Advocates of attachment parenting argue that promptly attending to your baby’s needs fosters a secure bond.
Attachment parenting comprises seven habits aimed at cultivating a secure attachment between a baby and caregiver, including breastfeeding, baby-wearing, and birth bonding, among others.
In theory, attachment parenting’s emphasis on closeness holds significant appeal. However, in practice, its demands can become exhausting and unrealistic when taken to an extreme.
“Parents can often experience feelings of guilt or shame when they fall short of the high standard of constant availability,” explains Jessie Stern, Ph.D., a research fellow in psychology at the University of Virginia.
Here’s a breakdown of what this parenting style excels at and where it may fall short.
What is attachment parenting?
Attachment parenting, a term coined by husband-and-wife authors Bill Sears, M.D., and Martha Sears, R.N., in their 2001 book, The Attachment Parenting Book, revolves around the belief that babies possess a biological inclination to “attach” to their caregivers.
The core idea is that by sensitively responding to your baby’s needs—both physical and emotional—you foster a secure, nurturing bond between you and your child. This approach extends into the early childhood years through spending quality time with your child, empathetically addressing their emotions, and employing positive discipline methods.
However, in practice, attachment parenting is more nuanced than its basic principles suggest.
Characteristics of attachment parents
Attachment parenting advocates adhere to seven “Baby B” guidelines:
- Birth Bonding: Emphasizes skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth to promote bonding.
- Breastfeeding: Encourages breastfeeding to fulfill both nutritional and emotional needs.
- Baby-Wearing: Involves carrying your baby in a wrap or sling to promote closeness and attachment.
- Bedding Close to Baby: Includes room-sharing or bed-sharing to facilitate nighttime closeness and responsiveness to the baby’s needs.
- Belief in Your Baby’s Cry: Promotes responsive parenting by advocating for parents to attentively respond to their baby’s cries.
- Beware of Baby Trainers: Caution against methods such as sleep training or feeding babies on a schedule that may interfere with the baby’s natural cues and needs.
- Balance: Encourages parents to maintain balance by attending to their own needs while caring for their baby.
“Attachment parenting is, in a nutshell, being very sensitive to the child’s needs and meeting those early needs for emotional connection and physical closeness,” explains Cathy Guttentag, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Children’s Learning Institute at UTHealth Houston.
Pros of attachment parenting
Attachment parenting offers several potential benefits for families, including:
- Skin-to-Skin Contact: Research indicates that skin-to-skin contact can stabilize a newborn’s heart rate and blood sugar levels. It also contributes to better sleep, reduced crying, and improved breastfeeding success.
- Breastfeeding: Breastfeeding is associated with numerous health benefits for both babies and mothers, including a lower risk of infections, tooth decay, obesity, diabetes, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
- Room-Sharing: Sharing a room with your baby (not bed-sharing) is linked to a decreased risk of SIDS by up to 50%. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends room-sharing ideally until the baby is at least 12 months old.
- Baby-Wearing: Carrying your baby in a sling or wrap fosters bonding and closeness between parent and baby, leading to reduced crying and increased comfort.
- Responsive Parenting: Being sensitive and responsive to your baby’s cries promotes a strong parent-child bond and is associated with positive outcomes for children’s emotional development.
These aspects of attachment parenting can contribute to the well-being and development of both parents and children.
Cons of attachment parenting
While being attentive to your baby’s needs can benefit your child, it can also lead to parental burnout, especially when combined with sleep deprivation. Cathy Guttentag notes, “There’s this misconception that you have to be this selfless, endless fountain of patience and saintliness.” Continuous availability to meet your child’s needs at every moment is unrealistic.
Not every parent can breastfeed or wear their baby continuously throughout the day. Additionally, bed-sharing, while sometimes practiced in attachment parenting, is discouraged by the AAP due to its association with SIDS, especially when combined with other risk factors like parental smoking or sleeping on a couch or armchair.
While some attachment parenting practices are beneficial for babies, there’s limited evidence that attachment parenting fosters a secure attachment between a baby and the caregiver. Furthermore, practices like sleep training have not been shown to pose harm.
It’s essential to provide children with age-appropriate opportunities to develop independence. Overly clinging parenting styles may hinder a child’s healthy exploration and independence, potentially leading to anxious attachment.
Attachment parenting often places significant demands on mothers while sidelining fathers, which can be unfair and detrimental to both fathers and children’s development. Fathers can play crucial roles in caregiving and should not be excluded from parenting responsibilities.
In conclusion, while attachment parenting offers many guidelines, it’s not necessary to follow them all to develop a secure bond with your baby. Jessie Stern suggests that what children truly need is “good enough” parenting, where parents respond to their child most, but not necessarily all, of the time.
