Attachment Parenting

In 1994, L.Parker and B.Nicholson established Attachment Parenting International, inspired by the work of Sears, and developed the following 8 Basic Principles of ΑΡ:

1. Prepare yourself for pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood, both physically and mentally, investigating the choices you have at your disposal and get informed about usual practices in new-born care and its phases of development.
2. Provide food with love and respect. Breastfeeding is the most appropriate way to satisfy the baby’s nutritional and emotional needs. Even mothers who bottle-feed the baby can help it develop a secure emotional bond if they adapt breastfeeding behaviours.
3. Respond with sensitivity. Build a relationship of trust from infancy. Children cannot comfort themselves; they need their parents to calm them, with love and empathy, to teach them to regulate their emotions.
4. Use caring, physical contact. Touching covers the child’s needs for physical contact, affection, safety, stimuli, motion. Skin-to-skin contact is highly effective, as during breastfeeding, bath or massage. Carrying the baby or “babywearing” in sling bags is also effective when you are on the go. Hugs, kisses, massage and games help older children, too.
5. Ensure safe sleep. Babies and children have needs during the night, too. They may be hungry, fell alone, be scared, cold or hot. They rely on their parents for comfort and help so that they can regulate their emotions. Sleep training techniques may have devastating consequences at a physical and psychological level. Safe co-sleeping has advantages both for the child and for the parents.
6. Provide constant care with love. Infants and young children have an intense need for the presence of a stable carer, full of love, responding to their needs, ideally this carer being the parent. If this is not feasible, choose a person interested in this in a way boosting the development of the emotional bond.
7. Implement positive education since it helps the child develop its own internal model of self-discipline and compassion for the others. Instead of reacting in the child’s behaviour, cover the needs resulting in this behaviour.
8. Strive for balance in personal and family life. Create a supportive network, have realistic expectations and don’t be afraid to say “no”. Recognise the personal needs of each member of the family and cover them without compromising your physical and emotional health.

Child care based on AP may be demanding, but its long-term results reward parents for their efforts, patience and persistence. Child upbringing based on the principles and practices of AP has many benefits, both for the child and for the parents and carers:

• Children feel safe, potent, they learn to trust, be organised and better express themselves emotionally, they show healthy independence and evolve in healthy and independent adults.
• Parents learn to trust their capacities and instincts more, they recognise and cope with demanding situations in a positive way, they have more patience and communicate with respect and empathy.