Melora Hardin talks about Attachment Parenting

Photo via Celebrity Baby Blog

Melora Hardin of The Office opened up to Celebrity Baby Blog this week about her two home births, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and overall attachment parenting lifestyle.  It's a great, in-depth interview, and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.  Here are some of the highlights:

On breastfeeding:

I breastfed both of them for two and a half years each. I feel like for me, I was not a sleep-deprived mother, because I got really comfortable with the idea of rolling over, plopping my boob in their mouth and they would go back to sleep and so would I.  And that was easier for me than getting up out of bed and sitting in a chair next to the crib.

I think it's a great thing, and something people should feel confident and comfortable with, and not stressed out about. When I was doing it, I had so many people asking me, "When are you going to stop breastfeeding? When she's 16?" Joking like that. And it's like, "Well I'll do it when it's time to stop!"

In countries where they breastfeed at least a year and over a year, their rate of breast cancer is so much lower than this country. It's what they're meant to do. The plumbing needs to be used. It's good for your boobs! And it's great for the baby.

On choosing home birth:

I had two beautiful births at home that I feel really great about, and I would always choose to do that at home unless I had to go to a hospital. I think hospitals are fantastic for emergency or high-risk situations. But luckily I didn't have that.

On attachment parenting and being influenced by the books of Dr. Sears:

Reading that book and hearing that they had seven or eight children but didn't start attachment parenting til their last three was interesting. And he's a pediatrician and she's a nurse, and they talk about the difference between practicing attachment parenting with their last three and how that affected their last three as compared to their first five or so. I thought that was fascinating, from people with that kind of experience -- really quite mainstream. I thought it was a pretty great testimonial for the method, and I talked to my husband about it, and he thought it sounded good and we thought we'd try it.