Attachment Parenting

Yep, that's what it's called. It's where the child is never left alone. Always held by the parents. This is also the way they are able to sleep with the parents in the same bed.

It sounds a lot like some parts of India, where the child is always held by any family member. I had a patient who was hit by a car, his wife had just given birth. They were alone in Australia, no family and she didn't speak any English. Anyway even though he had some pretty serious injuries, he wanted to get home because his wife was having to cope with always lugging the child around. It was something about bad spirits or kharma if the child was left alone. Very facinating, but sounded really frustrating to carry out when you're not surrounded by a lot of family to take the burden away.

I found that it gets really annoying to continuosly hold the baby, especially if you just wanted a break, or some alone time. I don't think I could ever do this. I can understand the value of being there for the child becasue it reduces the baby's stress and crying. I can also totally appreciate sleeping with the bub, given the full-on process of birth and the body needing to heal, not getting up and down to a crying baby, it's really easy to just lie down and let the child feed when it wants. I think, however it's also really important to teach the child to sleep on their own and to understand bedtimes.