Well said. Thanks for sharing this great entry!
Cynthia´s last [type] ..Attachment Parenting Series- Belief in the language value of your babys cry

This post was mentioned on Twitter by janetlansbury: RT @TheParentVortex: does #breastfeeding a baby on demand mean “silencing” with food? http://bit.ly/9W4Nwr...

Hannah – thanks for recommending The Aware Baby, I’ll check it out.

Hollie – it’s true, babies and toddlers do outgrow the need for nursing and carrying faster than we expect. Now that I’m nursing #2 I know how quickly that time will fly by. :)

Janet – I agree that parents are very powerful influences, and simply being with a child while they are upset is an important thing to do. We also need to know when to step in and make an effort to “fix” the hurt with comfort measures and when to let the child work through it themselves. This changes a lot with age, of course.

Tuning in sensitively to a baby’s needs means taking a moment to allow the baby to express those needs before we put her on the breast. Crying is the way a baby communicates a wide range of feelings. Crying is an expression of ‘self’ that must be welcomed, and not feared by the parent, or it is soon stifled. Psychologist Alice Miller’s book, “Drama of the Gifted Child,” examines the infant’s adaptation to a mother’s emotional needs. The sensitive infant wants to please the mother, it is basic survival. If the mother is uncomfortable with the baby’s cries, and rushes to fix them, a sensitive baby soon decides those feelings – that part of the baby’s ‘self’ – is unacceptable.

No one likes to hear a infant cry, but we must be mindful of the messages we unwittingly give our children. We are extremely powerful in our child’s life. The first few years are vital, and babies deserve the very best. They want to know that we(the gods!)can handle their upsets, and that they can handle them too, with our comforting support. Many of us can relate to the sense of having lost touch with our anger and sadness.

This sounds like another way to ‘find fault’ with attachment parenting. We did it because it made sense to us, and as a bonus, our son never cried. We feel confident/baby never cries, where the loss? Now, as a 2.5 year old, though he is weaned, he does seek us out during times of stress. I think that’s the way it should be.

The Aware Baby by Aletha Solter advocates gentle parenting while arguing that babies “need” to cry. Quite controversial and she addresses some of the points you bring up.

-Hannah (came via PhDinParenting’s Tweet)