Breastfeed your preschooler

Children of parents who follow this advice will never be a school bully and will always look their parents in the eye. That’s what Dr. William Sears says in an ABC News article drawing attention to a very controversial Time Magazine cover. Attachment Parenting (AP) made popular by Dr. Sears promotes breastfeeding as the silver bullet solution to parenting challenges. The new Time magazine cover shows a young mother allowing her three-year-old son to serve himself breast milk while he stands in a chair to be able to reach her breast. While the Time cover will appear in the grocery store checkout line it is a little too graphic for this web site.

Breastfeeding is one component of the radical Attachment Parenting philosophy that is very child-centered promoting everything short of using your God given wisdom in your parenting decisions. The three pillars of AP encourage extreme breast-feeding, baby wearing, and co-sleep with their children against American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations. Parents are taught to allow their child to decide when he is ready to wean from nursing. This issue of Time goes into the fact that Attachment Parenting provides no room for dads in the parenting partnership. The Attachment Parenting model puts dad’s on the sidelines. Time points this out by stating in a supporting article to the controversial cover:

“Advocates of attachment parenting might claim that their approach places demands on both genders, but we fathers know the truth. Regardless of our best intentions as equal partners, attachment parenting is really attachment mothering.” Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2114453,00.html#ixzz1utwNHgUM

The ABC article goes on to quote Mayim Bialik a mom and Phd of neuroscience who says she uses breastfeeding as a response to her toddler’s tantrums. Ironically this same mom does not believe the Time Magazine story will help the Attachment Parenting movement.  The Time Magazine cover alone paints Attachment Parenting as extreme. Extreme is the word used on the Time cover to explain Dr. Sears’ Attachment Parenting philosophy as it relates to the graphic breastfeeding scene.

There is a practical alternative to the extreme Attachment Parenting style. That alternative promotes dads being fully engaged in the parenting process and teaches a philosophy called Parent Directed Feeding (PDF).  On Becoming Baby Wise (aff) teaches moms how to use their God given wisdom as parents to breast feed their child in a way that is more healthy for the child and mom. Parents also learn to train their baby to adapt their sleeping habits to become a welcome member of the family. Most infants of PDF families are sleeping seven hours per night at approximately three months old. There is plenty of room for dads in the equation too. Using the Babywise model dads are an equal member of the partnership that God has put at the center of each family…a marriage made up of a husband and wife relationship. PDF parents are taught to use their knowledge and experience to make healthy decisions for their child.