Parenting Month 8 - Attachment

From Baby at Exercise Hurricane Earl

At the end of the eighth month we can clearly state that we have been successful at one of the major goals of infant parenting - attachment. T is clearly very happy with either of us. And he is babbling, expressive, alert, curious and generally happy in all settings.

But that is only as long as one of us is present. The other major happening of the past month is we have started sending T to day care. And he definitely does not like it. We suspect that the majority of his time there is spent crying. We also have noticed this at the local YMCA (which has child care) and at a church nursery. While the Y and the day care don't think this is bad enough to merit calling us, we notice that after leaving him with others for a while he is sobbing for a while. One web site describes stranger anxiety at this age to be a sign that we are successful in developing attachments with the parents. By this measure, we must be wildly successful.

The other fun thing that we did was have him take part in his first Red Cross exercise. It was a shelter exercise and his job was to take the role of a baby staying at the shelter without his mom. A role that he played admirably according to all concerned.

From Discussion about lunch