Attachment parenting is a term coined by Dr. William Sears and outlined in his 1993 book “The 7 Baby Bs.” The parenting style aimed to raise parents’ awareness of a baby’s needs for bonding and relationship through methods like baby-wearing, breast-feeding, co-sleeping and no sleep training. Attachment parenting has gained steam over the years, but not without controversy. Critics claim its expectations are unrealistic and pediatricians strongly advise against co-sleeping.

Dr. Stephanie Dueger, “The Attachment Doctor,” specializes in early attachment, counseling new parents and parents-to-be on how to prepare for the birth and early years of their children’s lives. Her work centers on attachment theory, which was posited by psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1930s. Attachment theory focuses on the importance of the baby forming strong relationships with its primary caregivers. It differs from attachment parenting, a method that has gained popularity in the last twenty years and stresses practices like baby-wearing, breast-feeding and co-sleeping.

“I think a lot of people don’t even know what attachment is and if they do know what attachment is– it’s attachment parenting– which is very different from attachment theory.” For Dr. Dueger, the most important part of raising a young child is that strong relationship between parent and child, and the parenting method used to gain that bond is secondary. 

“Every family is set up differently and has their own beliefs, their own values, and really finding your own ways of parenting is part of the fun and the challenge of it. So as parents, people will hear a lot of different kinds of advice and some of them will be helpful, and some that really won’t, and it just depends on that family system.” 

forming attachment with a newborn, first time parents

Photo by Isaac Quesada – Unsplash

Dr. Dueger emphasizes that each family needs to work through what makes sense for them, regardless of current trends. So while strategies like attachment parenting can work well for some families, it can put undue stress on others if they’re trying to meet every demand of a particular parenting doctrine. Added stress is definitely not needed when a newborn is in the house, sleep is minimal and the family routine has been upended. 

While Dr. Dueger acknowledges the challenges families face when a baby is born, she also focuses on the particular difficulties parents face. Parenting “really pushes the individual and the couple to grow in ways that they hadn’t before.” Though doctors and psychologists have studied how a baby changes and grows through its various stages of development, little attention has been given to what’s happening within the parents. The transition into parenthood is one of the most challenging life stages. 

“So often people go into parenting without really having any idea of what their own patterns are. If you’re lucky, you will have had the opportunity and resources to do a lot of self-reflection and examination of your own life. I think a lot of new parents go into parenting saying, ‘I am never going to do this like my parents did it, or I really want to do this like my parents did it,’ but without having done that deep work on themselves or on themselves as a unit, as a couple.”

If you’re expecting, or you and your partner are just now thinking of having children, this is the perfect time to do the “pre-work” and explore how you were raised and what you believe. One way to do this is through a licensed therapist or family counselor. Dr. Dueger has also written a book, Preparing For Parenthood: 55 Essential Conversations for Couples Becoming Families. It guides couples through many different questions and allows them to begin to understand how they want to parent outside of how they were raised, and without the expectations that can come from parenting theories.

In the end, what matters most when parenting your child from birth and beyond is the relationship you form, and the love you give them. If you focus on being deeply involved in their earliest years, a healthy attachment will form, whether you’re adhering to a parenting style or not. 

Quotes from this article were drawn from The Integrative Psychology Institute’s Higher Practice podcast, How to Be More Effective as a Parent, by Dr. Stephanie Dueger. 

Purchase the book “Preparing for Parenthood: 55 Essential Conversations for Couples Becoming Families” on Amazon.