Attachment Parenting Is For Kids Of All Ages

Attachment Parenting is often summed up by the following 7 B’s, as described by everyone’s favorite AP-friendly pediatrician, Dr. Sears:

1. Birth bonding
2. Breastfeeding

3. Babywearing
4. Bedding close to baby
5. Belief in the language value of your baby’s cry

6. Beware of baby trainers
7. Balance

Of these seven, six specifically speak to the needs of babies. Balance is theoretically something that applies to parents no matter the age of your child.

What does AP look like, though, when you no longer have a baby or when your “baby” is no longer a baby? I turn to Attachment Parenting International, the leading official organization of education, resources and support for Attachment Parenting. Their description of AP involves eight main principles:

Preparing for pregnancy, birth, and parenting
Feed with Love and Respect
Respond with Sensitivity
Use Nurturing Touch
Ensuring Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally
Providing Consistent and Loving Care
Practice Positive Discipline
Strive for Balance

Of these, only the first could specifically refer to the stage of your life when you have a baby or are about to have one, but I could argue that even when you don’t have a baby, being prepared for the subsequent phases of parenting is still critical. All of the other principles still apply to my life and the life of my sons, even though they are no longer babies. They apply even though I am a working mom, just as all of the principles of AP apply to working parents””as well as stay-at-home parents, despite the obsession with AP as a privileged style of parenting made only for wealthy stay-at-home white women.

Let’s go over how the principles of AP still work in our family.

Feed with Love and Respect
Whether your child was breast-fed or bottle-fed, feeding and preparing food with a consciousness is something that continues to be important. Our country could use more support from the government in providing us with affordable, pesticide-free, organic produce and food options, but until then, it is the duty of every parent to do our best to feed our children in the best way we can. We can teach our children where food comes from so that they have an appreciation for the work and labor involved in the food they eat. Some people bring a religious consciousness into it, which in my home we do for meals on the Sabbath. I choose to raise my kids vegan, which is a way I feed my sons with a sense of love and respect for animals and the planet.

Respond with Sensitivity
As when my sons were babies, I always believe they are doing their best to get their needs met. If they are being whiny, unreasonable, cranky or physically destructive, it is almost always and I mean close to 100 percent of the time””because I have been out of touch with their needs, or I have been missing earlier cues of hunger, upset, or just plain need. It is still my job as my son’s mama to be sensitive to all of their needs, even when I think I myself am not getting all of my needs met!

Use Nurturing Touch
Every family is different about physical intimacy, and a lot of absurd and perverted attention is sometimes paid to those of us who breastfeed past what is socially acceptable as a breastfeeding age, or those of us who safely co-sleep, or even those of us who bathe with our babies or allow them to see us naked in the home. It is a human need to be touched and caressed and loved. Mammalian babies need that to thrive and to establish a healthy understanding of touch and intimacy. It is beneficial for our brains as mothers especially to touch our babies so that hormones that facilitate a strong establishment of a milk supply and a strong bond to baby are solidified. Even though my sons are not babies anymore, they still need to be hugged and touched positively. I used to do massages for them when they were babies, and sometimes we do modified massage where I will put some lavender oil around their necks and on the soles of their feet. They giggle and squirm and think it’s hysterical, but it’s another level of intimacy that is important, even though they’re not babies anymore.

Ensuring Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally
Are you ready for this? I still stay with my boys in their bed until they fall asleep. And you know what else? Sometimes they wake up early in the morning and want to cuddle with me in bed. You know what? I let them! You know what else? Sometimes they ask to fall asleep with me in bed. And do you know what I do? I do it! Sleep is a hard time for babies and children. It’s dark, it’s lonely, and you’re taken away from the person and people who keep you feeling the most secure.

We wonder why parents spend thousands of dollars on sleep coaches, why people battle sometimes for hours with children who refuse to fall asleep, and why children will start fights before bed and ask for “one more cuddle,” “one more kiss,” or “a cup of water.” I don’t. It’s because of our obsession with independent sleep from infancy. Most traditional cultures do not include sleeping alone; neither does our human history.

Those of us who safely co-sleep tend to find that bedtime is not a battle. My sons don’t fear sleep or bedtime. Do I lose some independence? Sure. Does it cut into my evenings? For now, yeah. But less than before. And I may have gotten a divorce, but thousands and thousands of years of evolution and thousands and thousands of couples who safely co-sleep and stay married should convince you, once and for all, that sleeping with or near your babies or children doesn’t cause divorce. Period. Safe sleep, both physically and emotionally, is a gift you give your babies and continue to give your children to form positive associations with sleep and a trust in the night.

Providing Consistent and Loving Care
While this tends to reflect the need of a baby for stability from a caregiver””be that a mom, dad, family member, friend, or daycare or babysitting facility of provider, the need for consistent loving care for children is important, even when they are no longer babies. The “latchkey kid” archetype from my childhood in the 1970s was my earliest introduction to the notion that it’s hard for kids to not have someone caring for them consistently. In many homes in America, both parents work, and I hope there continue to be more resources from our schools and communities to help kids be consistently and lovingly cared for when their parents can’t be with them. That’s as important to a five or 10 year-old as it is to a five-week or 10-month old.

Practice Positive Discipline
This is the one principle of AP that only gets more important as kids get older. I will never be able to stop this, even once my kids are out of my house and married and raising their own families. The principles of respectful communication, not using physical force, not using harsh punishment, threats, or withholding attention, love, or “goodies” will forever be a part of my life as my son’s mother. And this is the principle of AP you will find almost universally revered among AP parents. We may birth differently, feed our babies differently, or sleep differently, but positive discipline is a powerful and eternal concept of this style of parenting. Strive for Balance
All of parenting is a balance. No matter how you become a parent and no matter how old your children are, balancing your work, your personal life, your children’s needs, and the needs of your family will always be about balance.

While so much of AP’s publicity is about babies, it’s clear to me that these principles go well beyond the baby years and can help make us more conscious, more present, and more emotionally sensitive parents””for the well-being of our kids as well as of the people they will meet and interact with as they go out into the big, intimidating, and sometimes scary world. At least that’s my hope.

Mayim Hoya Bialik is an Emmy-nominated star of CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Bialik earned a B.S. from UCLA in 2000 in neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish studies, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA in 2007. She is currently the spokesperson for Texas Instruments, inspiring young women to engage in careers that involve science, technology, engineering, and math. In March 2012 Mayim released her first book on attachment parenting, Beyond the Sling. Her newest is Mayim’s Vegan Table, a cookbook. She is a columnist for the Jewish parenting site Kveller.com.