The baby mafia

In my travels relating to all things Save Our Sleep, I came across a group of passionate Tizzie haters. Each forum had them; women stridently trying to persuade all the enquiring new mums to ditch the routine in favour of a warmer approach. While debate rages on some forums there are others that are ruled mafioso style by these parents who insist forced routines and sleep training do damage to babies.

Seeing how Tizzie didn’t exactly rock our world with her stopwatch and ‘close the door and have a cup of tea’ approach to getting your child to sleep, I thought I’d give the baby mafia (aka Attachment Parenting advocates) a closer look.

Attachment Parenting is based on eight principles. I won’t go into all eight, but basically they encourage the mother to pick up her child at birth (or before if at all possible) and not put it down until it turns twenty one, or gets married, which ever occurs first.

Where as Tizzie took her cues from the fifties post-war stiff upper lip culture, Attachment Parenting (AP) is based on a style of parenting found in less developed countries where communities consist of large extended family groups. In these communities children sleep with their parents until they are quite old, babies are almost always carried (known today as baby wearing) and leaving a baby to cry would be unheard of.

My partner was brought up in this manner, and while he has his quirks, he’s not totally screwed up. And who knows, maybe there will be some kind of genetic trigger that will be set off in Luca and he will suddenly start sleeping 8 hour stretches. But then I’m pretty sure I was brought up with a touch of the ‘let them cry it out’ method and he didn’t take too kindly to that.

Well, he does look a lot more like his dad than me so here’s hoping!