Attachment Parenting...

I'm a tad bit crunchy when it comes to the attachment parenting. I'm by no means against routines, consistency in discipline, or kids sleeping in their own beds. In fact, I'm in favor of all of them...just not as rigidly as some. I've been doing quite a bit of research over the past few years on some of the more staunch proponents of this type of thing, such as Pearl and Ezzo. Sometime I might actually take the time and wade through my opinions on their writings (sweeping generalization: stay away)...but it will take some doing, because in my opinion both of these authors' recommendations get rather convoluted, contributing further to my unease with them.

Anyway, there's a mil-family back in MA who were sort of distant acquaintances through work; ie, I never me them, but the husband/dad worked in my building. Their younger kiddo was born 3 months before His Highness. He had a heart defect, which required surgery and a few other interventions along the way. He had been doing pretty well, but over the past month or so he had some complications which built & built, and finally last week they had to make the horrendously-difficult decision to let him go peacefully. I mean, there wasn't much of a choice really, but I'm thinking anytime you have to shut off the life support of a loved one it's a horrendously-difficult thing to do. Maybe especially when it's your kiddo.

Just before I found out about all of this, I had again been contemplating whether or not it would be worth the trouble to formulate my Pearl/Ezzo manifesto(s)...but this contemplation was short-lived. I simply needed to go watch His Highness sleep. And when he woke in the middle of the night and the Cat Daddy brought him into our room, I felt the need to let him curl up between us on our bed, instead of taking him back to his own. And today at naptime I certainly made him sleep (he was tired, after all), but I found it necessary to snuggle up and doze a bit myself while he contentedly sang, and talked, and fidgeted his way to sleep (and whacked me in the head a couple times). And again at bedtime.

We'll get back to the sleep training soon enough, and I probably will do a review of my studies in child training, but sometimes there's no doubt when you need to toss aside "the methods" for a while, along with all the controversies and debates surrounding them, in favor of more important things...