All Natural Mommies

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Just recently I found this article – Harvard Researchers Say Children Need Touching and Attention.

Just part of the article reads -

“America’s “let them cry” attitude toward children may lead to more fears and tears among adults, according to two Harvard Medical School researchers. Instead of letting infants cry, American parents should keep their babies close, console them when they cry, and bring them to bed with them, where they’ll feel safe, according to Michael Commons and Patrice Miller, researchers at the Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry.”

Now, I like this research because it validates what I have believed all along…(it’s always nice to have REAL research to back up the things I believe with all my heart.)

I also believe in extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, responding promptly to my children’s needs as a baby though childhood, as well as many other “practices” of Attachment Parenting. I believe, like the researches in the article mentioned, that children tend to be MORE independent the more they have there needs met as babies and toddlers.

“Physical contact and reassurance will make children more secure when they finally head out on their own and make them better able to form their own adult relationships.”

I started baby-wearing with Zachary, so I could attend to his needs more promptly yet still go about tending to Aubrey as well as working on things around the house. I noticed, he cried so much less than many other babies we saw. Zachary just hung out next to me quietly alert most of the time.

It really seems like MOST babies in countries where baby wearing and co-sleeping is the “norm” are like that, happy children who grow up to be wonderfully independent adults. These cultures don’t tend to want to separate from there infants and there parents don’t seem to crave there own space as soon as possible…which here in the good old USA, new mothers and fathers are TOLD that bringing there baby “close” – picking them up, rocking them, co sleeping, baby wearing – is going to cause them to be dependent, seemingly forever.

To me, it’s been common sense. Infants cry, it is their one forceful means of communicating, really there only means. Why would we as parents purposely ignore that?

“When an archer takes hold of his bow and arrow, the closer that he, is able to draw his arrow inward, the further and straighter the arrow will go. By pulling the arrow closer to him, the archer is enabling it to effectively and successfully reach its destination afar. We parents are also archers.”