The Foundation of Attachment: Responding to Your Baby
As a new mother I was really hard-line (Make that "judging"!) on parents. I bristled at every pacifier, every stroller, and the sight of a baby bottle, especially in the mouth of a tiny infant, sent me into a rage! But I have mellowed to the point where I realize parenting is not a competition. I am no longer very interested in noting who nurses the longest, or who uses a pacifier. Everyone has their own opinion, their bottom line, regarding what attachment parenting is, and what it is not. I have my own bottom line, and it causes me considerable amusement that here I am, walking around, viewing myself as a social revolutionary, when a lot of my own people would see me as mainstream, or at least mainstream-ish!
When you get right down to it, we attachment parents, from all walks of life, have banded together for the sake of children. We believe that their welfare is more important than the differences between us. So, though our views on politics, nutrition, schooling etc., may differ, we accept, and live with those differences for the sake of the community we are trying to build. We hang together despite them.
There is consensus on some things. Most attachment parents breastfeed, but there are of course those isolated cases of breast-reduction problems, chronic thrush, adoption etc.. Most attachment parents co-sleep, but there are a million variations on that situation. Is a sidecar co-sleeping? Most people would say yes. How about a bassinet next to the bed? How about all the babies put down in a crib at night, and only brought into bed after the first feeding?
There is only one thing that all attachment parents can agree on, one underlying precept. What it all comes down to is responding sensitively to your baby’s cues. All the other attachment parenting tools (connecting with baby as soon as possible after birth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, co-sleeping) are just that: tools, tools to help you respond to your baby more sensitively, tools to better allow you to meet his/her needs, but it is the responding that is the crux of the thing.
It is almost paralyzingly frustrating to me, that with all the research that has been generated in the last thirty years on the benefits, the necessity really, of responding to your baby, that western culture remains mired in behavioral psychologist sludge from the 1930’s. “Don’t let him manipulate you!” “Just let him cry it out!” “If you keep picking her up every time she cries, she’ll just cry all the time!” These, the familiar refrains of our culture, keep sticking around like derelict husks from a bygone era, despite a wealth of research that has debunked the behaviorists’ theories. Watson, the leading behavioral proponent of the day, was famous for saying things like “The sensible way to bring up children is to treat them as young adults - never hug and kiss them.” (Watson, 1928) He and his colleagues believed that babies were born “a blank slate” or a “lively squirming bit of flesh” as Watson was wont to say. In his view, babies were born with no innate abilities, did not feel pain, and needed to be programmed like computers in order to grow into orderly, self-disciplined, contributing members of society. Holding, rocking, and responding were sure ways to spoil a child, make them willful, self- indulgent, and ensure they would turn into criminals and derelicts. To answer a child’s cry was to contribute to the downfall of civilization! Thus did scheduling become the norm, and sleep- training too, as parents were discouraged from touching their babies except to feed and change them. It was the age of science, and “scientific child-raising” reigned supreme.
The poor parents of the day wanted only the best for their babies, and struggled to ignore their instincts, shuck off the advice of their “backward” parents, and move towards a golden scientific future. At one point, one company was even working on an automated system of baby care, a machine that would feed baby, burp baby and change baby all by itself, so the parent would never have to touch the baby at all! After all, touching the baby was unhygienic! That sounds ridiculous to us now, but at the time, so soon after Lister’s discovery of bacteria, hygiene was all the rage, and parents of the day wanted only to raise their babies in the best, latest way, keeping them safe from germs, and ensuring that they would grow into happy functioning members of society. Instead they raised a whole generation of people more prone to anxiety, depression, aggression, and problems with intimacy and commitment.
So what about those pesky old comments and questions we get continually?: “Don’t let him manipulate you!”, “Just let him cry it out!”, “If you keep picking her up every time she cries, she’ll just cry all the time!”. Close your ears! A want and a need are the same thing from a baby’s point of view. S/he does not know the difference between a need you deem worthy of attention, say food, and a need you do not, say, a mother’s touch. Babies only know they NEED. If you let your baby cry, s/he learns that you are untrustworthy. In her life, you are not going to be there for her when she needs you. And as for that crying thing. It’s not true. Studies have demonstrated that a baby whose cries are responded to regularly cry less, and less, and less...
We aren’t really set up in our culture to do attachment parenting. We are, most of us, really just making the best of a bad situation. We humans were designed to live in extended family units like they do in the parts of the world where attachment parenting is still the norm. There are meant to be multiple sets of familiar, loving arms around, to hold baby for a minute, so mom can bathe, or braid her hair. And baby is meant to enjoy close attachments with a variety of auxiliary people.
There was no one there in the morning to hold my baby for a minute so I could brush my toddler’s teeth, or in the evening, make dinner for my family . I put her in one of those often overused and abused modern conveniences, the swing. I am doing the best I can like all of you. Like you though, you attachment parents, I stop what I am doing and go to her when she calls for her Mama. I try to respond to her cues before she has to cry. She will grow up knowing that we, her parents, trust her judgment. We will not decide for her which of her problems deserve our attention and which do not, and as a result she will learn to trust us to be there for her whenever she needs us. How lucky are the children who have their voices heard, to be treated like human beings, how fortunate to have been born to you.
1. PBS in conjunction with Group Health Cooperative, Childhood, aired October/November 1992.
2. Schneider McClure, V. Infant Massage, A Handbook for Loving Parents, New York: Bantam Books, 1979.
3. Sears MD., W. The Fussy Baby, Franklin Park Ill.: La Leche League Intl., 1985.
As a new mother I was really hard-line (Make that "judging"!) on parents. I bristled at every pacifier, every stroller, and the sight of a baby bottle, especially in the mouth of a tiny infant, sent me into a rage! But I have mellowed to the point where I realize parenting is not a competition. I am no longer very interested in noting who nurses the longest, or who uses a pacifier. Everyone has their own opinion, their bottom line, regarding what attachment parenting is, and what it is not. I have my own bottom line, and it causes me considerable amusement that here I am, walking around, viewing myself as a social revolutionary, when a lot of my own people would see me as mainstream, or at least mainstream-ish!
When you get right down to it, we attachment parents, from all walks of life, have banded together for the sake of children. We believe that their welfare is more important than the differences between us. So, though our views on politics, nutrition, schooling etc., may differ, we accept, and live with those differences for the sake of the community we are trying to build. We hang together despite them.
There is consensus on some things. Most attachment parents breastfeed, but there are of course those isolated cases of breast-reduction problems, chronic thrush, adoption etc.. Most attachment parents co-sleep, but there are a million variations on that situation. Is a sidecar co-sleeping? Most people would say yes. How about a bassinet next to the bed? How about all the babies put down in a crib at night, and only brought into bed after the first feeding?
There is only one thing that all attachment parents can agree on, one underlying precept. What it all comes down to is responding sensitively to your baby’s cues. All the other attachment parenting tools (connecting with baby as soon as possible after birth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, co-sleeping) are just that: tools, tools to help you respond to your baby more sensitively, tools to better allow you to meet his/her needs, but it is the responding that is the crux of the thing.
It is almost paralyzingly frustrating to me, that with all the research that has been generated in the last thirty years on the benefits, the necessity really, of responding to your baby, that western culture remains mired in behavioral psychologist sludge from the 1930’s. “Don’t let him manipulate you!” “Just let him cry it out!” “If you keep picking her up every time she cries, she’ll just cry all the time!” These, the familiar refrains of our culture, keep sticking around like derelict husks from a bygone era, despite a wealth of research that has debunked the behaviorists’ theories. Watson, the leading behavioral proponent of the day, was famous for saying things like “The sensible way to bring up children is to treat them as young adults - never hug and kiss them.” (Watson, 1928) He and his colleagues believed that babies were born “a blank slate” or a “lively squirming bit of flesh” as Watson was wont to say. In his view, babies were born with no innate abilities, did not feel pain, and needed to be programmed like computers in order to grow into orderly, self-disciplined, contributing members of society. Holding, rocking, and responding were sure ways to spoil a child, make them willful, self- indulgent, and ensure they would turn into criminals and derelicts. To answer a child’s cry was to contribute to the downfall of civilization! Thus did scheduling become the norm, and sleep- training too, as parents were discouraged from touching their babies except to feed and change them. It was the age of science, and “scientific child-raising” reigned supreme.
The poor parents of the day wanted only the best for their babies, and struggled to ignore their instincts, shuck off the advice of their “backward” parents, and move towards a golden scientific future. At one point, one company was even working on an automated system of baby care, a machine that would feed baby, burp baby and change baby all by itself, so the parent would never have to touch the baby at all! After all, touching the baby was unhygienic! That sounds ridiculous to us now, but at the time, so soon after Lister’s discovery of bacteria, hygiene was all the rage, and parents of the day wanted only to raise their babies in the best, latest way, keeping them safe from germs, and ensuring that they would grow into happy functioning members of society. Instead they raised a whole generation of people more prone to anxiety, depression, aggression, and problems with intimacy and commitment.
So what about those pesky old comments and questions we get continually?: “Don’t let him manipulate you!”, “Just let him cry it out!”, “If you keep picking her up every time she cries, she’ll just cry all the time!”. Close your ears! A want and a need are the same thing from a baby’s point of view. S/he does not know the difference between a need you deem worthy of attention, say food, and a need you do not, say, a mother’s touch. Babies only know they NEED. If you let your baby cry, s/he learns that you are untrustworthy. In her life, you are not going to be there for her when she needs you. And as for that crying thing. It’s not true. Studies have demonstrated that a baby whose cries are responded to regularly cry less, and less, and less...
We aren’t really set up in our culture to do attachment parenting. We are, most of us, really just making the best of a bad situation. We humans were designed to live in extended family units like they do in the parts of the world where attachment parenting is still the norm. There are meant to be multiple sets of familiar, loving arms around, to hold baby for a minute, so mom can bathe, or braid her hair. And baby is meant to enjoy close attachments with a variety of auxiliary people.
There was no one there in the morning to hold my baby for a minute so I could brush my toddler’s teeth, or in the evening, make dinner for my family . I put her in one of those often overused and abused modern conveniences, the swing. I am doing the best I can like all of you. Like you though, you attachment parents, I stop what I am doing and go to her when she calls for her Mama. I try to respond to her cues before she has to cry. She will grow up knowing that we, her parents, trust her judgment. We will not decide for her which of her problems deserve our attention and which do not, and as a result she will learn to trust us to be there for her whenever she needs us. How lucky are the children who have their voices heard, to be treated like human beings, how fortunate to have been born to you.
1. PBS in conjunction with Group Health Cooperative, Childhood, aired October/November 1992.
2. Schneider McClure, V. Infant Massage, A Handbook for Loving Parents, New York: Bantam Books, 1979.
3. Sears MD., W. The Fussy Baby, Franklin Park Ill.: La Leche League Intl., 1985.
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