Popularized by bestselling pediatrician Dr. William Sears, "attachment parenting" encourages mothers and fathers to fully accept their babies' dependency needs. According to the growing numbers of attachment parenting advocates, consistent parental responsiveness to these needs leads to happy and emotionally well-balanced children.

This practical, comprehensive, and first-ever guide to today's most talked-about nurturing style, Attachment Parenting shows how some conventional childrearing advice can be detrimental, and urges you to trust your instincts on such important matters as:

• Responding attentively to your baby's cries

• Minimizing parent-child separation

• Avoiding "sleep training" for infants

• Breastfeeding according to your baby's cues instead of a schedule

• "Wearing" your baby in a cloth carrier rather than relying on "baby gadgets" such as plastic carriers and carriages.

In addition to expert advice from pediatricians, lactation consultants, and anthropologists — as well as words of wisdom from hundreds of real parents — Attachment Parenting includes an exhaustive list of print, Internet, and support-group resources. It's an indispensable, hands-on reference that allows you to confidently and joyfully develop a secure and loving bond with your young children.

"Sleeping with Baby, December" by Kelly Averill-Savino

Introduction by William Sears, M.D.

1. What Is Attachment Parenting?

Why Is It Called Attachment Parenting?

What's in the Attachment Parenting Toolkit?

Attachment Parenting: The Rest of the Story

The Very Best Attachment Parenting Resources

2. The Pregnant Parent's Guide to Planning for Attachment

Working Through Personal Issues: Dumping Your Own Attachment-Inhibiting Baggage

How Were You Parented?

The Very Best Resources for Moving Past Your Own Childhood and Becoming an Attachment Parent

Second Time Parents, First Time Attachment Parents

Your Personal Touch-O-Meter

When You and Your Partner Disagree

(Not) Shopping for Baby: Why Attachment Parents Don't Need All That Baby Gear

Items You Will Definitely Want

Items You Might Need or Enjoy Having

Items You Might Not Need (or at least should consider carefully before acquiring)

The Very Best Attachment Parenting Retail Resources

Planning to Breastfeed...Instead of Planning to Try to Breastfeed

Ten Things That Every Expectant Parent Needs to Know About Breastfeeding

Doctor Shopping: Choosing Your Baby's Health Care Provider

The Very Best Children's Health Care Guides

3. Attachment Parenting Your Newborn

Your Birth Setting

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative

Baby Arrives!

Rooming In: Because New Parents Need Their Babies and New Babies Need Their Parents

Gentle Care for Your Newborn

Consider Not Circumcising Your Baby

The Very Best Resources for Learning More About Circumcision

Bonding After a Cesarean Birth

Have Your Partner Present for Your C-section

Breastfeed Your Baby as Soon as Possible After Birth

Enlist Help with Rooming In

Stay with Your Baby If She Can't Stay with You (When Your New Baby Needs Special Care)

Tricia's Tried and True Tips for Attachment Parenting Your Hospitalized Preemie

4. Making the Breast vs. Bottle Choice

Breastfeeding Isn't "Better"; It's Just Normal: A New Way of Thinking About Infant Feeding Choices

The Breast-Bottle Decision and Your Baby's Health

There's Just Something About Breastmilk....

So What About Infant Formula?

The Breast-Bottle Decision and Your Health

"But I Wasn't Breastfed and I'm Just Fine!"

Wow! Why Don't Doctors Tell You This Stuff?!

The Role of Infant Formula Manufacturers

The Story of the "WHO Code"

Become a Lactivist!: The Very Best Resources for Learning More About Breastfeeding Advocacy

Chapter Endnotes, including medical research on infant feeding issues

5. Breastfeeding: Much More Than Food

Breastfeeding and Attachment: Your Biological Connection with Your Nursling

Breastfeeding and the Pleasure Principle

How Does Your Baby Experience Breastfeeding?

Supply and Demand: You and Your Baby in Sync

Why Do So Many Women Believe That They "Don't Have Enough Milk" for Their Babies?

How Can I Be Sure My Breastfed Baby Is Getting Enough Milk?

Cloth Diapering

The Very Best Resources for Cloth-Diapering Parents

Learning How to Breastfeed

The Very Best Resources for Learning How to Breastfeed

What Is La Leche League?

When Breastfeeding Is a Challenge

Breastfeeding and Guilt

Slaying the Most Common Breastfeeding Myths

Breastfeeding Multiples: One Mother's Experience

Cue-feeding: Breastfeeding Success, Attachment, and Convenience...All Rolled into One

The Problem with Parent-Directed Schedule-Feeding

The Difference Between Breastfeeding and Nursing Your Child

Breastfeeding in Public

The Breastfeeding Father

Nursing Your Bottle-Fed Baby

6. Attachment Parenting All Through the Night

Desperately Seeking Sleep...and Finding It Right in Your Own Bed

How Humans Sleep

The Many Benefits of Family Sleep Sharing

The Family Bed: A How-To Manual

Safety and the Family Bed

Sleeping with Your Baby May Prevent SIDS

Questions About the Family Bed

Infant Sleep: What's "Normal"?

Sleeping Through the Night: Don't Rush It (Yes, you read that correctly!)

Nighttime Parenting

Gentle Weaning from the Family Bed: One Family's Story

Sleep Problems

The Very Best Resources for Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems

Please, Please, Please Don't "Ferberize" Your Baby

But Do the "Cry It Out" Techniques "Work"?

7. The Working Parent's Guide to Attachment Parenting

Your Baby's Need for You and Your Decision Whether or Not to Work

To Work or Not to Work? That Is the Question

Keep Your Options (and Your Mind) Open!

Working Parent/Attachment Parent

Breastfeeding and the Working Mother

Breastfeeding on the Job: The Basics

Creating a Breastfeeding-Friendly Workplace

The Very Best Resources for Working, Breastfeeding Mothers

The Attachment Parent's Guide to Childcare

The Attachment Parenting?Friendly Caregiver

Creating Community for Your Child

The Critical Importance of Consistency in Caregiving

Child-Caregiver Ratio

Attachment Grandparenting

Don't Settle

The Very Best Childcare Resources for Attachment Parents

Money, Money, Money

Paradigm Busting: New Ways to Work for Attachment Parents

8. To Have and to Hold

Baby-Carrying Around the Globe

Why Don't We Carry and Hold Our Babies?

Our Untouched Babies

Artificial Baby-Containers

Can a Baby Be Held or Carried "Too Much"?

The Many Benefits of Wearing Your Baby

Which Baby Carrier Is Right for You?

Safety Tips for Baby-Wearing Parents

9. Breastfeeding Past the First Year

I've Never Seen a Nursing Toddler; Is It "Normal" to Breastfeed Past the First Year?

Breastfeeding Duration Around the World

A Natural Duration for Breastfeeding?

The Growing Popularity of Sustained Breastfeeding

Sustained Breastfeeding and Your Child's Health

Sustained Breastfeeding and Your Health

Mothering Your Older Nursling

What's It Really Like to Breastfeed Past the First Year?

Dealing with the Opinions of Others

The Very Best Resources for Parents of Older Nurslings

Nursing Through Pregnancy

Tandem Nursing

Weaning: Upward and Onward!