Secure Attachment in Postpartum & Parenthood

How does a person develop a secure attachment?

• When you had a parent who consistently was emotionally attuned and effectively communicated.

• You had repeated experiences with your parent where you felt connected, understood, and protected.

So, what does this attachment style look like in postpartum and parenthood?

• You value relationships; are able to integrate your past with the present; and you feel like you have made sense of your past and family history.

• You feel able to stay calm in most moments of stress, and can stay present with your child’s emotions.

Attachment is not fixed. You can work towards a secure attachment.

We are not destined to repeat the patterns of our parents or of our past.

Having an understanding of our attachment styles and why they evolved can help us to make the first steps in breaking generational cycles and creating new patterns in your family, moving forward.

If you are ambivalently (anxiously) attached, you most likely have an overactive feeling brain, and an underactive thinking brain. Using language in your thinking brain can help bring calm to your feeling brain.

So, doing self-soothing activities, such as self-talk techniques (putting words to your experience, identifying and reframing negative thoughts), can be helpful in calming anxiety or other big feelings.

If you are avoidantly attached, you most likely have an overactive thinking brain, and an underactive feeling brain (you most likely had to adapt to this in order to escape uncomfortable feelings in your body).

So, doing activities that stimulate your feeling brain - such as guided imagery and yoga - can help you stimulate that side of your brain.

If you have a disorganized attachment, working with a trauma therapist can help you make sense of - and heal from - your past, and give you more of an ability to break those generational cycles, and create healthier and happier family patterns, moving forward.

Regardless of your attachment style, it is possible to heal. There can still be so much hope.

And what about your attachment with your own children?

You do not need to be the perfect parent to help your children develop secure attachments.

In order to develop a secure attachment, you need to be attuned with your child (i.e., know what they need and know how to meet that need) 1/3 of the time. One third.

Another one third can include rupture - where you are not attuned, perhaps react in a way you are not proud of, or have to say ‘no’ to your child.

But that last third is SO important: REPAIR. Rupture with your child is bound to happen. We, as parents, are human. We cannot expect ourselves to be perfect. As long as you repair with your child after rupturing moments - such as talking to them about what happened and reconnecting with them - there can be healing.

It is not inevitable that you will be parented the way you were parented. You can make a change and make a difference, for your children and generations to come.