Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) / quote 84 of 91
Nighttime Attachment Parenting
Nighttime Attachment Parenting is an extremely infant-driven style. Advocates encourage feeding on demand rather than keeping to a schedule, both day and night; wearing your newborn in a sling during the day; and sleeping with your baby at night (whether in the same bed or in the same room), or at least making “comfort visits” to baby’s crib when baby cries. The idea is to have as much contact with your child as possible. Baby will be calmer and feel secure during the day, NAP advocates argue, and thus baby will be calmer and more likely to sleep at night. Like Athena leaping from the forehead of an elderly Zeus, Nighttime Attachment Parenting styles spring from attachment theories first developed in the late ’60s (discussed in more detail in “Attentive, patient ping-pong,” on page 190). Needs not fulfilled when junior is a baby, the theory goes, create problems for junior as an adult. Ignoring your baby at night is a way of ignoring those needs, say NAP advocates; paying attention is a way of gratifying them. NAP’s champion is the aforementioned William Sears. He is an experienced, handsome pediatrician, the epitome of a California doctor. To say he likes kids is an understatement. He and his wife, a nurse and parenting health advocate, have raised eight children.