Parenting theories are as old as life itself. As long as couples have been having babies, there have been others who are more than willing to dispense sage advice, for better or worse, to the new parents. So, what makes proponents of attachment parenting any different? Are there genuine benefits to attachment parenting? If so, what are they?

Attachment parenting is an approach to parenting that starts at birth and carries on throughout the child/parent relationship. While a detailed discussion of its core principles is outside of the scope of this article, the basic premise of Attachment Parenting is that parents should strive to promote healthy attachments with their children. This includes using a lot of positive touch, striving to soothe children when they are upset and in general doing whatever you can as a parent to meet the real and perceived needs of your child. Many proponents of attachment parenting encourage such practices as breastfeeding and co sleeping, and in general they discourage physical discipline at any age, encouraging parents to use natural consequences, teaching moments, and the attachments built from birth to steer children in the right direction.

What makes attachment parenting different from many other parenting philosophies is that it strives to work with your natural desires to nurture your child, and with your child’s natural desires to form an attachment to you. The ultimate goal of attachment parenting is to raise responsible adults who have appropriate attachments in their relationships with others.

The main benefit to the approaches of attachment parenting for new parents is a deeper sense of closeness and attachment to your baby, mostly due to spending a lot of time in close physical contact with one another. In many cases, new parents also get a bit more rest, because the approaches towards parenting your baby to sleep rather than laying them down and letting them cry it out as they try to fall asleep generally lead to longer, more satisfying sleep times for baby, which has the added benefit of allowing more rest time for Mom and Dad. Finally, attachment parenting is believed to benefit your child later in life, by allowing her to experience life with appropriate attachments not only in childhood but throughout her life.

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