eShop USA > Books > Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child
Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child
List Price: $16.95Our Price: $12.55 You Save: $4.40 (26%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 649
EAN: 9780671027629
ISBN: 067102762X
Label: Atria
Manufacturer: Atria
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: August 01, 1999
Publisher: Atria
Studio: Atria
Accessories:
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review:
"Attachment to and dependency on parents... is a normal, healthy aspect of childhood and not something that needs to be discouraged." This quote from Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child sums up the attitude behind the growing shift in many Western cultures toward a labor-intensive but arguably more rewarding, effective, and "natural" way to raise children. This philosophy, termed "Attachment Parenting" by its champion, pediatrician and father of eight Dr. William Sears (author of the popular child-care manual The Baby Book, among others), sees infants not as manipulative adversaries who must be "trained" to eat, sleep, and play when told, but as dependent yet autonomous human beings whose wants and needs are intelligible to the parent willing to listen, and who deserve to be responded to in a reasonable and sensitive manner. As with Sears's books, there are no plans or schedules here, no specific prescriptions for what to do with your child. Techniques to facilitate connection and communication are outlined, but mostly the book is an exhortation to listen and to trust yourself, and to trust your child's ability to convey to you what he or she needs.
Information is provided in a well-organized format that parents will find useful. Common questions regarding some of Attachment Parenting's less orthodox tenets are answered, and each section of the book provides lengthy reading and resource lists, Web sites, and e-mail addresses. This book also provides a fairly broad discussion of how working parents can incorporate such a "high-touch" style of care into their busy schedules. The authors are sometimes painfully straightforward about the cost-benefit analysis parents must go through when deciding to work outside the home, but they do not patronize working parents by glossing over this difficult decision. They show how Attachment Parenting can be especially beneficial to these families and give advice on choosing child care, breastfeeding after returning to work, and the techniques for creating a breastfeeding-friendly workplace.
Given the overwhelming cultural paradigms that parents must resist if they are going to adopt this compassionate methodology, the book's sometimes defensive tone can be at least partially excused. As a whole, parents will find this a good overview of some compelling arguments for Attachment Parenting and a wonderful resource for delving deeper into the issues it addresses. How much of it they choose to integrate into their lives is, as the book emphasizes, their decision to make, with their baby. --Katherine Ferguson
Grow a secure attachment with your children by listening to your heart
Popularized by bestselling pediatrician Dr. William Sears, "attachment parenting" encourages mothers and fathers to fully accept their babies' dependency needs. According to the growing numbers of attachment parenting advocates, consistent parental responsiveness to these needs leads to happy and emotionally well-balanced children.
This practical, comprehensive, and first-ever guide to today's most talked-about nurturing style, Attachment Parenting shows how some conventional childrearing advice can be detrimental, and urges you to trust your instincts on such important matters as:
- Responding attentively to your baby's cries
- Minimizing parent-child separation
- Avoiding "sleep training" for infants
- Breastfeeding according to your baby's cues instead of a schedule
- "Wearing" your baby in a cloth carrier rather than relying on "baby gadgets" such as plastic carriers and carriages.
In addition to expert advice from pediatricians, lactation consultants, and anthropologists -- as well as words of wisdom from hundreds of real parents -- Attachment Parenting includes an exhaustive list of print, Internet, and support-group resources. It's an indispensable, hands-on reference that allows you to confidently and joyfully develop a secure and loving bond with your young children.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Excellent book for the hardcore AP parent
It seems like it offers a lot of ideas on how to deal with skepticism and how to use AP vs. other parenting ideals but I feel like there is not enough information on how to continue to foster the AP relationship after babyhood. Also, some of the ideas are impractical for anyone other than a stay-at home parent. It would be nice to read an AP book that has a more realistic look at today's mainstream and how to incorporate these philosophies accordingly.
Rating: - This book would greatly improve...
if the author would simply state that there is no reason to have a newborn circumcised instead of all this feel-goody mumbo about "well if you decide to have it done..." Infant circumcision is wrong. Amputating normal and healthy tissue from a newborn baby is just plain wrong.
Rating:  - does not fit an older parent
Well I must say this book is written by a very narrow minded MAN.
I am an older mom (52)- I cannot breastfeed or wear the twins in a sling ( for fear of breaking my back). We need rules to come from us the adults- not what the babies want. There is a bedtime as well as mealtimes. We keep a schedule and use bottles. The twins are thriving- 8 months old now.
These babies are attached to us and we use a live in caregiver too.
Rating:  - Intolerant tone turned me off
I was really interested in attachment parenting, which is why I picked up this book. But even as someone with a really open mind, I came away feeling brow beaten and my child isn't even born yet! I mean, am I really such a bad parent if I don't planning on nursing my son till age five?
I agree with previous reviewers that the authors frequently refer to Dr. Sears's books and you should do the same. Dr. Sears is much more balanced and gentle. 'The Baby Book' is thorough and well worth ... Read More
Rating: - Don't trust instincts
As my sister said to me on the phone recently.. "You have always had good instincts and I haven't. I've always had to resort to the books" She was speaking on the difficulties that she has had in arriving at her parenting style. She used many books on attachment parenting to define her style in the early days. She has since abandoned these methods and recognizes them, as I do, for what they are... hocum.
Some people have instincts about parenting and some don't. I feel bad for those, like my sister, ... Read More
Related Categories:
| |
 |
