The Discipline Book--Part One

In June I wrote a post titled Attachment Parenting. It was a summary over the The Fussy Baby Book by Dr. William & Martha Sears. I couldn't imagine agreeing more with any other style of parenting, so the Sears family became my go-to source for everything parent-related!

Last summer I mentioned that I'd bought another one of their books, The Discipline Book, hoping it would give me confidence in that area, too. It did. Therefore, just like The Fussy Baby Book, I wanted to summarize The Discipline Book so that I can refer to it when I need refreshed -- and also provide others with this wonderful information! (In my other post I gave page numbers to each paragraph but in this one I did not - so I wanted to mention that it is still copied almost word for word from their book.)

The main message is "if you know your child well and are sensitive to his needs, so that he trusts you, the ability to get him to behave well will follow naturally because he wants to please you" and "the deeper the parent-child connection, the easier discipline will be."

I definitely agree. Days when I have the most energy and am in the best mood, even if Logan starts off in a bad mood he almost always ends up easy and happy that day, wanting to make me smile and doing things he knows will make me proud of him. On days when I am tired or grumpy he often seems harder. I don't think this is a coincidence! Like, what came first - the chicken or the egg? I was on such a high for my first 4 months that I think he picked up on that and was a relaxed, happy baby (even though looking back on his first few days I would have thought he'd be the opposite).

Over the holidays last year I started to get stressed (due to the busyness and being stuck inside all of the time) and guess what? That's when I felt Logan got harder. (And Logan got easier again in the summer - life had relaxed and we were getting plenty of sun.) Don't get me wrong - prior to last winter he wasn't mobile and then suddenly he was, so obviously he was harder - and some babies are definitely harder than others, so no matter how much of a high a mom may start off on she may not be able to remain there no matter what! But, I can tell that Logan is so in tune with me that even if I try to fake it, he can tell my exact mood and it definitely has an effect on his.

So, using the book's words, Discipline is more about having the right relationship with your child than it is about using the right techniques.

Discipline methods fall into three categories: the authoritarian style, the communication approach, and the behavior modification approach.

For the authoritarian style (how I was raised) - many problems can occur. For one, the child can fail to feel the parents' love. The child can also internalize fear of the parents' power to the point that it controls her life, even in adulthood. Most important, however, is that when it is used as the sole method of discipline, authoritarianism simply doesn't work. There are several reasons for this. First, it causes parents to focus so much on stamping out the bad in their children that they tend to overlook the good. Also, the emphasis on punishment keeps parents from learning more appropriate ways to correct their children, ways that could lesson the necessity for punishment in the first place. Worst of all with authoritarian discipline, children behave more out of fear of punishment than desire to please.

For the communication approach - the good news is that it respects the child as a person whose actions result from feelings and encourages parents to delve into the feelings behind the behavior. Parents also use empathy and understanding to create a generally positive atmosphere in the home so they can limit the use of the word "no." The main problem, though, is that parents tend to lose their authority, instead taking on the roles of amateur psychologist, negotiator, and diplomat. Children may end up not respecting authority because their parents do not expect them to. This style runs the risk of being overpermissive.

For the behavior modification approach - the trainer focuses on shaping behavior, conditioning the child without judging her. The bad news is that sooner or later you are going to run out of them, or run out of the energy it takes to apply them consistently.

The Sears' approach (what I follow with Logan) uses the best from all three - you must take charge of your child, but not in a controlling way. You should communicate with your child, but in the context of a trusting relationship. You need discipline tools to help you handle real-life situations, but when these techniques don't work, you need to fall back on a deeper understanding of your child. Here are some tips on how to do that:

1) Get Connected Early - connected children know what behavior parents expect, and make an effort to behave this way because they want to please their parents.

I have said many times that Logan and I are so much on the same wave length I sometimes feel we use telepathy! When my friend Sarah was here last month she couldn't believe that at one point when we were watching Joe use the snow blower on our driveway, Logan ran away and I said "oh he wants his chicken nugget leftover from earlier." We had finished our supper about a half an hour prior, but he'd left a lone chicken nugget on his plate. When he came back to the door with the nugget, she was like, "how in the world did you know he was going to get that?!"

Very rarely in his life have I not known what is up with him. Even from "day one" when I was clueless about babies and was just meeting him. It became important for me to get more and more connected - and I can see the positive effects in Logan's behavior and personality to this day. But he is still a 20.5 month old so we do have our bad days (as I most recently mentioned in my post Andrea & Julie/Julia)!

2) Know Your Child - know your child's needs and capabilities at various ages. Your discipline techniques will be different at each stage because your child's needs change. A temper tantrum in a two yer old calls for a different response than it does in a four year old. Tolerate things that go along with a child's age and stage (for example, most two-year-olds CAN'T sit still in a restaurant but we connect behavior that is disrespectful or dangerous to the child or to others. For two year olds, action follows impulse with no thought in between.)

3) Help Your Child To Respect Authority - an authority figure needs to be both warm and wise. Start as a nurturer, a baby comforter - you get to know your baby and your baby trusts you. Children respond with genuine trust and respect rather than fear and rebellion.

4) Set Limits, Provide Structure - Establish rules, but at the same time create conditions that make the rules easier to follow. Children need boundaries.

5) Expect Obedience - Abusive control is when you forcibly impose your will upon your child, expecting her to obey, but to the detriment of your relationship. When you insist on obedience and help the child to get control of herself, you are using your power over the child in a good way that helps her develop inner controls. Remember, children want limits so that they don't feel out of control, and they want parents to stand by those limits. They keep testing the limits to see if you will uphold them.

6) Model Discipline - it's unhealthy to model perfection - a goal that neither parent nor child can meet. It's overall impression that your child receives that counts, not the occasional blunders or outbursts. Parents, you are the first people your child knows. You are the first caregivers, authority figures, playmates, male and female. You set the standard for your child's attitude toward authority, her ability to play with peers, and her sexual identity.

7) Nurture Your Child's Self-Confidence - a child who feels right acts right.

8) Shape Your Child's Behavior - When a child gets encouraging responses to desirable behavior, he is motivated to continue it. When a child gets unpleasant responses to desirable behavior, it dies out. However, when a child gets lots of attention, positive or negative, for undesirable behavior, it may continue, especially if that's the only behavior that gets a response.

9) Raise Kids Who Care - Teach them to take responsibility for themselves. One of the most valuable tools for life you can give your child is the ability to make wise choices.

10) Talk and Listen - Talk to your children respectfully, the way you want them to talk to you.

To learn more about the above list, check out The Discipline Book's 19 chapters: Our Approach To Discipline, Birth To One Year: Getting Connected, Understanding Ones, Twos, and Threes, Saying No Positively, Taming Temper Tantrums, Fathers As Disciplinarians, Self-Esteem: The Foundation Of Good Behavior, Helping Your Child Express Feelings, Making Anger Work For You, Feeding Good Behavior, Sleep Discipline, Spanking - No? Yes? Sometimes?, Discipline By Shaping Behavior: Alternatives to Spanking, Breaking Annoying Habits, Disciplining Bothersome Behaviors, Sibling Rivalry, Morals and Manners, Building Healthy Sexuality, and Discipline For Special Times and Special Children.

I highlighted way more in the book than what is in this post, but some of my favorite points are:

How we become who we are is rooted in the parent-child connection in the first few years of life.

Factors of connected kids that make them easier to discipline:

*They want to please
*They are willing to obey
*They are more self-controlled

Factors of connected parents:

*They respond sensitively to their child's needs
*They respond appropriately, neither giving too much nor too little.
*They know their child. They are observant of age-and-stage appropriate behaviors.
*They are in charge of their child in a guiding, not controlling way.

Attachment parenting begins with being open to the cues and needs of your baby, without fretting about spoiling or being manipulated. It gets discipline off to a good start by helping you get to know your baby. Alternatively, parenting styles that place the emphasis on parents getting their babies on a set schedule, under control, are likely to keep you from connecting with your baby and can undermine the development of true discipline.

A baby's cry is designed to ensure that his needs for food, holding rest, and social interaction are met. His cry also develops his mother's parenting skills. Responding to your baby's cries is your first exercise in teaching your baby to trust you. It's an exercise in disciplining your baby. A baby who can express needs becomes a child who can express feelings and an adult who has good self esteem. (For more about Attachment Parenting, read my post with that title HERE.)

To promote desirable behavior, think of yourself as a facilitator to keep you from hovering over and smothering your child with overprotection. When your child is going through a healthy independent stage you stay connected, but at a distance.

Studies have shown that toddlers who had a secure attachment to the mother tended to play more independently and adapt more easily to new play situations than less attached toddlers.

Child and adult psychologists believe that pleasant separation experiences in early life act as a sort of psychological vaccine against the anxiety of stressful separations that come in later childhood and adulthood.

It is necessary for a parent to say no to a child so the child can later say no to herself.

Too many nos and too many yeses cripple a child's self discipline. It's important to achieve the right blend of yeses and nos in a child's environment.
--Present a positive with your negative.
--Parks and play yards provide space and a "yes" environment in which to roam and climb. If you find yourself isolated with a curious toddler who is flitting from thing to thing and you're chasing him around the house saying no, consider changing to something more fun. Go outside; take along a good book and plant yourself in a safe location to let him run.

Temper tantrums are a normal byproduct of infant development. Their desires are a step ahead of their mental and motor competence. That's how they keep going. Their strong will helps them get up and try again. They need persistent personalities to motivate them to master new situations. A child will not learn how to solve problems unless he has problems. Normal tantrums are a result of your child's development and temperament, not of your parenting. Take this tantrum as an opportunity to connect. What really helps is for your child to see you manage YOUR temper tantrums. "The stronger my child's will, the stronger must be my connection." Attached parents can read their child so well that they naturally create conditions that minimize tantrum behavior.

Staying calm in the face of any feeling is a measure of emotional maturity. Your child will learn how to handle his anger by watching you. Our goal is to acknowledge and communicate our feelings (so our children know we are real people) and at the same time model to them the kind of real people we want them to become.

Research has shown that connected children and their mothers get angry with each other less often. Attached parents know they don't have to be harsh to be in authority.

If you did not experience a secure attachment as a child, you probably struggle with a lack of inner peace as an adult. Parenting can be therapeutic. It can show you where your problems are and motivate you to fix them.

Nighttime discipline involves giving your child two messages 1) Nighttime is for sleeping and 2) If you have trouble sleeping, I will help you. Nighttime responsiveness sends your child the message: We care about you at night, just as we care about you during the day.

By age three, many children are ready to go without a nap and have an earlier bedtime.

Spanking is not okay. . .they basically repeated everything I wrote in my post last July, The Truth About Spanking.

Throughout life your child will be exposed to positive influences (builders) and negative influences (breakers). Parents can expose their child to builders and help him work through the breakers. It's up to parents to screen out those who pull down their child's character and to encourage those who build it.

I'll end with my favorite: Infants who get used to the feeling of well-being they get from attachment parenting spend the rest of their lives working to keep this feeling. Because they have so much practice at feeling good, they can regain this right feeling after temporary interruptions. These secure persons cope better with life's setbacks because they are motivated to repair their sense of well-being, which has become integrated into their sense of self. They may fall down a lot, but they always wind up back on their feet.

*For healthy discipline ideas to try, read PART TWO.

Attachment Parenting

A few months ago I wrote a post titled The Fussy Baby Book, about a book I read by doctors William & Martha Sears. I also liked a book by the Sears family (the most popular & trusted pediatricians in America) called The Vaccine Book, which I mentioned in my post 4 Months Old. So, now I've bought The Discipline Book by the same authors, hoping that it will help me gain confidence with the toddler stage as well. All of the Sears books focus on a style of parenting called "attachment parenting." I didn't realize until I became a supporter that there are a lot of misconceptions about what it is. So, I'm going to summarize The Fussy Baby Book to explain this method of parenting!

Attachment parenting is often misunderstood as "liberal" and "spoiling" parenting. But the Sears say that it's the most natural, instinctive way to parent - however many people don't do it because in the U.S. in the Twentieth Century a message was sent (by the same people who told women to stop breastfeeding because formula was better and to also put women completely unconscious during childbirth) that parents must be strict if they wanted their kids to behave and to be successful. But attachment parenting has actually shown a higher success rate when it comes to good behavior and better self-esteem because parents listen to their children's needs. Babies don't manipulate, they communicate.

As said on page 7, "attachment parenting begins with giving the infant roots, then helps her develop the wings to become independent and ultimately gives her the tools to become a solid and secure person."

This style of parenting actually makes children more flexible, patient, and disciplined.

On page 9, William & Martha talked about the fourth of their eight children: "We gradually figured out that the child shouldn't control the parents or the parents control the child. Yet parents must control situations; when there is no limit-setting, family life is a disaster. We needed to be in charge of Hayden, to give her house rules and then control her environment so that it was not difficult for her to comply with these rules."

That doesn't sound like liberal or spoiling to me.

From Wikipedia: "According to attachment theory, a strong emotional bond with parents during childhood, also known as a secure attachment, is a precursor of secure, empathic relationships in adulthood.

Attachment theory, originally proposed by John Bowlby, states that the infant has a tendency to seek closeness to another person and feel secure when that person is present. Bowlby had earlier proposed in his maternal deprivation hypothesis published in 1951 that maternal deprivation would not only cause depression in children, but also acute conflict and hostility, decreasing their ability to form healthy relationships in adult life.

In attachment theory, attachment is considered a biological system and children are naturally attached to their parents because they are social beings, not just because they need other people to satisfy drives."

(You can find a complete guide to attachment parenting in the Sears' book, The Attachment Parenting Book.)

What has this meant for us?

I highlighted page 15 that said: "You can often spot high-need babies in the hospital nursery. These babies put more energy into everything they do. They cry loudly, feed voraciously, laugh with gusto, and protest more forcefully if their needs are not met. Because they feel everything so deeply, they react powerfully if their feelings are disturbed. 'If I don't feed him as soon as he fusses, he falls apart' is a common statement from the mother of such a baby. You can read the intensity of the baby's feelings in her body language. The fists are clenched, back arched, muscles tensed, as if ready for action."

Even though Logan isn't usually "high-need," that paragraph described him to a T. Each nurse who came into my room after I gave birth said stuff like, "So it's YOUR little guy who is the loudest in the nursery." Or, "He's going to be very strong-willed."

This is still his behavior when he doesn't eat right away or something else upsets him. But, thankfully most of the time he is easy-going, laid-back, and quiet. I believe this is because Joe & I have met his needs and so he hasn't had to fight. (Or else he still would be like the baby we met in the hospital.) He's learned how to be content. He could still improve on patience, haha, but he rarely ever screams or acts stubborn like he did during his first week of life.

The Sears books supports my thought: "The majority of parents we have counseled brought their high-need babies into the world and followed their own intuitive parenting to give their child the level of care he needed. This is healthy behavior that will work to the advantage of parent and child."

I do have one regret, though. I didn't start my "instinctive parenting" until he was about 5 days old. (Again, that makes sense why he became a lot easier and calmer from then on - he had to be the opposite before then.) I was just so clueless. . .I seriously thought that the nurses in the hospital must know more than I did about my baby and they would take better care of him than me. So, I didn't even keep him in my room most of the time during my 48 hrs in the hospital. (Using the nursery had been recommended by our childbirth class instructor and Joe & I had thought, yeah, why not, we have the rest of our lives.) I was so worn out from my 4-hr pushing phase, and Logan was a stranger (I bonded and became close to him on day 3 - when we found out he had jaundice and had to go to the hospital. Until then I definitely loved him, but I didn't have a huge connection or mother's instinct toward him yet. From day 3 on, though, it was major!)

Thankfully, it didn't seem to cause any problems with us - we've had an ideal healthy, close relationship. But I will still do it differently next time because I've learned how incredibly important those first hours are between baby & mother! Page 45: "Fresh from a soft, warm womb and a little time in mother's arms, baby takes a bumpy ride to the newborn nursery, where he stays on a static mattress in a plastic box, surrounded by bright lights, chatty adults, and a lineup of other babies in plastic boxes. What he needs is to stay with his mother so that he can gaze at her face and use her smell, her movements, and her holding to help him stay calm and feel safe. He is miserable and frightened in the plastic box and cries desperately. If there is a nurse there who has time, she might pick him up, but chances are he'll have to wait. He'll cry and cry until he exhausts himself to sleep, in the process experiencing very disturbing feelings. Bonding will be severely disrupted, and he will learn that he cannot trust that his needs will be met.

"The nursery option is a biologically incorrect setup. The nurse is the one who initially hears the baby's cry, but the mother (in another room) is the one who is biologically programmed to calm the cries. Most infants have two phases to their cry. The early phase, called the attachment-promoting phase, is the perfect signal, disturbing enough to pompt the listener to want to pick up and hold the baby and give a comforting response, but not so disturbing as to make the listener want to avoid the baby. In the nursery arrangement this is the phase of the cry that the nurse hears and she eventually takes the baby down to the mother's room. However, by the time baby gets to his mother, his cries are in the next phase - the avoidance promoting phase. His cries escalate into a shrill sound, and the mother is presented with an anxious, frightened baby whose cries cause her to be anxious, even frightened. Mothers and babies who start out life in separate rooms are out of sync."

Wikipedia: "Dr. Sears' theory of attachment parenting fosters a secure bond with their children by promoting eight principles which are identified as goals for parents to strive for. These eight principles are:

Preparation for Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting
Feed with Love and Respect
Respond with Sensitivity
Use Nurturing Touch
Ensure Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally
Provide Consistent Loving Care
Practice Positive Discipline
Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life
These values are interpreted in a variety of ways. Many attachment parents also choose to live a natural family living (NFL) lifestyle, such as natural childbirth, home birth, stay-at-home parenting, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, homeschooling, unschooling, the anti-circumcision movement, the anti-vaccination movement, natural health, cooperative movements, naturism and support of organic food.

However, Dr. Sears does not require a parent to strictly follow any set of rules, instead encouraging parents to be creative in responding to their child's needs."

For example, pretty much everyone told me that my baby was going to love to be swaddled. Nope. Aside from his first three days, Logan never liked the confinement. Nor did he ever need me to hold him all day/night long. Still, I tried baby wearing when he was a month old - but that wasn't for us, either. At two months old when I got the whole breastfeeding thing down, I hoped to be able to nurse Logan in bed. Well that did happen for about a month when he was five months old - but that was all it lasted for and he still never slept for more than 20 minutes next to me. Sleeping where he could see me (even to this day) makes him more active. He's always been the most peaceful in his crib alone, so no co-sleeping for us (which is fine with me because I did co-sleep off & on with my mom after her divorce and then I had a very hard time when it came to an end when I was eight because she remarried. However, if done right it is more positive than negative. The Sears have written The Baby Sleep Book for how to co-sleep "correctly.")

On page 34, a study proved that a baby's overall phyisiology - heart rate, breathing, and blood oxygen saturation - was more stable when sleeping next to Mom than when sleeping alone. (Same for baby wearing.) This is what they do in most all other cultures.

Even though attachment parenting encourages doing those things, I am still a follower & supporter because I didn't push them. That's the whole point. I take each day at a time, I go with Logan's flow, and then I react accordingly. Yes, attachment parenting means parents have to relax and let go - but believe me, it's a lot less stressful that way.

Page 16 says: One of the most difficult mental adjustments for parents to make is overcoming the fear of being manipulated and losing control. Once you make the switch in mind-set to believing that your baby is communicating her needs, not controlling your lives, thriving and surviving with a high-need baby will be much easier."

But, sometimes it's hard to read a baby's signals which then makes it hard for a parent to go with the flow. That's why those above bolded guidelines from Wikipedia are a great place to keep going back to. Generally, they are what work.

One thing they encourage that did work for Logan was "feeding frequently." (They've written The Breastfeeding Book to help with issues regarding baby feeding.)

On page 17: Studies show that babies who are fed frequently, as needed, cry less than infants who are fed on a more rigid, parent-controlled schedule."

I've always (and still do) feed Logan on demand. This seriously solved all of his problems when he was a baby. Those not on board with attachment parenting make it sound like a bad thing - that I was setting him up to use food for comfort and to be fat. But, if he hadn't been hungry then he wouldn't have eaten. I never forced him, if he hadn't gulped it all down then I would have had no problem resorting to some other method to make him stop crying. My first instinct as a nursing mother was to offer my breast at the first sign of him crying - and it did prevent him from ever wailing or having any bad nights. I could tell that being able to count on me was what helped him to feel secure; that was all he needed to be calm. There was never frustration on his part, or a struggle, because he felt he was being heard; his message was getting across. He was easier, which made parenting less stressful for me. I can see how this has helped us even now at a year old. We have sort of a telepathic thing going on sometimes. :)

Page 22 says: "The attachment style of parenting really pays off in developing a good fit. The hours you spend each day in high-touch, responsive parenting will naturally help you and your baby."

And, Logan is completely average (50%) in weight now (24 lbs at almost 13 months). Page 18 says: "frequent breastfeeders rarely remain overweight, even if for a while some look like miniature sumo wrestlers. Studies show that the fat cells laid down by breastfeeding babies are quite different from those of babies fed manufactured baby milk. The fat melts away once baby becomes mobile. So how often should you breastfeed your high-need baby? As frequently as baby needs yet not to the extent that it wears you out."

Needs that are met early in life go away. Needs that are left unmet never entirely disappear. Therapists offices are filled with high-need adults in search of re-parenting.

Reacting & following all of my baby's cues makes sense. The Sears' devote an entire chapter on the misguided advice of someone saying "let the baby cry it out." (I wrote about the dangers of the cry it out method on my posts Preparing For Brachial Cleft Surgery and My Son's 5th Month.)

Page 31 says: "It shows not only a misunderstanding of the communication value of the infant's cry, but also a devaluing of the mother's sensitivity. Mothers are not designed to let their babies cry, nor are babies' cries designed to go unanswered."

Page 32 says: "Once you appreciate the special signal value of your baby's cry, the important thing is what you do about it. You have two basic options: ignore or respond. Ignoring your baby's cry is usually a lose-lose situation. A more compliant baby gives up and stops signaling, becomes withdrawn, eventually realizes that crying is not worthwhile and concludes that he himself is not worthwhile either. The baby loses the motivation to communicate with his parents, and the parents miss out on opportunities to get to know their baby. Everyone loses. A baby with a more persistent personality does not give up so easily. Instead, he cries more loudly and keeps escalating his signal, making it more and more disturbing. You could ignore this persistent signal in several ways. You could wait until the baby stops crying and then pick him up, so that he won't think it was his crying that got your attention. This is actually a type of power struggle; you teach the baby that you're in control, but you also teach him that he has no power to communicate. This shuts down parent-child communication, and in the long run everybody loses.

"You could desensitize yourself completely so that you won't be bothered at all by the cry; this way you can teach baby he gets responded to only when it's time. Also, according to this scenario, baby gets used to being in a constant state of want. Not feeling right becomes the norm to be re-created throughout his life. This is another lose-lose situation; baby doesn't get what he needs, and parents remain stuck in a mind-set that doesn't allow them to enjoy the baby's unique personality. Or you could pick baby up to calm him but then put him right back down because 'it's not time to feed him yet.' He has to learn, after all, to be happy 'on his own.' Lose-lose again; he will start to cry again and you will feel angry. He will learn that his desires make you angry. And he will learn his communication, though heard, has not been understood, which can lead him to learn to distrust his own perceptions.

"Your other option is to give a prompt and nurturant response. This is the win-win way for baby and mother to work out a communication system that helps them both. The mother responds promptly and sensitively so that the baby will feel less frantic the next time he needs something. The baby learns to cry "better," in a less disturbing way, since he knows mother will come. Mother structures baby's environment so that there is less need for him to cry, she keeps him close to her if she knows he's tired and ready to sleep. Mother also heightens her sensitivity to the cry so that she can give just the right response: a quick response when the baby is young and prone to fall apart easily or when the cry makes it clear there is real danger; a slower response when the baby is older and can begin to learn to settle the disturbance on his own."

I wish I could copy this entire chapter because it's so good - it goes on to explain how the "cry it out advice" got started, involves lots of data, and then tips on how to respond to your baby's cries. The chapter after that is devoted on "ways to soothe a fussy baby," the next is "feelings shared by parents of high-need children," and the next is "seventeen survival tips for parents of high-need children" - because attachment parenting is NOT catering to your child's every want or never saying no.

Strive for balance.

Page 23 says: "Many new mothers and fathers enter parenting believing they must be in control of their child. Or, they may be the product of controlling parents themselves and have vowed not to do anything to squelch their child's personality. Both extremes cripple a child. Putting the lid on a child's personality stunts the chld's emotional growth."

The way to be a balanced parent is:

1) Consider Yourself. (Make time for yourself. It's like the flight attendant on an airplane, "Put on your oxygen mask before putting on your child's." If you are suffocating, you are no good to your child.)

2) Allow Baby Some Frustration (In the early months babies need a "yes mother." But in the later months, babycare can develop into "martyr mothering" and actually interfere with your child's ability to begin developing a sense of self and a sense of competence.) If you are truly watching your child's signs then you will want to encourage them along the natural progression of life to their next step. There have been many moments in Logan's life that "I" haven't been ready to move on from, but it's so obvious that "he" is and so I don't stop him. Believe in your child. Have confidence in them. And then they will in themselves. (For help on this, check out the Sears' The Successful Child Book.)

3) Make Sleep A Priority (To keep your sanity you must make rest a priority.)

4) Be Positive (If you're exhausted, use some humor: "At least I am getting some exercise.")

5) Be Patient ("This too shall pass.")

6) Focus on the Biggies (Save your energy for the rough edges in your child's personality that you simply can't tolerate and that you feel will later work to her disadvantage. Don't waste energy on the smallies - they will take care of themselves.)

7) Realize Your Child Is Unique (Disregard what a baby is "supposed" to be like)

8) Don't Compare (Just because your child is different, doesn't mean they are wrong)

9) Get Out (Especially if you are a SAHM - leave the house and be around other people)

10) If You Resent It, Change It (I can relate to page 93: "Your six-month old awakens daily at 6:15 am raring to go and demanding playmates. You are a night person, hate getting up at dawn, and like to wake up slowly." So change what YOU'RE doing, change your understanding of your child, and change your attitude. You can find the positives about mornings.)

11) Get Help (Choose your allies)

12) Job Share (Trying to practice attachment parenting without your spouse's help can wear you out if you don't have extended family to help.)

13) Plan Ahead (Learn to anticipate your child's needs, and avoid, as much as possible situations that set you up for conflicts.)

14) Take The Long View (Shaping a child's behavior is a gradual process. You will not see daily change.)

15) Get Behind The Eyes Of Your Child ("If I were Beth, what would I want my mother to say?")

16) It's No One Else's Fault (The key is to get your personalities to mesh rather than clash.)

17) Study Your Child (Once you get in sync with your child, you will be able to stop relying on outside advice and trust yourself)

The next chapter is devoted to "mother burnout," followed by "helping the high-need child go to sleep and stay asleep," then "feeding high-need children," then "hidden causes of fussiness in infants," and the last section is "the high-need child grows up."

Only time will tell how my child grows up, but so far I've seen all positive effects from attachment parenting and no negative effects, so that's why I'm looking forward to reading The Discipline Book - because now I want to know how to keep following attachment parenting into the toddler years when the natural thing is for the child to unattach (which is where the "terrible twos" come from).

I'm guessing the Sears' will remind me to use my instinct and to stay balanced :)