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This essay was originally printed in Loving Mama: Essays on Natural Parenting and Mothering, Edited by Tiffany Palisi (Hats Off Books)

Attachment Parenting: Nourishing Mother and Child
Kerry Anne McIlvenna-Davis

I knew absolutely nothing about attachment parenting when I gave birth to my first baby over 13 years ago. I was 18 years old when my beautiful daughter Alexandria was born, and although I had intended to breastfeed, difficulties with latch-on due to slightly inverted nipples, as well as a mother-in-law who told me I was starving my baby, caused me to give in to the bottles of formula the hospital had sent home with me. I dutifully obeyed my mother-in-law when she told me to never, under any circumstances, bring my baby into bed with me for fear of never getting her out. I had a "perfect" baby who slept through the night by 6 weeks of age, until she turned five months old and suddenly began waking five or six times every night, needing her pacifier to get back to sleep. Out of sheer desperation I put her crib next to our bed (with the side railing down) so I could just reach over to her whenever she stirred. An attachment parenting mama was born!

I had a friend who gave me a copy of Mothering magazine, opening my eyes to a whole new way of connecting with my precious daughter. I began carrying her with me everywhere I would go in a Sara's Ride hip carrier, and I never left her with anyone. I began washing my own cloth diapers and making homemade baby food. She slept next to me until the age of five, when she happily moved into her new bunk bed.

One thing that I always regretted was not having breastfed Alexandria, and when I became pregnant with my second child, I began attending La Leche League meetings during my first trimester. I also bought a sling and practiced using it with dolls. I received prenatal care with midwives and had a completely unmedicated birth. When I pushed Chloe Autumn into this world, my birth assistant had the wisdom to have me reach down and pull Chloe onto my chest, so only my own hands ever touched her. I immediately put her to my breast, and she latched on like a pro! I was ecstatic! I had determined that I would do everything "right" this time: breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, cloth diapering from birth, and always following my baby's cues.

I still did not know that there was a term for my strong parenting values this time around...Attachment Parenting! I knew only that everything I was learning about mothering through La Leche League, Mothering magazine, and books like The Continuum Concept resonated deeply within me and caused the incredible love I had for my children to manifest itself so much more easily and purely.
I was raised in a completely non-attached manner, so being able to connect with my children so intimately also helped heal my lack of feeling loved as a child. I had divorced my husband during my second pregnancy, and was amazed by how much easier it was to be able to parent the way I wanted to, without negative influences.

Chloe was born at 11:19 p.m., on September 18, 1992, and by noon the next day, I was home. I wanted desperately to be back with Alexandria (who had never slept away from me before), and to avoid interferences from the hospital staff. I was amazed and delighted by how easy nursing Chloe was, and I held her in the sling for about 10 hours a day. I only put her down to change her diaper and to have her sleep on my chest at night – she was the world's happiest baby! I was able to spend lots of time with Alexandria playing, reading, going on outings, etc., all with Chloe happily nursing in the sling. I wanted to have Chloe never know the feel of a paper diaper, so I lugged smelly cloth diapers to the Laundromat (with two kids in tow) every three nights for two years.

Chloe's main source of comfort and nourishment was always at the breast, so it was no surprise that nursing lasted for over four years. As a single mom, I had to find ways of supporting myself and my two daughters, but I couldn't stand to be away from them. So I offered childcare at home until Alexandria started school when she was five and a half, and then did something I had grappled long and hard with; I put Chloe, at the age of three, in childcare at the center attached to the local college I began attending. The experience was very difficult for me, but Chloe adjusted much more quickly than I did. The best part was being able to nurse her in the corner of her preschool before I went to classes every morning, and come see her in between classes with "milky" if she needed it.

I somehow graduated with my Bachelor's in Psychology three and a half years later, having had an average of four hours of sleep a night during all my college years. Being a single parent to two daughters while focusing on all of their needs and also attending college was at times extremely challenging, of course, but attachment parenting truly helped me survive. Breastfeeding was a godsend for those times I had to bring a bouncy three year old to class with me and needed her to stay quiet, as well as for getting her to sleep (and back to sleep) while writing a term paper. I felt like I was able to meet their needs effectively and intimately while also doing what I had to do for our long-term well-being as a family. The bonds that attachment parenting fosters is the sweetest reward for the effort we put into it.

Chloe finally weaned painlessly at the age of four years and three months (with a bit of coaxing on my part), and despite what all of the many critics told me about the damage I was doing to her, she is today a beautiful, insanely healthy and sweet 11 year old with no ill side effects. Extended breastfeeding in our culture is relatively rare, although the trend is picking up nowadays. It's hard to believe that something so natural and so sweet can cause so many people to become raving lunatics! People offered the most outrageous comments to me when they found out I was nursing a four year old (or a three year old, or two year old...) and I had a hard time dealing with it. Therefore, it is wonderful for me to be able to show those same people how fabulously well-adjusted she is and how close we are.
I remarried a little over four years ago to a man with two children of his own. On May 2, 2000, I gave birth to my third child, so we are now a family of seven. My last birth was a culmination of everything I wanted it to be; I gave birth to my son, Dylan, at home on our bed in the presence of an angelic midwife who also helped me to reach down at the moment of birth and pull my son onto my chest, literally birthing him into my own hands. Although it was the most intense of my three births, and more than a little painful due to back labor, it was certainly the most fulfilling and satisfying, knowing that I did everything as close to perfect for my son as possible. I didn't leave my bed for several days after his birth because I had torn a little and chose not to have stitches, and those were the happiest, most peaceful days of my life. I stayed in bed with my newborn son, skin-to-skin, cuddling, nursing, and resting, in a quiet room filled with the beautiful smell of lavender oil bubbling on a candlelit diffuser (Three years later when I smell lavender, I am immediately transported to those heavenly days).

I did not leave my house until my son was 10 days old, in order to make his transition into this world as gentle as possible. I knew that I would never have this precious newborn period back again, and so I savored each day.

I chose not to circumcise my son, and luckily, my husband, who is circumcised, agreed to this. I could never understand the rationale some people gave for circumcising – that a male child needs to look like his father. How many sons and dads sit around comparing their penises that closely? And since a boy's penis in inevitably going to look different from his father's for many years, due to size difference and lack of pubic hair, how convincing is this argument? I feel that if my son wants to be circumcised someday, he certainly can with my blessing, but it emphatically must be his choice. I have no more a right to have his foreskin cut off than I have to get my daughters' genitals mutilated.

*My son is now a beautiful, healthy, sweet, and very-attached three year old who nurses a few times every day and sleeps cuddled against me every night. I have held him in the sling every day of his life, and he still likes it for short periods of time, although at 36 pounds I can't do it for much longer than that, anyway. Baby wearing is one of the nicest parts of mamahood, and I believe it is as critical to infant (and child!) bonding and well-being as breastfeeding, so I made sure to hold Dylan in the sling for many, many hours everyday in his first year of life, and never owned a stroller, swing, baby seat, or any other carrying/holding device for either Chloe or Dylan. And contrary to what everyone predicted, they both walked by 12 months.

It made me realize that parenting really is about ignoring those voices of "authority" (as difficult as that sometimes may be) and listening to your child as well as your own intuition. I attribute my positive growth as a human being and a mother almost entirely to following the ideals of attachment parenting. Nothing is more important to me than my children, and they are only with me for a short time before they fly off on their own. I want to hold them as close as possible now because never again will they need me this much or will I be as intimately connected to any human being. In spite of the day-to-day trials and tribulations (of which there are many in my household!) that are to be expected in life with young children, I feel so blessed to be their mother and to be allowed to shape the lives of these beautiful beings. They are my will to live, my grounding force, my joy and my treasure, and I want to be able to look back on their childhoods with as few regrets as possible.

I am so grateful that I found out about attachment parenting when I did, because it truly changed the course of my life and gave my children the secure foundation they may have missed if I had continued to parent in the mainstream way, which encourages mother/baby separation and premature "independence." The ideals embedded in the concepts of attachment parenting have fed me as a mother in some ways as much as they have fed my children, by nurturing them so thoroughly and developing these unbreakable bonds. I have been nourished myself in a hundred ways.

Kerry Anne McIlvenna-Davis is a La Leche League Leader in San Francisco, California, and the grateful mother of Alexandria, age 13; Chloe, age 11; and Dylan, an intact and still-nursing three and a half year old; and stepmother to Jillian, age 19; and Ryan, age 11. She leads baby wearing workshops and is a baby sling distributor, and has been a proud member of the San Francisco chapter of Attachment Parenting International for over three years. Kerry is also an avid collector of anything Bob Dylan!