API gives a little 411 to CBS

Didn't catch the show, but apparently CBS's Early Morning Show did a piece on sleep training for infants. Attachment Parenting International wrote a letter to CBS in response to this piece. A gentle reminder that babies cry because they need us, not because they're evil.

Dr. James McKenna

Just wanted to put up a quick link to this website that highlights some of Dr. James McKenna's work on "The Natural Child Project". This man is pretty brilliant and lets just say that he's more than done his homework in the field of baby biology. He's a professor and anthropologist and supports the attachment style of parenting. He is quoted often in "Our Babies, Ourselves" which is a great book about how our culture dictates the way we parent, and sometimes at the expense of our children. Thankfully God gave us instincts to listen to when we get off track...

Oh, on a side note, I just read that pop psychologist Dr. Phil does not in fact advocate co-sleeping and believes that it creates co-dependency. Doesn't he also give advice to overweight people on weight loss? Hmmmm... just one more reason to support co-sleeping!!

Look Honey, the duvet matches the baby's eyes!!

I was just feeding Sofia upstairs in the guest room where she spends her first few hours of night sleeping until I come and bring her to bed with us, and I was musing about something I had read on a BabyCenter message board today. I had an email from the "Center" this morning and the caption read, "How to keep your kids in their beds"Immediately my curiousity was piqued. Not because I'm trying to coerce my children into their own rooms, but because I wanted to see what the "sleep experts" were telling everyone this time. Basically I got linked into an assortment of recent, related postings on the family bed; those for it, those against it, those who didn't even know they had one. Anyway, I ended up reading some of the comments and got my dander up when I saw that one mother had responded to another saying that family beds were "for mommies and daddies", implying of course that they are not practiced with the best interests of the child in mind. She went on to say that she loves her kids as much as any other parent, but when a child is walking and drinking from a cup it's time for them to go into a "big girl/big boy" bed. I'm not certain what the correlation is between a child being mobile and being ready to sleep alone, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the more you look or act like an adult (however vaguely) the more you should be expected to behave like one. Anyway, when she mentioned something about getting a child's room decked out for them, I couldn't help thinking that the crib and baby bedding manufacturer's must fear the concept of the family bed. Think of the millions they would lose in this country if all expectant parents were to register for a king size bed instead of the matching cherry sleigh crib and changing table set at "Babeez Etc." No little cute crib sheets with bunnies or mobiles that play Brahms (for only 10 minutes and then it needs new batteries) and certainly no more of those slider/rockers with buttery chenille slipcovers that retail for about $1100. No wonder everyone tells you how expensive it is to have a baby! Nope, all we would need would be a bedrail to keep baby from falling out and maybe a nightlight so we could see baby a little bit in the dark.

With all that said, who's going to take advantage of us family bed types?? I'm a sucker for a shabby chic bedroom as much as the next gal, but how do I pull it off when I've got a twin bed attached to my queen that has sailboats all over its bedspread?? How can I coordinate the assorted dog and puppy stuffed animals with the various bears and monkeys?My God, none of them match at all! Oh, I could get some of those trendy wall storage cubes and house all the different sippy cups that have collected in the room over the week. The possibilities are endless and my husband's pockets are deep, so what are they waiting for???

Checkers Anyone??

David was looking for a particular size Megablok the other day and was upset because he couldn't find all of them. If you don't know Megabloks, they're pretty much like Leggos, but for little hands. He was looking for the ones with only one knob and collected all the ones he could find in his playroom and I found a few more and he asked to go downstairs, so we did. I was feeding Sofia in the dining room while he played quietly on the floor in the living room and usually that can be a sign of danger and that he may be doing something he's not supposed to. This time however he came out to see me after a few minutes and said, "Come play checkers with me, Mommy!" I was a little puzzled because I know we don't have a checker board, but then I remembered one of his books has a picture of one so maybe that's where he got the idea. I told him we didn't have checkers, but that I'd play something else with him in a minute and then he ran back into the living room and from my seat I could see that he did indeed have a checker board. David had taken each of the single Megablok pieces and lined them up in rows on our living room rug. The rug is a muted pattern, but does have adjacent, differently colored squares on it, much like a checkerboard and he had made one right in the middle of the floor. I was really astounded that he was able to recreate that same pattern (well, not EXACTLY the same, but pretty darn close!) after having only seen one in a picture not more than a couple times. It just continually amazes me the things that David sees each day that I don't. It's a good reminder that at least once a day I should try to look at things the way he does. Maybe if I did I wouldn't miss so much...

My first blog

This is my first post here at the newly created blog, which my husband Ernesto set up for me while I had a glass of wine and told him what to do. He's a little blog-happy and knows his way around better than I, so I let him go to it. He' s been trying for a while now to get me to start my own blog (and to contribute to his) so here I am. My intentions for this blog are to share my attachment parenting stories, insights, musings and related links so that others can draw from them in some way that is meaningful. That is the hope, anyway, so we'll see how it goes. A lot will depend on how often I post and how much info I can get on here in the next couple of weeks. The actual free time I have is a small window that opens when the kids go to bed until I go to bed. Or when one of the kids wakes up, which is Sofia lately, who is on the verge of crawling and I suspect the excitement of attaining such a milestone baby feat is keeping her from sound sleep. But tonight while Ernesto and I were giddily brainstorming on my new blog, David was the first one up, or down I should say as we heard a loud thud followed by a drowsy whimper and assumed correctly that David had fallen out of bed. How any child can make his way during sleep off a bed of that size is beyond me, but he's done it more than once. I used to keep the bedrail at the foot of the bed (which is where he falls off) but he got kind of stuck in it once and then I needed it for Sofia's bed, where it is now. And since falling out of bed doesn't seem to wake him up at all (I picked him up, put him back under the covers and he just rubbed his nose, smacked his lips and sighed before rolling over on his side) I guess he's no worse for the wear.

You may wonder what any of this has to do with attachment parenting. Well, nothing I guess, unless you consider that David's bed is directly adjacent to our own and Ernesto spends a good deal of the night getting kicked and jabbed by our 28-month old, who is still learning to "share space". Our kids are in bed with us every night for a couple of really good reasons. They want to be there, and we want them to be there. And we are able to get some sleep now, which we did not the first year of David's life before deciding to sleep share. We learned a lot of lessons that year, and there's a lot those parenting books don't tell you, but should. But much more on that later...I've got to go reassure Ernesto that I'm not in here writing a novel. Now he's wondering what he started...