r/AttachmentParenting

My baby is 11mo and this year has been so hard. Breastfeeding was so hard for months, but we overcame the challenges and it’s wonderful now. But sleep, oh my goodness the sleep is horrendous and it has been the whole time, just varying degrees of worse. The rage I feel about waking 8 times in the night to breastfeed my baby who pinches and scratches me.. ugh. He fights sleep so much and I just need more sleep desperately. I love my child, I do. But I don’t feel much love for motherhood if that makes sense? I don’t love what having a baby entails. I don’t think I’m enjoying it as I thought I would.

I always thought I’d have two children, and up until a couple of months ago I still wanted another, but now I’m just burnt out and I want my body back and I feel so terribly that I just don’t want to do this again. But I want my baby to have a sibling, and my husband wants another baby. He would support me if I truly didn’t want another, though.

This is rambly and directionless, but basically I’m just struggling with the thought of doing this again, and also struggling with the thought of not having another. Anyone else in the same boat?

I really need some advice from other parents because I feel like I’m drowning with this and I don’t know what to do anymore.

My daughter is 6 and she’s been struggling really bad. She has severe tantrums, is extremely defiant (everything is “no”), doesn’t listen, sneaks things, and has even taken stuff that isn’t hers. We’ll tell her something calmly and she’ll look right at us and still do the opposite. It’s constant.

But at the same time, she is very attached to me. Like… can’t be without me. If I leave the room she follows me. If I go somewhere, she panics. She can go to school, but anywhere else—especially if it gets close to nighttime—she completely falls apart. Crying, sobbing, begging to come home to me. It’s heartbreaking.

What hurts me the most is the things she says. She’ll say things like “you don’t want me here” or “you want me to leave.” And I feel horrible because I know I’ve said things like “Laney please just go away for a little bit, I need a break.” I don’t mean it like that at all—I just get so overwhelmed—but I feel like I’ve caused some of this and I carry a lot of guilt.

She also told me she had a dream that I died, and ever since then her separation anxiety has gotten so much worse. Now she’s scared she’s going to lose me, and I don’t know how to help her feel safe.

This is affecting everything—my relationship, our home, and most importantly her. I love her more than anything and I just want to help her, but I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.

Has anyone gone through something like this? What helped? How do you handle both the extreme attachment AND the defiance at the same time?

Please be kind. I’m trying.

Another thing i would like to add, she is constantly hungry, craves sugar, cannot focus in school, her little brain is just everywhere and she gets really overwhelmed when asked to do stuff like pick up her stuff...

Any advice please

As im growing older i feel like every child deserves a parent but not every person deserves a child some people are not meant to raise children.

Hey! I have a 2 year old who I share a bed with, he weaned from breastfeeding in the day really well over a year ago now and without much difficulty as he was big into his solids,but he does still comfort nurse to go to sleep when I do his bed time. Dad can rock him to sleep no problem but if he’s had a particularly hard day he will call out for me and want to nurse which at the moment, I respond to.

We’ve tried me rocking him to sleep which has had varied success with me mostly just ending up nursing him in the end. I’m not even sure he gets much milk really it’s definitely more about the comfort and relaxing before bed. Admittedly, the process is now at a point where it’s not very relaxing and he can be somersaulting over me with my nip in his mouth before bed which can get quite overstimulating for me and it seems it can actually keep him awake. Once he’s been asleep and if he wakes up I can often cuddle him back to sleep and only really need to nurse again if he won’t settle which he usually does to be fair.

Basically, HOW!? How have you done it?? I don’t want to have to not do any bedtimes (Won’t be possible either as there are nights my partner is working and it’s just me)

Thanks in advance!

I have an almost 3 year old who has been always supported to sleep! I would love however to move towards some more independent sleep. What I mean by this is falling asleep with less support at bed times. We currently read stories and have cuddles etc taking approx 1 hour.

We are going to have a new baby so just thinking of different strategies we might be able to try. Any suggestions?

Please note I understand supported sleep at 3 is very normal! He does sleep in his own room typically waking 0-1x a night. Just wanted to see if there was anything we could try that has worked for anyone here!

My 12 month old had her first day of nursery today, she did okay but wouldn't nap and we had to go get her. She is still breastfed to sleep at home, never had a bottle. The nursery want me to stop feeding her to sleep because it's confusing but I don't want to do that because I love it and I don't want to upset her. Anyone else been through this? How long before they learn to nap with other people ?

Our son’s 15 month appointment was rough. He wanted nothing to do with any of the procedures- weight, height, look at eyes/ears etc. We got through it and got the vaccine done but it was ROUGH for him and I felt really disingenuous in the way that I supported him (encouraging him and explaining what was going on) because he was SO upset and I wondered if I should have pulled the plug on the whole thing- he has zero health concerns and is UTD on vaccines.

Now he is 18 months and very definitive in his communication. Yes/no, etc. I am torn between supporting him in the same way that I did before, which felt crap and didn’t seem to help him, and going there and *please be nice in your response* honoring his decision to reject the exam, etc. It’s certainly possible that he will be ok with the exam this time, but I want to be prepared with a plan of action in case he is hysterical again.

While having dinner at the in law's, my MIL just dropped that she has been laying our 19 month old in the crib while she's at her house for the day, leaving the room and letting her cry for "no more than 5 minutes" .

We have never sleep trained, never will, and never had the need to. She is always held and supported to sleep, and for any wake ups, then transfered to the crib.

My question is, how bad is this that MIL has been doing this once or twice a month thus far? Is this going to cause lasting problems if continued term?

I will say something to hubs, but I doubt she will change anything about how she's doing it.

I certainly don't like that she's doing it. She looks forward to going to her house, and is always bright and happy when we pick her up.

Please someone tell me this will end or what to do. My baby is 14 months and we have never gotten her to fully sleep through the night. We've had a handful of 8 hour stretches but those are unicorns. Her sleep keeps seemingly improving and then we just are back to square one or worse. This week is pushing my sanity. She has been up and down all night but one night where she somehow slept 8 hours straight before having one easy wake up. I'm going insane trying to understand why some nights are easy and some are so bad I'm dying.

At this point she is night weaned outside of one nurse before bedtime. She pretty much just wants me for the most part which is so exhausting.

My son can’t seem to entertain himself the moment he knows I’m present. If I step away — even just to the kitchen — he starts squealing and gets increasingly frustrated until I come back.

Interestingly, he can sometimes play independently just fine when I’m completely out of the picture. But the second he sees me or registers that I’m nearby, that’s it — he needs me involved.

It’s also getting tricky when my mum or MIL come over to help. Even if I’m cooking, he won’t settle until I stop what I’m doing and tend to him — which kind of defeats the purpose of having them there! I literally cannot get anything done.

Is this separation anxiety, or just a phase? Would love to know if other parents have experienced this and what (if anything) helped.

I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I keep reading here and everywhere else that parents are having a hard time dealing with 2 hour sleep chunks/waking up 2-3 xs a night. literally those two things would be a wonderful night for me if that was our norm.

my little boy wake every 1-2 hours to nurse and has had the most insane active sleep since a month old. he is now crawling and flipped back to front at 3 months, etc…his little nervous system has always been very online. could that maybe be why? i have never noticed any sort of regression because it feels like we have been in a perpetual one. he wakes anywhere from 3-9 xs. there are some nights where I am up every 45 min. help. is this normal and anyone else’s experience?

we cosleep/breastsleep. i am so physically and emotionally exhausted. i love him so much but he is killing me. husband is basically useless at night and in the morning so all of it falls on me. that’s an entirely different post.

Hy husband and I are first time parents to our beautiful 4 month old. I want to know if her behavior shows separation anxiety or if what i am doing will cause attachment issues later on. I feel like a bad mom sometimes. For context my (60+) year old mom lives with us and my sister visits our home at least 1 time per week so LO has a lot of exposure to them from birth. I am also in full time university and had to go to class for 2 days a week. I mainly breastfeed and suppliment with formula.

- when I started going to classes I had to leave my 1 month old at the time with my mom for more than 5 hours twice per week. school was over an hour away due to where we live and program availability. She is now 4 months now and as a result she would cry uncontrollably till I got home. this lasted for the past 3 months now.

- anytime I leave the house now for any length of time she cries a lot and refuses to stay with my mom. when my sister comes she cries significantly less or not at all. if my husband is home alone with her she is perfectly fine if I leave for any length of time. Some days if I leave her when I need a break to hang out with friends or grocery shop is heartbreaking for me knowing she might be losing it at my absences. I've had family and people i know say to let her cry it out but I refuse knowing that I want her to have a healthy attachment to me as her mom.

Am I leaving her for too long or frequently? are people valid in just letting young babies cry it out if they miss you? Any advice is appreciated 🙏

My baby is almost 6 months, we currently have not sleep trained and do all contact naps and co sleep at night. Around 3 months he started going down in the bassinet at night for ~5 hour stretches and would take 1 hour naps in pack n’ play but that stopped after about a month in. Current rough schedule 2/3/2

Baby is exclusively breastfed and will only fall asleep at night if nursed and close to me the entire night. He will sleep through the night (11-12 hours) and we both honestly get good sleep (I usually have to wake him up at least once to change his diaper so he doesn’t leak and he usually poops once throughout the night). During the day he will fall asleep nursing, or in the carrier and sometimes in car rides. He can never be transferred or else he immediately wakes up crying - we have tried so many different ways to transfer him.

My husband and I love co sleeping and having him in bed with us but we have hit a point where I think the quality of naps aren’t always great (he’ll wake up if I accidentally move or make a noise) and I also would love a little bit of time back for self care and doing things around the house etc. he sleeps around 7:30/8 which means that is also now my bedtime.

Bedtime routine currently consists of bathing on some nights, change, red light, sound machine, nurse to sleep. He will fall asleep within 30 minutes, usually less.

I had a call with a sleep consultant who basically told me the best option was to transition to crib fully and when he cries sit next to him and put my hand on him to let him know I’m here. Frankly, I don’t think that approach would work for me or my baby. It physically pains me to hear him cry (the type of crying where he is clearly in distress/ screaming). It’s a hug adjustment for us to go from constantly holding him for every nap and co sleeping and nursing to stopping all of that cold turkey.

I’m wondering if there is a gentler and more gradual approach we could take to make the transition easier for everyone? Maybe start with naps or a strategy where I can pick him up or feed when he’s upset at night. We’ve been doing this for nearly 6 months so I’m not necessarily looking for the quickest solution and am okay taking baby steps to get there for all our sake as I know it will be a huge and emotional adjustment for all of us.

I’m curious if anyone has been in a similar situation and what might have worked for you and your family?

TLDR; how to support our 3.5 year old to be okay with babysitter?

Our 3.5 year old has always been quite the little barnacle and she still cosleeps and feeds to sleep with me. I support it fully, though it’s tiring sometimes, and clearly has a slow to warm temperament, so I’m letting her lead. Usually she likes to get used to people for a bit and then she’ll warm up quickly, and quicker as she’s getting older (though still a bit unsure of other kids). I work from home four hours a day. I’ve hired a new babysitter (a sweet 17 year old) to play with her while I work upstairs. My spouse comes home sometimes before babysitter arrives or midway.

We’ve had a few babysitters (two didn’t work out, one was stable for about 7 months) and we recently had some major life events (beloved pet died unexpectedly and we moved out of the home and country she’s always known to be near the only actively engaged grandparent she has-she’s very close with him) and I’ll say dad is inconsistent in his involvement and relationally we’re not doing amazing. So I see many reasons why this may be, and I understand she’s developmentally also at an separation anxiety phase, but she did well with the babysitter the first week and now is crying that she doesn’t ant me to go and won’t settle for the babysitter.

Today my spouse just didn’t leave the room at all. I tried having babysitter come earlier and staying for a bit but that made no difference. I try not to linger but now she’s latching onto dad and not wanting him to leave.

Does anyone have ideas how I can support her to be comfortable with the sitter?

We are trying to nightwean our 13 month old baby in hope to all get better sleep. She was waking up on average 5 times per night and needing to be nursed 2-3 times, the rest back rubbing was enough. Recently though, she was sick and teething and I breastfed her more. Now she got used to it and requires breastfeeding on each wake. That wouldn't be a problem but she also started waking up more and not falling asleep like before (nurse and roll away), but wants to spend 30+ minutes on the boob. I am a very light sleeper and I can't sleep like that. I also take some time to fall back asleep so I was getting really poor sleep.

We are now trying to nightwean because of that. The problem is that after the first stretch, she is up every 5-30 minutes screaming, again and again for hours. She can also stay completely awake for hours. I am trying to offer other forms of comfort like rocking or back rubbing, but anytime she falls asleep she is up again in a few minutes. This morning around 5 my husband gave her cow's milk in a bottle after we were up with her for 4 hours. She fell asleep and slept till 8 when I had to wake her up.

Did someone go through this? Is she thirsty? Hungry? Not ready? Just protesting? Should we give up or persist and it will go away?

Thank you for all the advice.

second baby, completely different experience to the first who i started sleep training early and is 3 and still wakes most nights.

anyways I knew i didnt want to sleep train again and wanted to give baby as much attachment as needed.

we currently co sleep and contact nap/feed to sleep. im tired but ok.

baby is 8 months and I will go back to work when she is 1- she will be in daycare 3 or 4 days a week.

im starting to worry about naps- am I doing her a disservice by not getting her to nap on her own? will this be traumatizing for her when she goes to daycare and no one will feed her/rock her to sleep??

Hi. My baby will be turning 1 this april 24th. She doesnt eat anything until I show I miss rachel. With rachel on, she eats a full meal. I feel guilty showing her videos. But at the same time I think maybe it's okay if shes watching it 2 times a day for 20-25 mins. Im really confused here. I feel like her aggression has imcreased since 2-3 days. Im worried how to feed her food. She likes paratha and nibbles it herself. Is it really okay if I practice this thing- offer her food and if she doesnt eat anything in a day is it okay? How long can she stay without food. Also, shes on breastfeed as well.

Link to my original post is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/1sogvpp/nursery_uk_or_other_childcare_before_2yo_harming/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

One of the commenters in my post mentioned attachment theory but has refused to elaborate much on the scientific background. I have only just discovered this subreddit and but it appears I have been broadly adopting an attachment-led philosophy with what I think are some minor adjustments for attention / focus building (hubs and I are both neurodivergent so helping bub to develop healthy focus and independent play dynamics is important to us), although I confess I haven't read enough yet on attachment theory to know whether that doesn't align!

I'm just really scared. I don't want to send my son to nursery yet, but I have no choice. The issue is that places are in short supply so we can't currently get more than one day. We might be able to get a childminder instead for more days, but then he would ultimately have to go to nursery and change systems / locations all over again, whereas at least this nursery would see him right through to age 5 (which while a different form of consistency is also important for him, in my view).

Any help / advice much appreciated.

Writing this in the middle of the night so sorry for errors. My almost 15m old is going on week 3 of the worst sleep she has had since she was born. This knocks newborn phase out of the park because even if she would wake up every few hours she’d actually go back to sleep. Before this regression she was sleeping 7:30 to 7:00, no sleep training it just happened over time. Around 14 months we went down to one nap which I know can throw a wrench in things. It’s at 12:00 and is never more than 2 hours (if it is I wake her up). She is also teething, learning to walk, and making obvious developmental leaps. I know this is a LOT to combine. But someone needs to tell me that this is normal? 3 weeks of waking up and sometimes not going back to sleep for 3-4 hours? I feel exhausted on a cellular level and need to see hope for when I can expect this to be over.

Any tips? Encouragement? Similar experiences?

Hey everyone, my newborn seems to have a super sensitive stomach. She often cries after feeding, has a lot of gas, and sometimes spit up. It’s been tough trying to figure out if it’s something I’m doing or just the formula. Has anyone found a specific formula that really helped with a sensitive tummy? I’m worried about switching too many times and making things worse. Did your baby adjust quickly or did it take a few days?