Am I the only one who feels like if you value/choose attachment parenting, your choices are undermined the second you have any sort of complaint?

I love attachment parenting with my 4 month old. It feels so intuitive for me, and it’s absolutely the best choice for our family. I love breastfeeding on demand, baby and I both LOVE contact naps, room sharing at night (and the occasional bed sharing oops), taking her everywhere with me, no childcare, simply because I don’t want to be away from her, other than grandparents (who want to be babysitting and also value their relationship with baby). We are in love and I regret nothing.

BUT. I feel so alone in my journey of motherhood. I have a lot of friends with babies, none of which practice much of the same values.

If I say I’m tired, I’m hit with “she should be sleeping in a different room and cry it out” If I say breastfeeding through the night is tiring, I get “gasp oh no she shouldn’t be waking up to feed anymore maybe you should switch to bottles/formula” If I complain I didn’t get much done today, I get “you really need to be crib napping her so you can do the things you love doing before you became a mother” etc.

Okay. Can’t I love and value these precious moments and time I’ll never get back with my baby *and* feel that it’s hard?

Me and my partner attachment parent. Because of this I do feel like our mental health has suffered. We dont regret our decision to raise our son that way its just we didnt realise how much it was going to take from us. This is all fine, knowing we're raising our boy with love and comfort. However, we were always going to have another baby but now the thought of doing all this again... i dont know if we can Its been so hard. I dont know if i could even put the same amount of devotion to another child i feel like id be stretched so thin.

We co sleep on a floorbed, partner in his own room. I EBF, and fed on demand. He's 14 months now so obvs on solids. We contact napped and still do, unless I can roll away.

If you went from 1 to 2, how was it?

If you kept at 1, are you happy with you decision?

I am going to be going back to work in Sept of 2027. My daughter was born in July 2025 (just turned one!) I am an extended breastfeeder. My first breastfed for 4.5 years and my second for 3 years. I did manage to work while breastfeeding - never pumped just fed when I was home. I also cosleep. My daughter co sleeps for almost all of her naps now.

What can I do a year out to prepare my daughter for my return to work? When I went back with my other 2 I remember feeling wildly unprepared, however they spent the day with a grandparents for at least my first year back to work. She spend a few hours a week with her grandparents. She will be going to daycare when I go back to work, the place my other 2 went to.

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Li vários posts aqui sobre isso, mas senti a necessidade de compartilhar minha história também, para descobrir como lidar com a situação.

Nosso relacionamento completaria 8 anos em setembro e temos uma filha de 3 anos.

Nosso relacionamento já teve muitas desavenças, principalmente por ciúmes e falta de comunicação. Depois que nossa filha nasceu, as coisas só pioraram. Ao longo do último ano, estivemos perto de terminar algumas vezes, mas, por causa da minha persistência, continuamos juntos. Estávamos bem — ele até tinha começado a dizer que me amava novamente — e então, de repente, devido ao estresse de ambos os lados, ficamos cerca de 3 dias conversando apenas quando necessário. Ontem ele veio falar comigo, dizendo que o objetivo da conversa era terminar, mas que ele não ia realmente fazer isso. Ele conseguiu me fazer perder a paciência, jogar meu anel no chão e sair. Então começamos a conversar sobre uma separação de verdade e como lidaríamos com as coisas em relação à nossa filha... mas estou arrasada. Eu o amo muito e não queria que nossa família terminasse assim. Fico pensando muito em como minha filha vai reagir e aceitar isso com o passar do tempo. Estou me sentindo péssima — mal consigo comer e estou com pressão alta. Hoje mandei uma mensagem para ele perguntando se ele concordaria em dar um tempo, mesmo que fosse só por um mês, para que pudéssemos nos acalmar e tentar de novo — pela nossa família, pela nossa filha. Ele ainda não me respondeu; não sei se ele vai responder ou simplesmente me ignorar.

Alguém já passou por algo parecido e poderia me dar algum conselho, por favor? Estou me sentindo tão perdida, preocupada com a minha filha e completamente de coração partido.

Does anyone else’s baby get separation anxiety upset from FaceTime?

I’m new to co-parenting a 10 month old (who has separation anxiety) while going through a contentious divorce. Today was her first full day away from me with her father who she hasn’t seen in person for a few months (I didn’t get every thing I wanted in the temporary visitation agreement so we’ve done outside the court order to get her used to him with short visits prior to this). She was upset for much of the day according to my mother who brought her to the public visitation meeting place (to be there if she’s needed but hang back). She has recordings of her crying at different points. I believe that the visitation schedule ordered is way too abrupt given the circumstances.

I did a FaceTime and the baby started crying and got red in the face. The father and his mom immediately documented on Our Family Wizard and text that it was the “only time she cried today” (not sure if that’s to try and paint me as a bad mother). I told them I had evidence that is untrue but that we just need to help her adjust. But I feel bad that she cried and I also fear another narrative will be twisted that she doesn’t like me or something.

Is separation anxiety on FaceTime real?

I am at my wits end.. How do I get my toddler to connect her sleep cycles during nap without the boob?!

Context: I nurse my 20-month-old to sleep for both nap and bedtime, and she nurses throughout the night (we cosleep and that works well for our family). I don’t want to wean yet and I am honestly totally okay with nursing her to sleep! That’s not the issue.

The problem is she can't seem to connect her sleep cycles during naps without nursing. She wakes every 20 to 80 minutes and needs to nurse back to sleep. Often I’m able to slip away after settling her, but sometimes she'll only stay asleep if she's latched, so I end up trapped in bed for another hour or two listening to my audiobook. On those days, if I unlatch her she immediately wakes/stirs and searches for boob again.

I would LOVE to get her to consistently connect her sleep cycles without needing the boob. I need to reliably be able to get some work done around the house and have a moment to myself! Right now the afternoons feel like total dead time, because even if I’m not in bed with her, I have to be ready to drop what I’m doing at a moment’s notice.

Is the only way around this to stop nursing her to nap? Will that even be possible while I still nurse her to sleep at bedtime? 

Some more details:

• She has always slept in a pitch black room with sound machine on
• She has no attachments to stuffies, doesn’t take bottles, has never done a paci
• I’ve tried playing with sleep pressure - putting her down to nap earlier and later, can’t figure out any correlation with this.
• When she wakes, I've tried cuddling, rubbing her back, shushing, etc., but if I don't nurse her she just cries and is awake.
• Her dad could in theory help with naptime for like a week or so to help break associations, but then I would need to be responsible for putting her down for naps again. 
• When she wakes up in between sleep cycles, it’s clear that she WANTS to keep sleeping. She will nap for 3.5-4 hours sometimes (with resettling), so I don’t think this is about needing a shorter nap.
• We are going to continue bedsharing, and I don’t necessarily want to wean her from nursing to sleep at night… though I guess I could go that route if it holistically makes the most sense.

Any words of wisdom or success stories? Has anyone successfully kept nursing to sleep while helping their toddler connect nap sleep cycles independently? Or was dropping nursing at nap the only thing that worked?

Our 18-month-old will be starting daycare this fall. Our long-term plan is for them to attend every other day until they turn 3. However, we've heard from several people that inconsistent attendance can make the adjustment period harder, especially at the beginning.

We're wondering if it would be better to have our child attend every weekday for a while to establish a routine, and then switch to the every-other-day schedule once they're settled.

Does that sound like a good approach? If you've done something similar (or work in childcare), how long would you keep the daily schedule before transitioning to every other day?

I'd love to hear your experiences and any advice. Thanks!

Hello everyone,

​I’m looking for some advice, encouragement, or real success stories because my heart is breaking and my head is spinning with guilt.

​My son is 19 months old. He is breastfed (always nursed to sleep and during the night) and we have co-slept since birth. We live abroad in Germany with zero family around, so he’s deeply attached to me and his dad.

​He started Kita (daycare) 3 months ago. He actually enjoys playtime in the garden, eating with the kids, and he loves his teachers. But when it comes to naptime, it’s been a struggle. They tried putting him to sleep a few weeks ago without success, so I kept picking him up at 12:30 PM.

​Today, we are trying again for the 2:00 PM pickup. My heart feels so small right now.

​Because I am currently not working (though I’m actively looking for a new job, doing house stuff, thinking about a second baby, and honestly haven't even had time for basic self-care like blood work or a massage in two years), the guilt is consuming me:

​Is it really necessary or good for him to sleep there right now if I’m at home?

​Am I "ruining" his ability to sleep by still nursing him to sleep at home? Will he EVER sleep without the breast?

​Am I traumatizing him by letting the teachers try to settle him?

​How do I settle my own mind and make peace with this decision?

​If I had a strict 9-to-5 job right now, I wouldn't have the space to overthink this—it would be an absolute necessity. But since I'm at home, I keep questioning if I'm doing the right thing for his age.

​Has anyone been through this with a high-needs, breastfed toddler? Did they eventually figure out how to nap at daycare while still nursing/co-sleeping at home?

​Thank you so much for reading. 🤍

This is a silly question—quite possibly from my inner child. I am a mother of two. One is turning three this year, the other was born this year. Is it normal for maternal grandparents to sort of bypass the mother, and only care about their grandchildren (i.e.: time with their grandchildren)?

My relationship with my mother is tumultuous—she has been very hard on me since I was a teenager, and now she has expressed that she feels she has every right to speak to me however she feels like (she often will yell at me, and say insulting things to me and about me), and according her to her it’s fine because she’s my mother and she “knows” who I am and I deserve this treatment. But is it normal for her to continue that and then expect full access to my children because in her words “the love of a grandmother and her bond with her grandchildren” is so deep and I could not understand it? Shouldn’t she be somewhat genuinely interested in my experience becoming a mother, and in my well being, and want to build a healthy relationship with me? Sorry…sometimes I really struggle with this and feel so down because I wish she could be my friend, and I wish she’d stop hating on me so much. She had a hard childhood but this feels like emotional abuse.

Looking for some advice/stories regarding sleep when going from 1 child to 2. My daughter will be 3.5 years old when my 2nd is due and my husband and I are trying to plan ahead. We attempted sleep training around 5-6 months old with her that did not go as planned and switched to cosleeping for at least part of the night. One of us will lie with her until she falls asleep at night which can sometimes take up to an hour and then when she wakes up in the middle of the night, the other parent will go over and sleep with her till morning.

So now looking ahead at the newborn sleep deprived stage, my husband thinks that our current sleep setup is going to make things worse and wants to start working on sleep training. I would love to hear how others have navigated this. One of our non-negotiables is that our daughter has to sleep in her room since I leave for work very early in the morning and do not want to wake her so unfortunately everyone cosleeping together is not an option. I’m open to sleep training as long as she still feels supported but definitely quite scarred from our initial experience with it.

How can I meet my toddler's needs when what she needs is for me to be next to her all the time? I cannot wear her because she hates it. I also cannot keep the house clean enough that we won't get sick (because I've accepted my house will be constantly a bit dirty and always a mess) while holding her. I cannot cook while holding her. And if I'm not right next to her, she screams her head off and it makes me want to punch myself in the face. I cannot do anything, and it's been like this for over a year, I'm losing it. And my husband does even more than I can, so it's not like I'm doing this alone.

I've spent this entire morning doing stuff, cooking, cleaning, tidying up a bit, and she's been next to the baby gate screaming. Just screaming. How am I supposed to do this? Should the dishes just stay dirty? Should I just skip my breakfast and give her some ultra processed food? What about the mess that's going to bring ants? I don't know what to do.

Edit: I've had some time to calm down a bit, meaning I cried while reading her a story, and I realised that she was actually playing by herself most of the time I was busy. She started to scream at me for the last 20 minutes or so. I'm just so exhausted.