Tip 71: Balance in Attachment Parenting

The 7th and last B turns out to be not such a scary word - Balance. With so much expectations on the parent to give, there is a need for wisdom to say Yes to ourselves when we need help or need rest. As much as Attachment Parenting calls for responsive parenting vs. the convenience parenting trend of this age, of leaving babies and children to be independent too early in life, there is a need to be responsive to the parents' needs too. Yet, sometimes, parents are just stubborn or determined to forget their needs - either to work too hard at their jobs to save for rainy days or to dedicate too much of their anxiety moments to the babies. Balance or equilibrium is a term used in economics to mean finding that perfect point where all needs are met and satisfied. Is this ever possible? Not in the short term. But, after spending some time doing, then reflecting and then trying to improve the doing - it may just be possible to find that balance. But as mentioned earlier, love is about sacrifice too and instead of expecting, we give to receive a balance in our lives.

There is certainly lots to do as a parent without a maid in the house to help in cleaning, as well as someone to help out caring for the baby. Hence balance would come by lowering our expectations and our anxiety levels on what we want and what we can do. Then, balance would also be achieved when we ease each others' burdens. But, its easier said than done. It is never easy to adjust our ideals or to make changes to our work schedules. We can however constantly make efforts to spend more time with our babies and share concern for our wives. Interestingly, after the baby knows we understands her needs, she would also be more well behaved. Maybe its the same with our spouse. When we make efforts to listen, it touches the human heart that we do understand. And that is most important than just giving and doing and sacrificing. The beauty is that even baby Haruka understands. We just need to listen and meet the initial need slightly and try our best. That's balance maybe - listening and responding while ensuring we do not overdo it and hurt ourselves. I am still learning as I journey along life.

Tip 70: Belief in yourself, beware of baby trainers

Each child is unique, a gift of God, your special child that you as a parent will understand more as you spend time with your child. In our society these days, a special child is frowned upon, deemed as requiring too much attention and is unable to be trained under society's education system. But, lest we change this mindset and look at each child as special under God's eyes instead of comparing the child with others, we are overlooking the beauty in our child, devaluing God's miracle in our lives as well as understating the role we play as parents. From child birth to raising a teenager, communication through close bonds - be it breastfeeding, playing or teaching is the parent's role on earth, to understand the child's needs and guide the child to meet his/her potential. Hence, the center of attachment parenting is on continuous thorough communication to care for the child, which may lead to options of being a full time parent or devoting to home schooling. But most importantly, not to follow convenient advices blindly, but to understand your child well enough to know what's best for your child and devote time and energy to be that expert in your child.

As I read more about attachment parenting, I begin to shudder at the burden of parenting, but realize that this is actually expected of us, parents. Being the easy going, complacent daddy that I am, its actually good to be woken up to such expectations, so my efforts would at least be more than half of perfect parenting, and quite disastrous should I have sticked to a more convenient parenting style. As Tomomi is a full time mother, all credit goes to her for her desire to bridge the distance between parent and child. As Haruka is growing up, Haruka is beginning to respond well to my speaking to her, clowning around, playing with her and reading. I try to understand what makes her tick, understand why she cries by understanding her and not following some schedule or clock rule. According to attachment parenting, all this convenient parenting rules are a short term gain but a long term loss. Thats true that relationships are not easy and raising a child means lots of time investment. I will do my best each day as a daddy and try to understand what is best for my child as I spend more time with her.

Tip 69: Believing your baby's cry as her language

This the fifth "B" in attachment parenting and it relates to responding quickly to your babies' cry. I got all the "B"s from this site and personalized it with my story from Tokyo. Been busy lately and have missed my target to blog daily. Looks like the 10,000th post will be when I am an old granddaddy (God willing) since I have been swamped with work. Yet, I am still passionate about leaving my thoughts, sharing my love for my child/children at this blog as a legacy for them to read about. All daddies need to blog. Also, to pick up their babies whenever they cry. Little babies communicate with their parents by crying and later connect to them emotionally which builds their psychological bank of trust, love and security. According to most experts, babies do not manipulate parents with their crying at a young age, but wish to communicate their needs to the parents. As parents, its our God given mandate to nurture life in our hands with lots of love to appreciate life and love more.

Being a parent is not easy. That's because true love is never easy - only God, the origin of all love can do such a great job in showing us that example. We often times question the need to inconvenience ourselves and begin to rationalize including accepting rules we think would work. Ideally, loving without rules is the best policy. Whatever stems from an unselfish heart of love will work long lasting miracles. I always tell myself that if I dread it, it must be good for the baby and myself to take the effort to soothe my baby. Haruka cries for a number of different reasons, including being hungry, wanting to be comfortable, wanting to stay warm in our embrace, needing some peace and quiet and a nice lullaby to sleep, wanting her diapers changed, being fearful of the dark, of being alone or of a bad dream, or feeling ill and in pain. But it all depends on the crying tone and body language. After a while instead of crying, Haruka learns to smile, and communicate by nodding her head whenever she looks at something delicious or wants to play. Thats probably because she trust daddy understands her since day 1.


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(Photo shows Haruka at 5 months with a slight white patch appearing on her gum. Did not post the whole photo as crying babies can be scary too ;)

Tip 68: Bedding next to your baby

The fourth "B" is bedding closely to your baby, a term called co-sleeping. And that's very much tied to giving your baby the motherly and fatherly closeness she can feel in her young age. With standard of living improving since this half a century, most houses are bigger and the family unit also became smaller. One or two generations ago, the family unit used to be very huge with siblings, grandparents, nephews and nieces all staying under a small roof and sharing the same mattress. As parents reduce their children from a dozen to 2, they can afford to have bigger house and to allocate a room to each child. While encouraging independence is good, it may not be wise to start at the age of babies as they need to be reassured of parental closeness during the night. Also, its convenient for mummy to breastfeed the baby whenever the baby feels hungry or thirsty.

Surely, its less feasible for parents who sleep in a double bed as there is no room for baby and parents. Usually a queen or king size bed is the minimum. If the bed is small, it feels awkward and also dangerous if the baby would fall from the bed. And I personally believe that husband and wife intimacy is more important than attachment parenting as the foundation of love starts from the parents. Though, if effort is put to improvise living conditions, something can be arranged. In Japan, its quite common for Japanese to sleep on futons (soft mattress) laid on the floor with lots of layers of padding. So, me and Tomomi decided to just do that and have a large futon area in our room. That way, there's lots of space as well as no need to worry if the baby would fall from bed. Usually after breastfeeding, Haruka would sleep and she would be placed at her side of the futon and sleep and not disturb mummy and daddy. She is quite a good sleeper probably due to us training her when she was just a few days old, of the need to sleep at night and to wake when the sun rises. Knowing that mummy and daddy loves her, makes her a cheerful and thoughtful baby.

Tip 67: Baby wearing everywhere you go

Baby wearing is the third "B" out of 7 in attachment parenting concept which includes my earlier post on birth bonding and extended breast feeding. Its lots of work and sometimes seem impractical in today's modern busy parent's world. Its more convenient to leave the child at childcare or leave her crying till she stops to teach her a lesson on knowing who is boss. But the bottom line in attachment parenting is the need to communicate with your baby, listen to her and understand her. If that helps her psychological as research say it would, then such close knitted relationship is worth the time spent. Including sacrificing some freedom and personal space and bringing your baby everywhere you go. And that's why its called baby wearing where you wear a baby sling/carrier around you and wear the baby. To some ardent attachment parenting fans, they would insist on baby wearing while cooking too as they are against letting your baby cry or leaving her some place else.














I guess its easier said than done, and I am the daddy who works 9 to 10 ... nope not a 1 hour job, but sometimes a 13 hour day job away from my baby. So, Tomomi would do most of the baby wearing and since she is the ardent fan of it, I have no objections. As a supportive husband, in the beginning I questioned her enthusiasm in this as well as the other 6 "B"s. But it makes sense. After a period of stress, human beings begin to adapt to new ways of doing things. In fact, stress stimulates us to better evaluate situations and think of new ideas. And if this stress is related to doing a good and honorable job, all the more we should keep on keeping on. So, I try as much as possible to wear Haruka for strolls in the neighbourhood and for weekend lunches with wife and baby. Using a stroller more when Haruka got heavier. Beginning to be more understanding than previously and try to attend to Haruka as soon as possible. Balance is important too as we need to take care of our physical and emotional health as parents, so striking the right balance is key. At least we try our best and one day our children reading our blogs, will know that.

(Photos shows Haruka at 3 months old and the baby sling papa is wearing when going out at Chinzan-So park in Tokyo)

Tip 66: Breastfeed naturally without the pump for as long as you want

This tip would sound silly and too demanding for many. Trust me, I am the daddy and I live through these tips, so I can understand how silly it can be. But sometimes, wisdom takes time to be acquired and you begin to reap the benefits of it later, then a paradigm shift takes place. You say to yourself, "Wow! This is a good way to do things." while previously, you said, "Oh well, this is so stupid. Do I have to live through this and is this stress necessary at all?". That's basic marriage life. Don't we all learn and realise later this is in fact not just about marriage but the very essence of learning to love and live better. Breastfeeding is the second "B" of attachment parenting, while my previous tip was parent child Birth bonding through natural birth. Attachment parenting is about bonding with the baby as much as possible without worrying the baby will get too dependent. In fact, let the child decide when they want to be independent and not shirk our parental duties away. We are guardians of life - a divine responsibility entrusted to us, as opposed to conveniently getting on with life with an additional baby and finding facilities that would lighten our load. If this bonding now would make a difference in the next 80 years of a person's life, it's worth it.

So I was wondering why Tomomi would bother with the stress of being tied down to a baby and later pass on the frustration to me. Even when I gave Tomomi some time off and committed to staying home at least 2-3 hours on every weekend afternoons (Of course I am home longer, but this is a commitment that any appointments are not booked during those times), Tomomi has to rush back home to feed Haruka. So I could not understand why the breast pump that I got for Tomomi was not used. Thats simply not the whole purpose of breastfeeding. Its not just about providing brain-building nutrients that would keep the baby smart and healthy for the rest of her life, but its about feeding with love and respect, to allow baby to understand mummy, as well as mummy to read the baby's body languages and understand her needs. Attachment parenting proponents advise that even if the bottle and breast pump are used, the mother can hold the baby and position the bottle alongside the breast, maintaining eye contact and talk lovingly to the baby. This practice is best kept for at least a year according to the American Academy of Pediatrics since only 20% of Americans breastfeed after 6 months. Its hard work but if it can instil love and respect in return from my children in the future, its a good investment of time and effort. 2 Timothy 3:2, in the end times, children will be disobedient to their parents. I guess that the society today that encourages independence, selfish desire to win at all cost in the midst of increasing globalization, as well increasing divorce rates do not help. But we as loving parents can do the best we can, and if the loving has its highest and best effect while the child is young, its a good economic investment. Anyway, daddies only need to encourage mummy, so be patient and supportive even if it seems silly at times.

Tip 65: Natural parenting is the best

I was reading blogs on parenting and came accross this site on natural parenting. Did not know that our world has grown leaps and bounds that we need to remind ourselves that we need to get back to the natural path. Of course, we can not stick to strict rigid laws on Do's and Don'ts but need to be flexible to accomodate health, environment and lifestyle situations as it is important that we are happy and comfortable parenting our children. Its actually a very broad philosophy based on the principles of attachment theory in development psychology with the term attachment parenting and well summarised by wikipedia. It says, a strong emotional bond with parents during childhood and birth leads to a secure and emphatic relationship in adulthood. Failure to form this early childhood parental bond will give rise to a psychology disorder of varying degrees. Wow! It has 8 principles ... but I will start with one today. Tomomi did not tell me in detail what books she reads, but I know that the type of parenting style she has been following is in line with these principles. (Glad she finally agreed to immunize Haruka after her initial reservations listening to some fanatics that are proponents of this theory thats not the mainstream theory). Its tough sometimes as she read books in Japanese and may get impatient trying to share everything in detail to me in English, especially complicated theoretical concepts like this. But let me go through a few tips in the coming weeks on this topic.

I will share the first principle - natural birth and pregnancy. I do understand that certain parents choose C-section or artificial insemination for various reasons, but whenever possible, natural birth and pregnancy leads to an attached parent to baby. Tomomi did not use any knives, surgery or anaesthetic in her natural birth. Sometimes, the pain and length of time in labor can prompt a quicker method encouraged by doctors. But if mother and daddy is healthy (with a strong heart, daddy needs to give the support to mummy by her side), patience through labor yields better results. According to this natural child birth site, it also makes the baby more alert which explains Haruka's eyes circling around the delivery room the moment she came out. When a mother and daddy is more attached to the child instead of leaving the child to play by herself all the time, the bond shapes up the child's psychology. I looked back and realized even when my bond with my dad was not strong in my teen years, he was taking me out for walks when I was a child coupled with the strong bond I had with my mum, helped me psychologically later in my current life facing mountains of stress by not giving up. This theory does mention that even if we do engage non-parental childcare, these childcare givers need to love the child and maintain healthy secure attachments with the baby/child. Here is a photo of me and Tomomi at the delivery room. It was in a midwife room where their hands are well trained to receive babies with the right eye to know the direction the mother needs to push to get the baby out without knives. I read with interest a mum sharing about making birth a family event to get the second child involved in childbirth. Involvement in birth and parenting is truly the theme of attached parenting.