Monday, April 18, 2011

Attachment Parenting... Where did I go wrong?

Despite my good intentions of cultivating a loving, nurturing relationship with my son, I may have created a monster.  Call me Mama Frankenstein... "It's ALIVE!"
I blame Dr. Sears.  I read his books--The Attachment Parenting Book and The Disapline Book-- and frequented his website and AP parenting boards as a young parent.  Almost four years later, I can't help but feel cheated.  I wore my baby for hours everyday, I slept with him everynight, I breastfed him for two years, I used gentle redirection and tried to follow his sage advoce to a "T."  As a result, I suffer from terrible back pain, my husband and I NEVER have a full night's sleep or time for each other.  We are exhausted, completely burnt out parents to a preschooler who has no boundaries, no sense of authroity, doesn't listen, won't eat more than the same five foods all the time, never sleeps through the night and is disruptive in school. Where did we go wrong?  Maybe we shouldn't have listened to him in the first place.

I can't help but compare us to another family we know.  They are the same age as we are and started their family about a year before us.  From what I understand, their kids pretty much slept through the night from two or three months old and were not breastfed.  The parents are able to leave the kids with family for frequent nights' out with friends, datenights and weekend-long trips.  Their kids seem very well-adjusted, rested and behaved.  Our friendsseem awake, productive, energetic, social and have a happy outlook on life.  My husband and I are anything but.

I feel like parenting this way has sucked all the youth, optimism and energy right out of me!  And, now, with baby number two almost eight months old and not one single full night of sleep since her birth, nursing on demand (every hour or so--she WON'T take a bottle), and one night out with my husband I just can't go on this way.  I may throw myself out a window!  No joke.

What now?  "Cry it out" for the baby and "tough love" for the preschooler?  Does that make us bad parents?  Bad parents who get some sleep?  Bad parents who have some control who aren't ready to call in Super Nanny?  We'll see.  I just don't want to fail my children... by not setting firm boundaries and establishing authority, I may have set them up to be unsuccessful in the real world and that is really disheartening.

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