Securing the Bond of Attachment, without Breastfeeding, Co-Sleeping, or Spoiling.
Although the theory of attachment parenting has evolved to mean doing whatever it takes to make your child happy; the bond of attachment to a caregiver during the first year of life is of special concern.
The bond of attachment that a baby forms with a caregiver is crucial for the development of a baby's trust in the environment. In addition to building trust in the environment, a solid attachment lets babies know they are worthy of being loved. Loving a baby, teaches a baby to love himself. These become the adults able to form healthy relationships in life, with the ones they love.
The caregiver's role in making a baby feel safe and loved becomes the baby's foundation, needed for all that must be coped with in life. Babies who have consistently had their needs met by their environment, through the actions of a loving caregiver (who does not fail to respond in expected ways), are babies better able to adjust to all the things life may throw at them.
The bond that is formed between the baby and his caregiver this way, is a positive tie of love that is stronger than the threat of relationship issues that later years may bring. The bond of attachment will hold the parent-child relationship together, after it seems to have been ripped apart. It is an underlying foundation that allows a child to know, from somewhere in the most basic corners of their soul, that their place in this world is valued and was meant to be.
Attachment without Breastfeeding
The bond of attachment is not created only by those who breastfeed. Non-maternal caregivers, fathers, and mothers who choose a bottle can bond with a baby also. Breastfeeding is Nature's way of making sure that a bond develops during feeding.
Aside from the obvious physical contact, Nature has designed things so that a woman's face is about nine inches from the eyes of the baby feeding at her breast. This is the same distance that babies can see during the early stages of vision development. When a mother breastfeeds and looks into the eyes of her child, she communicates the warmth and safety associated with unrushed nourishment. She feeds her baby's stomach and also his sense of worth and trust in the world.
Bonding without breastfeeding requires special understanding of attachment goals. It is very important to never prop" a baby's bottle. Aside from health risks such as rotten teeth and ear infections, that can occur when babies fall asleep with a bottle in their mouth, bottle prop-ing can compromise a baby's trust in the environment and in his caretaker.
The warmth and safety that comes to be associated with unrushed nourishment, is missing for babies, when busy moms use a blanket to hold the bottle in their baby's mouth. Being able to multitask, and get something done while baby is eating, is not worth the risk this presents to the child's development.
Baby's have digestion issues that cause them to release the nipple often during feeding. How can a hungry baby trust her environment when she must repeatedly wait form mom to re-insert the bottle into her mouth? If mom or another caregiver is not there, there is no eye contact either. There is a reason why infants can see for a distance of 9 inches. If you are not at the other end of a baby's bottle, then you are not sharing the eye contact necessary for bonding.
To form a bond of attachment with a bottle fed baby, hold the baby during feeding. If you do not hold the baby, you must at least hold the bottle. The baby learns to trust both you, and the environment, by being able to see you; and by you helping him through the burps of feeding. It is hard for babies to trust the world around them, when the bottle feeding them, keeps jumping out of their mouth!
The routine of feeding comes to mean safety in the world, that the baby can count on. If feeding time is rushed, random, or treated as an inconvenience, the bond and self-esteem, that unrushed nourishment offers, is lost.
Attachment without Co-Sleeping
Despite the fact that it may be denied by women who don't appreciate their marital bed, sleeping with an infant risks the life of the baby, as well as, the marriage. Single mothers, who find comfort keeping baby close at night, should consider that current safety recommendations ask parents to not bring babies to bed with them.
It is not just a fear that the body of a sleeping adult might accidentally cover a baby. The type of bedding found in an adults bed, has been to blame in many infant deaths. Another baby killer is the space between the bed and the wall. Babies have become wedged in this space and died.
Using a monitor to listen to baby from a distance, or having baby near the bed, but in a crib, allows the baby to enjoy cycles of sleep fully; while allowing the adult to respond to wakeful crying only. By responding to the cries of a baby who has awakened (and sleeping through the normal "false alarm crying" that is the fussing noises that all babies make while sleeping), the parent helps themselves and their child.
Using an inexpensive baby monitor that allows you to hear when your baby needs you, will allow parents like me to shoot out of bed and fly to the side of the crib as soon as the crying begins. As one child is blessed with more siblings, the crib may end up in the parents' bedroom. In either case, the short distance of space between you and your baby is enough to give a baby the self-efficacy needed to be his own leader in life while letting everyone get the best sleep possible.
Learning to sleep through the pseudo cries, and react consistently and lovingly the minute you are needed, no matter what the hour, are things that are learned when forming a bond of attachment with a baby. But this same bond of attachment, will boarder on codependency, when babies are brought to bed with adults.
Enough point is made here, to remove any need to mention the obvious risk that jeopardizes a marriage, when parents bring a baby to bed.
Every marriage includes things that bother us. Things we don't want to deal with. Thing that our other half does. Ways they make us feel. Some of these things even have to do with the life of two people between the hours of going to bed and having breakfast. However, if any of these things are solved by bring your baby to bed with you, then you are using your child to meet your adult needs.
If, to take a different consideration, you are an adult who slept alone before becoming a parent, and you much prefer the bond that sleeping in the same bed with your baby builds; please be aware that it is not the healthiest for development, nor is it the safest way to avoid harm. The bond of attachment that infants need to form, for the best outcomes in child development, is formed when adults sleep apart, but close to, their infants.
Attachment without Spoiling
The fact that bottles can be as good as the breast; and that babies prefer to be awaken by adults only when they are already awake, might be distorted and said to mean that I disapprove of things that allow me maximum closeness with my babies.
In reality I have given breastfeeding my best shot, not once but four times. After even an expensive pump was unable to accomplish what my baby and I were attempting, I decided that some women are not the lactate-ers they should be in life. Being sensitive to my baby's wants has meant giving in to the bottle each time.
Besides achieving the physical demands of lactating enough, sore tender areas, and discomfort from having to hold the nursing pose; the amount of time at the breast is absolutely incredible. This translates directly into the amount that the attachment bond is enhanced. If you are breastfeeding, then none of the respect you deserve should be lost, here. You are doing what Nature intended.
When it comes to building a bond of attachment, without question, those who breastfeed are doing the do.
I have been able to do it with a bottle. And although I have slept in the same bed with my babies before, I know that I have parented best when giving them their own sleeping space.
My first child wore a body cast until her first birthday. It was the way the doctors dealt with the congenital hip dysplasia she shared with my grandmother and myself. Inside the cast, she was stiff from the arm pits down. She could not be set down or she would simply fall over, forward or backward, on her petrified mummy legs. She also had colic and screamed 18 hours a day.
She could not be set down. Holding my baby too much was not my choice. I would joke and say things like, Thank goodness she's so cute!" But the truth is that, we love a baby by giving her what she needs.
It is impossible to hold a baby too much. My daughter will be sixteen this summer. She is a model student, who is a model citizen; and leader who mentors children at her church.
She did not have the safest environment. It was not always predictable. On nights when she had to be at the hospital the next morning, she could not be fed after midnight. This means that when my baby woke up for her 2 a.m. feeding, I had no way of making my infant understand why I could not feed her.
Every two months the cast would need to be removed so that a bigger one could be put on her growing body. The saw that cut through the cast, over my baby's chest, was loud. The sound caused her to cry when she heard a vacuum later. If the vacuum was turned on at home, the sound of it reminded her of the saw that frightened her in the doctor's office.
When each cast was removed, small cuts and scrapes were seen on her skin. The cuts were caused by the rough cast after the padding of the cast had worn away. Worn away, because even babies in body casts are active; and she certainly was a little wiggle worm!
She had pain and discomfort. She had colic. Sometimes she was denied food for medical reasons. How did she learn to trust in her environment? She was held.
Sling your baby. Carry your baby. Hold your baby. If you need a break, let someone else hold your baby for as long as needed. Every chance you can. For as long as you can. If you like others to hold your baby, let your baby be held all the time. It is not possible to spoil a baby by holding it too much. Before long a baby will be too heavy to hold.
I have decided that the only reason humans grow hair on their head is because Nature had intended for human babies to have a way to hang on for themselves! Hair is like the gums of our teeth. Not brushing makes teeth and hair weak. Just think what long beautiful hair we would all have if we let our children use it for attachment!