Contest - the mom who does all of the seven baby-b's wins!

What you might say? Why the perfect AP parent award and acceptance into the club.

Yes it's a bit heavy on the sarcasm, but an attachment parenting board that I post on is going through one of those, "if you do X you're not AP," battles right now and it's not pretty. It's also lasting a lot longer then it usually does which means a major shift is in the works. The ever popular sleep issue is the culprit this time, which I have to say is a pleasant break from breastfeeding or, "how could a mom deprive her child of that most basic of all human rights?" (yes, still a little bit bitter about that).

Oh the drama, it's really highschool all over again.

It started out with a thread asking for a serious discussion of "crying it out" (CIO to the bulletin board savy, or lazy typists). The mom present the situation - her two year old fights sleep unmercifully to the point of throwing a major tantrum every night. The child also needs his space while expressing his frustrations, any attempts to soothe the child or empathise whith him/talk him through it just makes things worse and doubles the length ot the tantrum. So mom lets the child cry his frustrations out alone in his bed to settle himself down to sleep.

Responses were mixed - some saw no problem in the scenario, some toddlers are notorious for fighting sleep and their tantrums, so it's best just to let them get it out. They also brought up the fact that developmentally, a two year-old left to cry alone for 2 minutes in a tantrum is nowhere in the same boat as a six month-old left for the same amount of time, crying for someone to comfort them. There was at least one response that said leaving a child alone is leaving a child alone and gave mom some hints for helping her child work through the tantrum (which mom already said only made things worse).

Well, someone got their panties in a bunch and started a thread complaing about a crying-it-out thread appearing on an attachment parenting message board. There was mixed response, but mostly it was bewilderment at why the original poster was upset because they didn't see anything wrong or "un-AP" in it.

Then we crossed the threshold into semantics - someone actually defined everything from parenting to sleep a la Dr. Sears, to gentle sleep training via Pantley, and finally through the various grades of crying it out - attended crying through to extinction methods. One poster said that any sleep training is antethical to attachment parenting, except maybe if mom works outside the home (always nice to know that a stay at home mom doesn't need as much sleep). Another made the suggestion that any advice must be 100% AP and nothing else would do.

I like attachment parenting because it's the closest term I can find to describe my parenting philosophy, but I am getting very disenchanted with other moms who call themselves "AP". The mommy-one-upmanship is alive and thriving, and there is a definite feel that you have to be "AP" enough to use that as a description for your parenting. I admit, I don't do everything on Dr. Sears' list and get little flack from friends and family for the things that I do follow, so I'm not as touchy about it as some. My son is also just shy of 18 months old, so there is a lot of parenting confidence going on; I'm not quite as defensive about my choices as I would have been this time last year.

There seems to be a sense that you must fit your child and family into AP and not the other way around. The message board has recently added a few "forbidden" topics, "...this board is not the place to discuss scheduling, sleep training, or spanking." Spanking has no place in a discussion of discipline, except as to why it's wrong or an, "God help me, I just spanked my child. Please help me do better." Even as much as I feel that it has no place in any parenting discussion, I don't feel it is necessary to post on the top of an attachment parenting board that there is to be no discussion of it. Including sleep training as a forbidden topic eliminates using the No Cry Sleep Solution as a tool for helping baby and mom get better sleep by their own definition of parenting to sleep being the AP ideal and everything else falling short. Including scheduling in the list ignores the fact that there are some children who not only thrive on a tight schedule/routine but demand it. I know I'm playing the semantics game with these, but they started it - nya, nya, nya, nya, nyaaa, na!

In my mind this just opens the doors to including other things that aren't "AP" and it may not be too long before things like crib sleeping, bottle feeding (formula or breastmilk), and stroller use are included. A list of forbidden topics has no place on a support board and if someone posts something that you find upsetting, you don't have to read it or you can do your damnedest to bury the thread by creating threads that you do want to read.

I'm bordering on incoherent now, so I'll step down from my soapbox for now.