When I was pregnant with Luna I was determined that we would follow attachment parenting to the letter. On paper it sounded perfect, it was all about bonding with your child, being close to them physically and mentally at all times and enjoying each other. I wanted to breastfeed, cosleep, and let Luna lead the way on every stage of her development.
Things quickly started to go wrong, midwives and health visitors shot me down every single time co-sleeping was mentioned, constantly telling me how irresponsible and dangerous it is, against my better judgement Luna ended up in a Moses basket instead. She also seemed to sleep a lot better when we weren’t near her, which absolutely broke my heart. Breastfeeding also went down the pan pretty rapidly, Luna would not latch, I found it incredibly painful and she was showing signs of dehydration. I had zero support and decided for her physical health and my mental health we would switch to bottles.
But there was one thing I was absolutely adamant about and that was the benefits of skin to skin. I was also absolutely terrified of putting her in the bath by herself so the natural step for me was jumping in the bath with her. A year on and co-bathing is still absolutely the highlight of my day. I don’t get in every bath with her anymore but when I feel a disconnect between us (easy to happen now that she is more independent and life is busy) we jump in the bath together and spend half an hour or so splashing about, cuddling and playing. There’s no distraction, no tv, no phones, just me and her. Water relaxes both of us and gives us the opportunity to focus on each other and our relationship. I truly believe that has helped us to create an incredibly close bond and has helped her to be a (generally) happy and relaxed baby.
As well as relaxing and bonding, for me it is important for Luna to see nudity as something that is natural and not taboo. Being able to separate nudity and sex is something that I think is incredibly important to teach the next generation. Stigma and curiosities not being dealt with properly is, in my opinion, the root cause of many of the issues regarding sexual assault and voyeurism as well as inequality between genders and insecurity. By allowing Luna to see naked bodies, and later answer questions fully and to the best of my ability, I feel like I am setting her up for a life of openness and honesty which is incredibly good for her development.
She sits in the bath and traces my stretch marks, grabs my love handles and plays with my tattoos, scars and freckles and by showing her that those things are ok and normal I hope that she will grow up being able to recognise that her body is a beautiful thing to be proud of too.
Nemimothers 