Abbey Clegg

Meet API Member Abbey Clegg API Communities Logo Abbey and Rich found API when their daughter Morgann, now two, was six months old. Abbey was having trouble relating to other moms who didn't practice Attachment Parenting and had received much advice that was contrary to her intuition. "Friends recommended the Babywise method," Abbey says, "and we tried it for a weekend. I was completely stressed out because it wasn't working for any of us." Abbey trusted her instincts, and says that "responding to Morgann's needs is much easier because the entire family is so much happier." But it was lonely being the only one in her circle of friends practicing Attachment Parenting, and she lacked a support system for her beliefs.

Finding a local API group helped Abbey become confident in her parenting choices and has provided her with valuable support and helpful advice. She says, "If not for API, I would have been more stressed out as a new parent. I would have thought my child was abnormal for not sleeping through the night and for wanting to breastfeed so often. I would have doubted my ability to mother her." With the help of the leaders and members at her local API support group, Abbey continued to listen to her instincts and to investigate the parenting choices that felt right for her family. "Now that Morgann is older, I don't have to think about it so much," she says. "It's natural for me. It's just the way we do things."

API continues to be a resource for Abbey and Rich, a place where they can ask questions of other parents with similar beliefs. "I'm currently getting advice on potty learning," Abbey says, "My friends at API are able to provide ideas and resources that work for me." And Abbey is now able to return the gift that API has given her by supporting new parents as they join her local group. "It is so rewarding to develop relationships with new moms and to see them overcome the same perceived issues that I did. It's rewarding to help show them their child is normal, and that they are doing a great job."

When you support API, you support the efforts of local support groups in reaching parents like Abbey.