I like slings, but my babies don't. Not as newborns. Too scrunched up for comfort, I think. I have a mesh sling this time that I'm hoping will work better. I try a sling every time & then wind up using a Snugli-type carrier that holds the baby upright. Having occasionally carried my younger daughter in the heavy carseat bucket-type carrier, I really truly prefer something that straps the baby onto me. We used the bucket a couple of times when Linda was small on the "let's get her into the house covered up in a blanket" theory (born in January)...And it hit me...Here I was carrying a five pound baby in a (at least) 10 pound carrier...Just didn't make sense.

Two last things I will add to this: Your instincts have the most value of anything. I think we look outside ourselves for answers too much. Thousands of years of evolution and biology have hard-wired us and our babies to interact a certain way with each other. To ignore what your body and your heart tell you to do because, say, your mother-in-law (or your aunt, in my case) tells you you're going to spoil the child probably isn't the best long-term for anyone involved. The other thing: pediatricians aren't child development or child discipline/behavior specialists. They know medicine, not psychology. Talk to your pedi about things like vaccines, reflux, & thrush. Where your baby sleeps or how you get him to sleep is outside an MD's sphere of knowledge. Hopefully you'll get a good pediatrician. But you can also get one who tells you you "need" to let your child CIO, you should start your baby on cereal early because he's too big or too small (and yes, you might hear either one!), or any other number of things that are matters of personal choice. I'd be willing to bet we could all have a nice long conversation about dumb things doctors have told us and never even hit on parenting.

And, um, my kids don't get held constantly either. I've found in talking to other AP-ers that the media-publicized image of attachment parenting is pretty far from the typical. But the ratings are in the extremists.

I agree with Dana, congrats to all of us for keeping things civil while discussing our different parenting styles!

I honestly never thought I would be considered an AP parent, until one day, some one I knew said, wow, you really do AP, don't you? I babywear-we've done a sling, the baby bjorn, and now I have a hip hammock (I just wish I had gotten one before she sold the pattern to Platex)

I co-slept with my oldest, until my husbands snoring was keeping her awake at night. My youngest just doesn't like sleeping in bed with us, and my husband is now on a cpap machine, and wasn't comfortable having her in bed with us, so she slept in a cradle until she outgrew it. We did CIO, but that was after a year, and after Abby had been sleeping through the night. Once we had her checked out, to make sure she wasn't ill, I decided to let her learn to go back to sleep on her own. My youngest NEEDS 5 minutes of crying to go to sleep. Even if she is sound asleep, once I put her in her crib, she crys for 5 minutes exactly, and then sleeps through the night.

I do use disposable diapers, but I don't think of that as AP or not, that's for environmental reasons, and I've done research, and I (personally) don't find that it is all that much different, you are taxing different resources.

I BF on demand, and practice child led weaning. Solids were introduced at 6 months, and my youngest wanted nothing to do with them. She went right to table food at less than a year.

my children are vaxed on schedule, including the chicken pox vaccine-I knew a child who died of chicken pox. I also have the kids get the flu vaccine-both are pretty severely asthmatic, and the flu could be devistating. they also both take Singulair and my little one had some pretty severe reflux, so she was on tagemet for a while, but we got her off it as soon as we could. (I tried chiropractic before we went to meds, but meds were the only thing that helped)

I pretty much think, if your kid is getting fed, and having their needs met, then I don't have an issue with it. I don't understand people that have a child as a fashion accessory, becasue it's the time to have one, or because "everyone else is"

good topic.

I'm AP mama.. I live in my sling!, we cosleep , breastfed, gentle discpline, delayed vaxs ( we spread them out , instead of in a cluster. my oldest had a bad reaction ), cloth diapering ( they are in throw aways right now, because my youngest is still to small for her diapers lmao ), self weaning, and we dont cio.

my sling is great! I got it from hotslings, and that pattern is awesome and my daughter loves it alot!

I myself am a AP mom. I wear my son (11 months old). He also sleeps in our bed (we get better sleep that way). I don't use cloth diapers though. I am planning on home schooling him.

I'm not a scheduler... I will never CIO I simply don't believe in it. My older son is almost 2 and has learned to put himself to sleep and sleep through the night most nights recently, but my younger baby at 3 months is already doing it. We haven't done anything differently with the two boys and I don't believe CIO would have helped my older son at all (actually I think it would have been detremental to him )

I do baby wear and co-sleep with my boys although sometimes my older son prefers his own space and chooses to sleep on the futon matress on the floor rather than in our bed.

I also did delayed/selective Vax with my older and am doing selective with my younger (we're sticking to the basic schedule but still skipping ome of the shots I'm not comfortable with ) We cloth diaper as well.

I have to agree about the "good baby" thing. My older boy is very high needs, he never slept well and was a lot of work to take care of and I absolutally hated the expression good baby... I'd always say he's a great baby and pretend I had no idea they meant easy baby. My younger boy is an easy baby though so I'm still looking for a good response to that one when they ask me that question.

Hi there. I just found this sub-forum and am so glad to see it here. I am always wondering how much nursing is affecting my weight loss attempts. I am a SAHM of 3, ages 5, 3, and 13 months. I "practice" Attachment Parenting also -- co-sleeping, cloth diapering, extended nursing, gentle "discipline", healthy eating, sling wearing, unschooling etc. (although not all of that is defined as AP, which is what is nice about AP -- it has a broad definition, stressing that parents follow their instincts).

SOmeone mentioned the babies not liking the sling. HAve you tried a Hug-a-bub (I made a homemade one because they are too expensive)? My dd LOVED it. It keeps the baby so tight and secure against you, but also upright.

Have you checked prices at Wal*Mart, KMart and Target? I've seen them for under $20.

You might be confusing the Hug-a-bub with something else. This is a 6 yard long 22' wide strip of fabric with a pocket in the middle that you wrap around in a variety of ways to create different holds. Is that what you saw at the big box stores?

Ok, then I've never seen one of those. When you say it keeps them close against you and upright, it sounds like the harness, like Baby Bjourn(sp?) and others. I have one of those. The baby can face you when younger and face out when older, and it straps around you like a front loading backpack.

I would be another AP Mama. Alexis nursed till she self-weaned at 19 months. I was hoping she would nurse longer, but I was 21 weeks pg and my milk changed to colstrum. Alexis hated the colstrum and stopped nursing cold turkey. Luckily, I did not have much milk, so I did not have any problems. We use cloth diapers for both. Sam is almost always in the sling when we go out, but she also loves her bouncy chair. I don't start feeding them till after 6 months. Alexis did not like baby food, so she skipped that and at 9 months was on soft table food. I also go very slowly when giving food. We will see how Sam does. I also make all their food. Sam was born knowing how to nurse. She came out and nursed for over an hour. I was so happy, cause Alexis had lots of problems. I do vax. I am wanting to do home school when they are bigger.