Barbara Nicholson, author and Co-founder of API. “Today’s busy schedules can be quite an obstacle for families seeking quality time, and Attachment Parenting Month, with its theme of “Giving Our Children Presence,” emphasizes the importance of – and ways to achieve – these moments.”

From Dr. William Sears about Attachment Parenting:

“Attachment Parenting is moving above the radar,” said William Sears, MD, noted parenting author, speaker and founder of AskDrSears.com, who wrote his first book about Attachment Parenting in the 1970s. “In nearly 40 years in pediatric practice and parenting our own 8 children Martha and I are seeing the long term benefits of attachment parented kids. They are caring kids who thrive on the quality of empathy. They are able to get behind the eyes of other people and imagine the effects of their behavior on others. They are high touch children in an otherwise high tech world. There’s no doubt our world needs more AP kids.”

API will promote all AP Month events through its Attachment Parenting Month Central web site, apmonth.attachmentparenting.org, where organizations and families can register their AP Month events, donate money or join API, find nearby AP Month activities, and review what the experts have to say about the importance of presence.

A Free CoSleeping Webinar & A Giveaway

Cosleeping is a very natural thing for humans to do since well, forever. It is very instinctual in us because if you left a baby or small child alone at night in the wild, they would be eaten. It is safer to sleep with your children and be able to easily take care and protect them. All cultures all over the world outside of modern day western society safely cosleep with their children. It also helps children and parents reconnect and bond – especially if the parents have been away at work all day, it’s nice to reconnect even if you are sleeping. Cosleeping helps to allay children’s fears at night, it’s easy to nurse or bottle feed them, and everyone I know that cosleeps gets to sleep more because they don’t have to get up and walk over to the kid’s bedrooms to feed or comfort their children – they are right there and are able to respond right away to their children’s cries (this is also called “nighttime parenting“). And we all know that a well-rested mama is a happy and nicer mama to her whole family.

Also, some children still want to sleep near their parents as they get a bit older. There is so much change happening in their world with rapid growth into toddlerhood, then becoming a preschooler and all that they are experiencing everyday it sometimes is a lot for them to take in and being near their parents is safe and comforting for them. This is the case with our son, who is an only child. Sometimes siblings like to cosleep with each other, too.

We added a twin bed to our bedroom and Leif sleeps in that. Everyone has space and sleeps well and Leif feels safe and secure. We don’t feel the need to force him out when he’s not ready because he truly is afraid whenever we have talked about it and we don’t mind, we love the bonding experience we still get to have with him. One day soon, he’ll want to move out of our room then only want to play with his friends and not us, etc. Early childhood is a very special time and it goes by entirely too fast!

I hope you will join in the webinar and learn more about the truth regarding safe cosleeping practices from the experts. See below for the details about this free webinar:

Join Mothering, James McKenna, Dr. Paul Fleiss and the founders of Attachment Parenting International for an exclusive webinar on cosleeping sponsored by Arms Reach (www.armsreach.com) on Friday, August 22, at 11am Pacific. Registration is free at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/island/webinar/registration.tmpl?id=721965936.

James McKenna is among the country’s leading experts in cosleeping safety. He is a researcher and the director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Paul Fleiss is a pediatrician and the author of Sweet Dreams: A Pediatrician’s Secrets for Baby’s Good Night Sleep, as well as numerous scientific articles published in leading national and international medical journals. Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker, Attachment Parenting International cofounders, will share their attachment parenting expertise.

Learn why cosleeping is both a natural and an effective way to foster a safe, nurturing environment for babies. Leading experts in the field will present their latest research and host a question and answer session.

On another note, don’t forget to check out Heather from A Mama’s Blog giveaway for 2 BPA-free Camelback water bottles!

photo © Nature Deva