Who let the paper out of the bag?

I'm [finally] getting our taxes in order, which has set off a wave of organizing that may yet drown us in the carefully piled bags of paper I've been amassing since MZ's birth. So I'm cheating, directing you to Roasted Squid's post on Superpoop, now that I'm a true believer, and leaving you with this, my response to an invitation to join an Attachment Parenting group, which frankly gave me the back-to-birth-story days willies:

I am a huge fan of AP, it's our philosophy of first resort in parenting. I attribute my daughter's early language development to being worn (and perhaps I should blame her late crawling and walking on the same thing?). But I must say, I am personally against adherence to *any* philosophy that doesn't work for me and my family. I went into this adventure expecting to cosleep, with no set limits on weaning, etc. I have a baby who made it abundantly clear that she sleeps better on her own. She never really took a bottle, but self-weaned at 13 months. I was against (more afraid of) CIO, but got lucky with a baby who let us know when she was ready to go from nursing down to putting herself to sleep.

I am the first to admit that I have an "easy" baby, and I am not expert enough with just one child to say that it's because we practice AP (for the most part). I have nothing but empathy for parents of babies who finally go to CIO after months of waking every 2-3 hours to nurse, and have seen babies who are happier, by all external measures, once they're sleeping through the night, even when it took CIO to get there. I've also seen babies who started to thrive once they got formula, either supplemented or whole hog, so while I'm grateful that I could breastfeed, I am very impatient with the way women who can't breastfeed, or whose babies aren't thriving on breast milk alone, can be made to feel when they whip out a bottle over here in Berkeley West.

I am up for joining a group, but you might not want me there, because I'm more of a believer that you do what works for your baby, and less an adherent to any one philosophy. If Baby #2 has a totally different disposition, we'll follow that baby's lead, too, but ultimately will do what we need to to make sure s/he gets sleep, gets fed, etc.

And you can bet that whatever we do, it will be done with a whole lot of love and thoughtful consideration.