Weddingbee boards

I felt really drawn to attachment parenting when I first heard about it because a lot of the philosophies fit with my personality and personal beliefs.  Having a child is bound to change your pre-concieved notions of parenting, though, and like every other parent I know, we've learned to adjust our parenting techniques to DD's unique personality and individuality.  Now, I would say we're don't really parent by a "label."  Although we have stuck by some of the principles we originally liked with AP, we've had to consider alternatives to others because they just didn't work out.

I don't think we're raising DD like our parents raised us; I think our parents were a lot more authoritarian in their parenting styles.  It is hard negotiating parenting decisions, especially because disagreements are bound to happen and compromising on parenting decisions is a lot harder (at least for us).  Our current arrangement is that, if we have a disagreement on a particular decision, we both discuss our opinions.  If one person feels really strongly about the issue, and the other person isn't as invested, one of us will usually "give in."  If both of us feel equally strong about the issue, whoever "wins" gets to deal with the consequences of that decision.  So far, we've only had to resort to this on one issue; the rest of the time we eventually come to a consensus or compromise of some sort.

@MaraBeth:  For me personally, co-sleeping and elimination communication just made sense.  My whole family co-sleeps (like extended family and all), so it was a concept very familiar to me.  I just did research on safe co-sleeping during pregnancy and bought a co-sleeper for the newborn stage so my husband would also feel comfortable the decision.  I didn't know anyone who had done EC before we had our daughter, but when I first heard about it, I thought it was awesome!  My husband was totally on board when I brought it up, so that was an easy decision.

In other areas, some things are more trial and error.  I wanted to breastfeed, but it didn't end up working out, so we formula fed instead (and it was great for us!).  I wanted to co-sleep with DD until at least year, but we ended up transitioning her to her crib in the nursery at 11 months, when it became unsafe.  We kinda meshed techniques from Dr. Sears' The Discipline Book and Positive Discipline: 0 -3 to find a method for dealing with DD's tantrums.  As she gets older, we'll probably continue to research through books, blogs, and personal conversations for each challenging development and then try out the ideas we like best.

ETA:  Attachment Parenting is a parenting philosophy created by Dr. William Sears.  He (and now his sons) have written books on the techniques and the basic philosophies of AP, and then others have expanded on it through websites, magazines, etc...  The basic premise of AP is that children who form a strong "attachment" to their caregiver(s) are more likely to grow into compassionate, caring, well-adjusted adults.  The whole AP style is about creating and nuturing that attachment through each stage of life (infancy through adulthood).

@jjmomma:  DD selpt between me and mesh guardrail on the side of the bed.  She started walking at 10 months, and got really good at it by 11 months, when she started waking up in the middle of the night to "practice."  I woke up once in the middle of the night just as she was standing up straight on the bed and started trying to walk toward the (2 foot) guard rail at the side of the bed.  At that point, we decided it would be safer for her to sleep in her crib all the time, because she can't fall out, even during midnight walking practice.  :)

@Lozza:  I LOVED the Positive Discipline book.  :)  It totally changed my perspective on how to be nuturing but not smothering (which I have a tendency to do, lol).  Plus it puts a lot more emphasis on parenting to developmental stages, which I felt was a little lacking from the traditional AP books.

@MaraBeth:  I think talking with your partner about your individual experiences and parenting expectations is a great way to start the dialogue.  You can have these discussions even before TTC, just to get a feeling of how each of you view parenting.  Through discussion, you'll discover a parenting path that reflects you as a couple, and from there, you can start formalizing your approach.  Good luck!  I'm sure you'll figure it out.  :)

With DS I was pretty structured in daily routine and sleep in his first 2 years so that eliminated alot of the issues I saw some of my friends had with having no order in the day. DS, along with the other babies I watched, really thrived on routine and consistency so that's a BIG thing for me.

As for disciplining, DH and I really really love a series by Joe McGee called "Biblical Parenting 101". Even if you're not a Christian the concepts of encouragement, filling with good praise, and consistently punishing or not allowing rebellion (without acting in anger) are just awesome! It's more about building up your child so they can make the right decisions on their own, as opposed to some disciplinarians that are more about "because I said so" (which we do not do in our house) We seriously re-watch it every few months when we can tell we've been getting a little lax, or lazy, in certain areas. I recommend it to EVERYONE b/c it covers everything from the young years to growing your children to adults and how to still parent (from a different position) while their in college years. And the guy is HILARIOUS! You will surely laugh! We're fixing to add his "8 things No Kid Should Leave Home Without" as well =)

I know this go round will have a whole new set of things since now instead of 1 I'll have 2 kiddos, but again I just get a good refresher course and start again. lol