Anyone here into this? My wife is really keen on this stuff... part of several online communities... I have to admit I haven't read or thought as much about it, but most things she tells me about seem only natural to me...
Attachment Parenting
sometimes...
I'm into certain parts of it. Like, the babywearing thing is totally fantastic. When my baby girl was little, I could get SO much done around the house, and out shopping, and stuff... just had her in a Baby Bjorn carrier, and went everywhere. It was awesome.
My big point I always need to make about attachment parenting (and really all parenting) is that you have to go with your baby. My baby girl is VERY independent. At 2 months old, she would sometimes cry inconsolably, and the only way to calm her down was to put her down on the floor and leave her all alone. She never snuggled, or hugged, until maybe around 16 months old. Just not a cuddly baby. Perfectly sweet, but a fierce loner. So things like co-sleeping were just not an option with her. I'll have to see what my second baby is like... I'd love to try more of the attachment parenting stuff, but you never know what baby you're going to get.
yeah, baby-wearing is super!
I totally agree about going with the baby - it seems to me that a lot of the people who are hard into AP ignore the possibility that some of its tenants may not apply very well to everyone... but of course that is true of any hardliner :-)
I used a Moby wrap when my son was an infant and later got a mei tai sling, which I still use sometimes. I often have it with me when we go out so if my son gets tired of walking I can just strap him to my back and carry on. My wife has a couple other slings that she likes to use as well, but some of them are just too girly for me :-D
My son never liked to be left on his own, so without a sling the first few months, we never would have got anything done!
slings and things
The Moby wrap seems pretty cool... we're inheriting one from a friend, and I'm really looking forward to trying it out with the coming addition to our family! My trouble with all the baby wearing devices is that so many of them seem to have such a steep learning curve to get the fit right and all.
We have an Ergo carrier we used with our first. It's pretty awesome, but really only my wife could ever use it. When I would try to put the baby in there, she would get so angry about all my fiddling, and trying to get it to fit right, and adjusting... In the end, my wife and I basically each had our own carrier, so we could just find the perfect fit and leave it there.
So I worry about the Moby wrap... it looks like a great idea, but does it take a long time to figure out? Seems like an awful lot of cloth to wrangle while you have a squirmy baby around.
moby
yes, the Moby wrap is pretty cool for infants, but since it is not woven cotton, it stretches and isn't so great after they get heavier. That being said, I really loved it; you can easily tie it on so you have the baby in front or on the hip (never could manage the on-the-back move with the Moby wrap).
I agree that it seems daunting at first, but contrary to a mei tai, you tie on the Moby wrap and THEN put the baby in. So you are not fumbling around trying to tie it with the baby on you. That means you have plenty of time to examine the online instructional videos and tie it on before even picking up the baby :-)
On a humorous side note, I always felt like a Roman, wrapping myself in a toga when I put it on... and you get some good stares in stores when you start flinging that fabric around... and once, a guy took a picture of me using it on an air plane - he was clearly impressed!
Joined: 2010-02-16
Dad Points: 105