Pregnant with AS-- Need advice

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AngelRo -

I guess what I was reacting to is that some of those blanket statements are actually hurtful, and I never knew that until I was one of those parents for whom the regular stuff wasn't working.

This is a forum FILLED with parents for whom the regular way was innefective (and maybe harmful - I think I actually hurt my son when I just kept digging in deeper thinking "more consistant - yeah)). This forum is FILLED with people who have sat at meetings to hear authority figures (who hold power over our kids) say the same things, assuming that we just weren't consistant enough, or firm enough or whatever.

What I learned by having one kid for whom that stuff worked and one for whom it did not - kids are different and there are some really good strategies you can try and no amount of what worked for you may work for me.

The OP was asking about how to bond with her baby, I don't think we need to go overboard with the grand scale of parenting.

About Supernany - earlier in our AS journey, before I knew what was up with DS - I used to pretend that I was calling Jo to see if she would come work at our house.

With my son, I bought baby stuff and imagined him enjoying it, breastfed(it's hell the first 2 months I had eczema and with daughter she cracked me and had a bad suck), had a sling, and coslept with him(he vomited a lot and I was afraid he would choke) There were more than one night I had to do CPR on him and the pediatrician(in the tiny tiny town we lived in) said there was nothing wrong......anyways despite everything my son and I bonded.
We are both on the autism spectrum and we spent hours watching a giant fan spin......as he was a horrid sleeper. Take a child CPR class(it is extremely important)

with my daughter it went a lot better and I bonded with her in much the same way. Although my child with Autism is warmer and more affectionate, daughter would rather line stuff up and do books line them up and stack them then bother with people. Read some Dr. Sears he has one book called the Baby Book which was exhaustive in it's wisdom. Shop around for a good pedi or family doctor.

I spent a lot of time carefully nesting.

I'm sure you will bond but do ask for 'skin-on-skin' when your baby is delivered. I had this with my third child - hadn't known about it for the other two - and it was a lovely experience and very bonding.

i'll throw in the idea of attachment parenting, which is quite opposite of some other experiences shared in this thread. i am not a die hard attachment parent, but believe in many of the basic ideas. we co-slept with all of our babies, and still do with our asd son due to his particular requirements. we do not believe in Ferberizing or letting babies/children "cry it out"; we respond when they express needs. we tried slings with my youngest, but he didnt care for them as he hates to be restrained or bundled. for bonding purposes, i found attachment style parenting to work really well, even when i was severely depressed after two planned-homebirth-turned-emergency-cesareans.

books are great, as long as you try to stick to educational and not anecdotal ones (i hate the what to expect series, they try to set you up to be a good patient, which does not make a good parent).

overall, what you'll find is that there are a lot of different ways of parenting that people claim are the "right" way. do what works for you, and what works for your kids. keep in mind that every kid is different, and between the first and second you may have to throw out everything you previously did. and if you end up with an asd child, you will likely throw it all out anyway.

and no matter what you do decide on, your child will most likely end up just fine. there are billions of people who made it to adulthood regardless of whether their parents let them use a binky or not.