It seems that out there in the blogsphere Dr. Sears takes an awful lot of flack.
Honestly, I don't really see why. The only justification I've heard is that they think his Attachment Parenting methods are impractical and impossible. Sure AP parenting requires a lot of work, but we didn't have a baby because we thought it would be easy, right? Dave and I practice AP parenting methods. We love them. We see that they help our highly spirited daughter.
We are not one sided, close minded people. There are different ways of doing things out there. Every child deserves to be parented in the way that best supports him or her. Our best way closely aligns itself with the Dr. Sears approach. And perhaps by confessing my secret I alienate my (small) readership... I don't mean to! But I'm tired of hiding. So here it goes:
Dr. Sears is our pediatrician. Yes, THAT Dr. Sears.
We feel incredibly fortunate. And whether you are gagging or green with jealousy, I've decided to feel good about our good fortune and come out of the closet as an AP supporter!
I was just reading about how around 50% of families in the US practice co-sleeping in some form. I think the author includes zipping your toddler or young child up in a sleeping bag next to your bed in this statistic as equally as she includes placing your newborn between you and your husband while you sleep. But I found the news encouraging. Co-sleeping (aka Family Bed) is not really such the weird thing that people make it out to be. And the United States is one of the very few countries where co-sleeping isn't the norm.
I remember when I was a child that I spent a lot of nights curled up in my parent's closet, near their bed. I don't really remember if I was there when I was sick, or if I had a bad dream, or what... but part of me always knew that if I wanted to sleep there, I could. Being in their closet was a safe place for me. It smelled like my mom and there was no room for monsters with me on the floor. I have no idea how often my sister slept there, and I never really thought about my experience there until recently... now that Annabelle is a toddler and Dave and I are getting tired of getting kicked in the middle of the night. Our closet is looking like a nice alternative to our bed at this point. (For Annabelle, not me! Heheh.)
