Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers:
Attachment-Oriented Guidance for Professionals Counseling High Conflict Separated Parents
Jon Aaronson, PhD, LPC
www.divorce-conflict-solutions.com
Winter 2007
(Revised, July 2007)
Overview
This paper discusses recent research about early childhood attachment, and its implications for overnight stays of
infants and toddlers with non-residential parents. It is intended for professionals who counsel primary as well as
secondary placement parents who consider this option for their child. These perspectives will be highlighted:
Judgments about overnight placement always must be rendered on a case-by-case basis, depending on
characteristics of (1) the individual child and (2) the child‟s social environment, most importantly: a) the
history of his or her relationship with each parent; b) the quality of care each can be expected provide the
child; and c) the parents‟ joint ability to “co-parent” on their child‟s behalf. There is no single access
schedule that has been shown to be appropriate for all children of a given age.
The quality of children’s closest relationships during early childhood is integral to learning and social-
emotional development. Beginning with their earliest social interactions, to one extent or another, over time
children learn (or not) to trust and love, manage normal fears and stresses, understand and express
themselves in words, solve problems, have clear and secure views of who they are, and behave respectfully
and independently within the family and community to which they belong.
Attachment security is a function of intimate communication between a young child‟s neurobiological
“hard wiring” and his or her social environment – most importantly, with one or more “attachment figures.”
A foundation of attachment security laid in early childhood contributes to the growth of persons into pro-
social adults. Attachment security during early childhood is a critical feature of children‟s long-term
personality development as well as their immediate social-emotional adjustment.
In general, infants and toddlers are able to accommodate and manage overnight periods of placement in the
care of secondary attachment figures (including secondary placement parents) better than was once thought
consistent with children‟s best interests.
As with other highly stressful or traumatic family conditions, intense or aggressive family conflict risks
lasting detrimental consequences for young children‟s attachment security, and should be given great
weight by Family Court related professionals when devising placement plans for young children.
Familiar Scenario
When urged by court-connected experts to try overnight periods of placement for their infant or toddler, it is not
uncommon for Family Court disputants to provide seemingly contradictory reports about the impact of these visits
on their child. Consider the following statements of an eighteen-month-old‟s separated parents.
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
Father: We had a great time together. Mary Jane‟s such a happy baby, and so smart! We spent all day together,
playing and hanging out. She didn‟t want a morning nap. She slept just after lunch, when I could see her
getting crabby. Mary Jane ate well, and woke up only once last night. She went back down with some
rocking and a bottle after a half hour or so. I love our bedtime – she does too – and the time when she first
wakes up in the morning is really fun for both of us. The overnights and being there when she needs me are
so special for our bonding. We need more of this quality time together.
Mother: Mary Jane‟s so tired when she comes back home. She falls asleep almost as soon as she walks in the door.
I know he loves Mary Jane and wouldn‟t intentionally do anything to harm her, but I don‟t think he
understands how much she needs me or her down time; they must be running all the time. And then it takes
two or three days for her to let me out of her sight; she‟s so clingy, and wakes up at night screaming. I‟m
really worried that she misses me, and gets scared at night (and angry at me) because I‟m not there for her.
The overnights are just not working out. Maybe when she‟s five or six….
What is really going on here? Partially, each parent is arriving at an impression of how well Mary Jane is managing
overnights with her dad through the filter of his or her own wishes and concerns – Does my child need me? Are we
bonding? How will she know me as her parent? Does she miss me when we’re apart? Is the other parent giving her
the quality of care I would? Will she be scared and inconsolable when she wakes up and I’m not there for her? But
this doesn‟t mean that Mary Jane isn‟t having a great time with dad or that she isn‟t having a meltdown when she
returns to mom. This confusing situation is further complicated by the fact that Mary Jane is a toddler who can‟t
reliably speak to her own adjustment. 1
Which placement plan or plans, most closely accommodate infants‟ and toddlers‟ best interests? If, when, and how
often should very young children have overnights with a non-residential parent? For many years, these questions
narrowly focused on the presumed negative impact on young children‟s attachment security, if they were to have
other than brief, limited periods of placement with their non “primary” parent (most often, father). In particular, we
believed that overnight periods of placement away from the residential parent (almost always, mother) might flood
infants and toddlers with intense separation anxiety. Further, we expected that lengthy separations could harm their
long-term emotional growth and development. Generally, those of us practicing in Family Court who are not child
psychologists have not had a solid grasp of attachment. In part because of this, when a primary parent objected to
overnight placement, Guardians ad Litem and Family Court evaluators were reluctant to recommend it.
In 1973, several attachment-oriented clinicians and academicians published Beyond the Best Interests of the Child.
These writers – the lead author a distinguished Yale Professor of Law, another Freud‟s daughter Anna – introduced
the term “psychological parent” (in that day, interchangeable with “mother”) in discussions regarding custody and
access determination. This was fully consistent with the "tender years" legal doctrine. The concept of psychological
parent designated the one individual within a family who is bonded to the child. Because of her unique love for the
child – these writer‟s argued – when divorced, the psychological parent would be able to determine the other
divorced parent‟s access to his child.
Inevitably, “practical” questions were raised about the single attachment figure/single psychological parent theory 2:
young children didn't seem harmed by overnight stays with grandmother;
they didn't seem harmed by day-long placement (including naps) in family and larger daycare settings;
moreover, non-litigating parents were able to schedule overnight placement for infants and toddlers
with each of them without apparent ill effect.
Nonetheless, when I began working as a Family Court counselor in 1980, it was common practice to identify that
1
Interestingly, when I interview parents who have voluntarily arranged and monitored regular, sometimes frequent, overnight periods of placement
for their young child, in most instances they report no alarming adverse reaction to the self-imposed schedule. I am aware of one former couple
whose now four and one-half year old has been cared for within an alternating week placement schedule since their separation when the child was
eight months old. (This is a placement plan that few mental health professionals specializing in such matters would have recommended.) By both
parents‟ accounts, only recently (during which tensions between them came to a head) had their daughter begun to “miss” mom during her weeks
with dad. Such anecdotal evidence might suggest, for some children, overnight placement can be less problematical when the co-parental alliance is
in good repair.
2
Richard A. Warshak, “Blanket Restrictions: Overnight Contact between Parents and Young Children,” Family and Conciliation Courts Review,
Vol. 38, No. 4. 2000, 422-445
2
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
parent who was the “psychological parent.” Today, with the adoption of gender neutrality in the Family
Code and with what we‟ve learned about attachment since, such inquiry would be considered biased and ill
informed.
Even then, 25 years ago, we had trouble applying this concept. One problem was that many children appeared to be
attached to their fathers as well as to their mothers. Consequently, we began to look for the child‟s “primary
attachment figure” or “primary parent.” This notion of primacy is still in use and remains useful, to a point. Today,
it is widely accepted that children can and often do form attachments to several emotionally significant persons in
multiple social environments.
In 2000, Joan Kelly and Michael Lamb summarized research findings about attachment (some, long-standing),
which are particularly relevant to placement planning. 3 I will highlight just five of their conclusions.
1. Infants can tolerate separation from one attachment figure when placed with another attachment figure.
2. Infants and toddlers need regular periods of placement with each parent to maintain these attachments.
3. Knowledge of a child‟s temperament also helps parents shape the placement schedule to fit their child‟s
individual needs and abilities.
4. The family breakup may explain some of the attachment insecurity children show when placement
schedules are first implemented.
5. Eventually, children – including infants, toddlers, and preschoolers – can also respond positively to their
parents‟ separation and divorce, when it is accompanied by reduced family tension, stress, and discord.
What is “Attachment”?
Attachment has to do with a dependent child‟s biologically – based need to survive, which is easily seen in most
young children‟s preference to be physically close to some adults over others – to be near the people to whom the
child feels close to and protected by.
We call the adult’s contribution to this relationship “bonding.” In an April 20, 2007 New York Times Op-Ed (“Why
Darwinism Isn’t Depressing”), evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright wrote about our similarity to all life;
genetically, according to Wright, we humans are “survival machines.” Wright also asserted that the same survival
dynamic explains our need to love, that is, to “bond.”
Wright says, when circumstances warrant, it is bonding that compels a parent to choose his or her child‟s best
interests over the parent‟s own needs and priorities, including – in the extreme – the parent‟s own instinct for self-
preservation. Because of parent-child bonds, we dash into traffic to pull children away from oncoming cars. But
not necessarily all children. Under most circumstances, we have a weaker impulse to save our neighbor‟s child –
even one we are fond of. “Fond” and “bond” are not the same. We are taught to love our neighbor‟s child as our
own (and of course, we should); but we rarely do.
Less dramatically, Wright poses the following “thought experiment”:
Suppose you are a parent and you (a) watch someone else‟s toddler misbehave and then (b) watch your
own toddler do the same. Your predicted reactions are, in the first instance: “what a brat!” and, in the
second, “That‟s what happens when she skips her nap.”
Thus, empathy results from attachment and bonding. 4
Seen from the child’s perspective, this first love connection is “attachment.” This need to empathically interconnect
is part of our biological hard wiring as mammals and as humans. It may begin in utero, and in many cases it is
evident as early as the 6th or 7th month of life.
3
Joan B. Kelly and Michael E. Lamb, "Using Child Development Research to Make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young
Children," Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Vol. 38, No. 3, July 2000, 297-311.
4
Parents and stepparents married to each other are all too familiar with these clashes of perception and judgment. Compared to first marrieds
who most often come into conflict about household finances, the most frequent argument in second marriages has to do with one another‟s
children.
3
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
Developmental Tasks of Infants and Toddlers5
Parents have the largest share of responsibility to provide, arrange, and oversee the social environments in which
their children learn and mature. A child‟s healthy development requires:
nurturance, not indulgence;
safety, not over-protection or over-control;
stimulation that does not overwhelm;
challenge as well as support; and
freedom to venture out from a “secure base.”
Generally, children are more likely to receive developmentally appropriate balances of these conditions from parents
and other regular caregivers who:
are emotionally warm and available;
stimulate intellectual interest, curiosity, and development;
provide a flexible but clear structure of consistently practiced routines, expectations, limits, and consequences;
and
are knowledgeable, sensitive, and responsive to the child‟s stresses and accomplishments, unique traits, and
normal developmental changes.
Attachment figures provide a social-emotional environment within which the child is invited to engage and
collaborate, in order to get the child‟s basic and higher-order needs met. (As psychologist Abraham Maslow
suggested in A Theory of Human Motivation (1943), in most cases, the family is the first to meet (or not) the child's
needs for basic sustenance and safety and is the first model of what it means to belong, to be valued and esteemed,
and to be nurtured into the child‟s full potential.) Attachment can be “secure” or “insecure,” depending on the
relative degrees of attunement and reliability of the care provided over time by significant caregivers. Bonding that
engenders secure attachment is alert and responsive to the infant‟s distress and anxiety and, equally, to signs of the
child‟s contentment, pleasure, accomplishment, and growth.
Divorce researcher and clinician Joan Kelly and developmental psychologist Michael Lamb explain, “infant-parent
attachments promote a sense of security, the beginnings of self-confidence, and the development of trust in other
human beings.”6 Solomon and Biringen (2001) agree: “Although children ages 1 to 3 or 4 can be traumatized…by
separation of several weeks from the primary caregivers [even] under adverse conditions…separation does not need
to have such negative effects if the child is left in the stable care of other responsive and affectionate adults….” 7
A successful attachment relationship creates for the child a “secure base” from which the child is able to explore his
or her environment. Eventually this sense of security is psychologically internalized. The child is able to safely and
comfortably move further and further away from the social base of security, for longer and longer periods of time.
Early Childhood Attachment
Attachment also refers to a hard wired, complex, reciprocal relationship between mammalian neurobiology and
social interaction.8 Attachment is part of and results from nature – mammals‟ innate developmental capacity to
elicit, receive, and respond to nurturing provided by social stimulation (bonding), which is also programmed into us
5
Charles E. Schaefer and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo, Ages & Stages: A Parent’s Guide to Normal Childhood Development, John Wiley, 2000.
6
Joan B. Kelly and Michael E. Lamb (200), footnote 3.
7
Judith Solomon and Zeynep Biringen, "Another Look at the Developmental Research: Commentary on Kelly and Lamb's 'Using Child
Development Research to Make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young Children,'" Family Court Review, Vol. 39,No. 4, October
2001, 355-364.
8
G. A. Bradshaw, Allan N. Schore, Janine L. Brown, Joyce H. Poole, and Cynthia J. Moss, “Elephant Breakdown – Social trauma: early
disruption of attachment can affect the physiology, behaviour and culture of animals and humans over generations,” Nature, Vol. 433, 24
February 2005; Charles Siebert, “An Elephant Crackup?” New York Times, 10.8.06.
4
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
as mammals and humans. Although analytically separate, nature and nurture function synergistically to create
specific attachment relationships.9
Thus, the nonverbal, interpersonal exchanges of sensory contact between infant and caregiver that engenders
attachment – gaze, facial expression, soothing/harsh/absent/erratic/frightening sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound –
are both instinctual and learned. This interpersonal, experiential learning that contributes to and results from human
attachment would be impossible, were it not for an infant brain‟s design for learning and growth within an
immediate social (family) context. In turn, the further development of each baby‟s neurobiological “architecture”
relies on the quality of attachment engendered by parents and other “social partners.” 10
When infants and toddlers are distressed – whether because of hunger, fatigue, illness, disorientation upon waking,
unfamiliarity of a situation or of the strangers in it – they cry for or cling to or scamper toward a known attachment
figure, for reassurance. As a result of the comfort parents provide in these circumstances, babies‟ brains actually
create new neural structures and pathways. In this way, infants and toddlers learn to soothe themselves and regulate
their own emotions. After “thousands of such mini-interactions” with attachment figure/s,11 the positive or negative
quality of the child‟s most significant relationships – whether secure or insecure – is shown in the degree and quality
of the youngster‟s learning to regulate his or her physiological responses to external stimulation. When proven
trustworthy, attachment relationships grow into a trustful internalized “secure base” with which non-stressed infants
and toddlers – and confident preschoolers, school children, adolescents, and adults – are able to explore and master
their environment and themselves in that environment.12
Impact of Family Conflict on Early Childhood Attachment
Most parents and professionals agree: children of separation and divorce are harmed by hard feelings, conflict, and
aggression between those adults to whom they are most closely attached and upon whom they depend for the safety,
structure, and nurturing that promote healthy growth and development.
Nonetheless, when aroused and distracted by emotions generated in the heat of battle, some parents mistakenly think
that, compared to their older siblings, infants and toddlers are less aware or affected by parents‟ stress and conflict,
believing that their child‟s very young age provides a natural immunity to adverse family conditions. At first glance,
this belief makes sense. Compared to older children, infants and toddlers are cognitively less advanced and less able
to comprehend the meaning of what occurs around them. Unlike more obviously afflicted older siblings, the very
young do not have access to explicit (verbally retrievable and expressible) memories of events, including trauma, to
,
which they have been exposed. 13 14
However plausible this belief might be, it does not consider a fundamental finding from the scientific study of early
childhood brain development: the essential learning for very young children occurs “intersubjectively” – in and
9
In describing psychologist Harry Harlow‟s experiments with rhesus monkeys at the University of Wisconsin in the 1950s and 1960s, Lauren
Slater, (Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments in the Twentieth Century, 2004), illustrates the power of the drive to attach:
“Despite a cold, unemotional…even abusive response, the baby monkeys clung to their…terry cloth wrapped wire mannequin…surrogate
mothers: „No matter what the torture…the babies would not let go. They would not be deterred; they would not be thwarted. My God, love is
strong. You are mauled and you come crawling back. You are frozen, yet you still seek heat from the wrong source….There is no partial
reinforcement to explain this behavior….We are creatures of great faith. We will build bridges, against all odds, we will build them….‟” (Cited
by Michael Thomas, “Treatment of Family Violence: A Systemic Perspective,” in John Hamel and Tonia L. Nicholls (eds.), Family Interventions
in Domestic Violence, Springer Publishing, 2007, 417- 436.
10
Daniel J. Siegel, “Toward an Interpersonal Neurobiology of the Developing Mind: Attachment Relationships, „Mindsight,‟ and Neural
Integration,” Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 2001, 67-94.
11
Daniel Jay Sonkin, PhD, Sausalito California, “Domestic Violence and Attachment Theory: Clinical Applications to Treatment with
Perpetrators,” undated, accessible at www.daniel-sonkin.com/sonkin82405.htm.
12
Eleanor Willemsen and Kristen Marcel, “Attachment 101 for Attorneys: Implications for Infant Placement Decisions,” Markkula Center for
Applied Ethics, http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/other/lawreview/attachment101.html.
13
“Affect Regulation and Repair of the Self,” a seminar presented by neuroscientist Allan N. Schore, Dean Medical Center, Madison, Wisconsin.,
October 5-6, 2005,
14
Alison Cunningham and Linda Baker, What About Me? Seeking to Understand the Child’s View of Violence in the Family, Centre for Children
& Families in the Justice System, 2004, available at the FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Connections) web site,
www.fasdconnections.ca/index.htm. In providing detailed examples of children‟s descriptions of adult domestic violence and child maltreatment,
Cunningham and Baker explain that children‟s verbal reports of violence between parents and of their own experience as targets of abuse should
necessarily not be taken at face value. In part, such information must be interpreted as expressions of children‟s age-related developmental needs,
abilities, and ways of perceiving and responding to hostility and aggression in family relationships.
5
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
through intimate, unspoken (right hemisphere-to-right hemisphere,” mind-to-mind”), emotional communication
with caregivers.15 “How the infant ultimately learns…to regulate his/her emotions will depend heavily on how the
caregiver/s regulates his or her own emotions.” 16 Attachment figures‟ regulation or dysregulation of their own
affective states is transmitted to the child through reassuring or disturbing – “dismissing,” “preoccupied,” or
“disorganized” (terrified and frightening) – responses to the child‟s distress. For better or worse, the secure or
disturbed process of attachment between caregiver and child lays a neurological foundation for the attachment style
that the child will carry into other relationships, most importantly, those with intimate peers and with his or her own
children, later in life.17
Mounting scientific evidence of early childhood brain activity suggests what many understand from everyday
observation: infants and toddlers are distressed and put at increased risk when family interaction is highly
conflicted, emotionally abusive, or violent. In fact, because of their relative immobility (an inability to get away),
compared to their older siblings, infants and toddlers might be more at risk for physiological distress and emotional
disturbance triggered by intense family interaction.
Schore18 reports that, from the last trimester of pregnancy through the first eighteen months of life, when the brain‟s
right hemisphere – its emotional center, and the locus of attachment – is undergoing a growth spurt, human learning
is primarily sensory, visceral, and interpersonal, elicited and taken in by infant and toddler from caregivers through
what neuroscientist Daniel Siegel terms “collaborative and contingent” sensory communication. Learning and
memory during this very early developmental period are implicit, that is, preconscious, nonverbal, emotional, and
“procedural” (conditioned, automatic, reactive).19 Not until about the twelfth month of life, does the slower-
maturating left hemisphere first begin to develop the capacity for explicit learning and retrieval of specific
“autobiographical” facts and events. This difference in development of the brain‟s right and left hemispheres helps
explain most humans‟ inability to recall and verbally describe events including emotional trauma occurring before
the 36th to 42nd month.
Still, “childhood amnesia” does not protect the very young from distress. Infants and toddlers simply have fewer
cognitive tools with which to process and manage intensely aversive emotional experience. They suffer nonetheless.
Preconsciously and emotionally, they still they take in this experience and are affected by it. Siegel observes:
…for the first [twelve to eighteen months] of life, the infant [only] has available an “implicit” form or
memory…“mental models”…that include emotional, behavioral, perceptual…[and] perhaps bodily forms
of memory…[along with derived] generalizations [from] repeated experience…. When implicit memories
are activated, they do not have an internal sensation that something is being recalled. They merely
influence our emotions, behaviors or perceptions directly, in the here-and-now, without our awareness of
their connection to some experience from the past.20 (Italics added.)
The adult experience of déjà vu might be a benign analogy. However, the stimulation of flashback reactions to post-
traumatic stress seems closer to the mark. 21 What young children don’t “know” can hurt them.
15
Siegel (2001), footnote 10.
16
Sonkin (undated), footnote 11.
17
Sonkin (undated), footnote 11.
18
Schore (2005), footnote 13.
19
Siegel (2001), footnote 10, writes: “Interactions with „older people,‟ attachment figures, are essential…during the early years of life…to create
the contingent, collaborative communication necessary for the proper emotional and social development of the child. It is not a matter of
overwhelming „enrichment‟…that is needed during this time, but one of attunement between adult and child. This collaborative, attuned
communication establishes patterns of interaction by which the caregiver can regulate the child‟s positive and negative emotional states. [These
give-and-take] emotion-regulating interactions are required for the experientially influenced maturation of the infant‟s developing emotional and
social brain.”
20
Siegel (2001), footnote 10.
21
In 1998, University of Wisconsin psychologist Seth Pollack summarized others‟ earlier research concerning the effects of maltreatment on very
young children, in part, as follows. Infants known not to have been maltreated were observed to begin showing “joyful facial expressions” at
three months of age, and did not seem to show “anger” until the seventh to ninth month. However, “physically abused children display what
appears to be anger earlier [in the third to fourth month] and more frequently” than older maltreated youngsters. One study, which followed
children from infancy into their early school years, found that “maltreated toddlers display higher levels of anger and noncompliance…than non
maltreated children.” As preschoolers, abused children were…more hyperactive and distractible…and negative...” By the end of first grade,
teachers rated these same children as “more aggressive and overactive...” Similarly, the results of a third study suggested that, compared to non-
abused peers, “maltreated children are less likely to use emotion-related words, specifically those that refer to physiological states and negative
6
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
Attachment-Oriented Placement Planning for Infants and Toddlers22
What is now understood about early childhood attachment leads us to both sharpen and question the wisdom of
recommendations for minimal overnights of young children with secondary placement parents. In light of recent
empirical research, the efficacy of widely circulated placement schedule recommendations – based on intuition and
logic, and derived from untested applications of developmental theory and from clinical observation of conditions,
such as, pre- and post-separation family conflict – can no longer be presumed.23 There is still scant research data
that directly tests linkages between these cookie-cutter schedules and children‟s actual adjustment and
development.24
According to attachment researcher Judith Solomon, the current working consensus among clinicians and behavioral
scientists includes these propositions:
“All home-reared infants develop an attachment to at least one individual.” Most, if not all, infants form a
primary bond, as well as several additional attachments.
“Whether there is some necessary or sufficient threshold of contact that is required for formation of attachment
and how this threshold may be influenced by the stability, frequency, or duration of [caregiver] contact is
unknown.”
Physical care giving is neither necessary nor sufficient for attachment formation. “All that seems to be required is
an unknown but, presumably, low and repeated level of interaction between the infant and the social partner” (that
is, the kinds of intimate, non verbal communication between baby and caregiver, referenced above).
When an infant has lived little or not at all with a parent (usually a father), “it is not clear how frequently the
infant must see that parent, or for how long, or in what context in order for an infant-father attachment bond to
develop.”
Most germane to the scenario posed on page 2, Solomon concludes:
One consequence of [primary attachment formation] is that, following [periods of placement away], infants
tend to be angrier and more insecure toward [the] primary figure even after they have, apparently,
„forgiven‟ non primary attachment figures…. the mother may find that the infant is needy and angry
toward her at reunion and for some time thereafter; the father experiences nothing of the sort in his time
with the child. Fathers sometimes believe that this difference in the child‟s behavior is the result of the
mother‟s anxiety and over-protectiveness; mothers sometimes interpret this as reflecting the father‟s
inadequate care…. The fact that attachment figures are not interchangeable for the very young child
affect…. These findings raise the possibility that behavioral problems may emerge when children are not able to [verbally] express their
feelings.” (Seth Pollack, et al., “Stress, memory, and emotion: Developmental considerations from the study of child maltreatment,” Development
and Psychopathology, 10, 1998, 811-828.) I know of no parallel studies of non-maltreated very young children who witness repeated instances of
intense conflict between their parents, that is, when the children are not the direct targets of the abuse. However, from studies of non targeted
children exposed to domestic violence (Cunningham and Baker, 2004, footnote, 14), it is reasonable to expect that the emotional and behavioral
consequences of children‟s exposure to intensely hostile conflict might be similar in kind, if not also in magnitude.
22
This section is drawn primarily from Judith Solomon, “An Attachment Theory Framework for Planning Infant and Toddler Visitation
Arrangements in Never-Married, Separated, and Divorced Families,” in Linda Gunsberg and Paul Hymowitz, eds., A Handbook of Divorce and
Custody, The Analytic Press, 2005, 259-279.
For additional perspective, see, Marsha Kline Pruett, et al., “Critical Aspects of Parenting Plans for Young Children: Interjecting Data into the
Debates about Overnights,” Family Court Review, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2004, 39-59; Michael E. Lamb and Joan B. Kelly, "Using the Empirical
Literature to Guide the Development of Parenting Plans for Young Children: A Rejoinder to Solomon and Biringen," Family Court Review, Vol.
39, No. 4, October 2001, 365-371; Judith Solomon and Zeynep Biringen, "Another Look at the Developmental Research: Commentary on Kelly
and Lamb's 'Using Child Development Research to Make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young Children,'" Family Court
Review, Vol. 39,No. 4, October 2001, 355-364; Joan B. Kelly and Michael E. Lamb, "Using Child Development Research to Make Appropriate
Custody and Access Decisions for Young Children," Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Vol. 38, No. 3, July 2000, 297-311; Richard A.
Warshak, “Blanket Restrictions: Overnight Contact between Parents and Young Children,” Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Vol. 38, No.
4. 2000, 422-445; Mary F. Whiteside, “Custody for Children Age 5 and Younger,” Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Vol. 36, No 4, 1998,
479-502; and Thomas M. Horner and Melvin J. Guyer, “Infant Placement and Custody,” in Charles Zeanak, Jr., eds., Handbook of Infant Mental
Health, Guildford, 1993, 462-479.
23
See these excellent guides for divorced parents: M. Gary Neumann, Helping Your Kids Cope with Divorce: the Sand Castles Way, Random
House, 1998, 277-288; Robert E. Emery, The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can
Thrive, Plume Books, 2006, 177-183. For the most part, these standard prescriptions have been applied only when parents do not agree – and
when little may be known – about their child‟s best interests, unclouded by factors such as the parents‟ animosity.
24
Pruitt, et al. (2004), footnote 22, is the only direct empirical study of overnight placement for young children of which I am aware.
7
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
greatly complicates the task of devising time-share schedules…. It suggests we must be especially cautious
about disrupting the infant‟s relationship with his or her primary attachment figure. (Italics added.)
The latter long-held clinical caution is especially salient in cases when the child-focus of parents living apart is so
blurred by animus or conflict that third-party professionals must choose among placement plans by applying broad-
gauged statutory factors to unreliable, subjective evidentiary testimony of parents and their supporters.25 Then, in the
wake of a judicial determination of best interests, one possible result is the primary caregiver having to
find new ways to provide psychological and physical protection to her infant despite repeated separations
and…[her] diminished ability to monitor the infant when he or she is with the other parent. The primary
caregiver‟s protective and anxious stance, which may be to some degree inevitable, necessarily places the
alternate caregiver in a defensive position – one that may be intolerable. [The] role of the alternate
caregiver [can be similarly]…complex and ambiguous…as he or she attempts to contain the fear of being
excluded from a relationship with the infant and humiliated by the seemingly more powerful primary
caregiver….26
Under more forgiving and less charged circumstances, when both separated parents are able to anticipate and jointly
plan the father‟s increasing social and psychological importance as the child matures, he may be “asked to show his
sensitivity to both infant and mother by taking a [temporarily] subordinate role.” In many such cases, fathers are
encouraged to defer to mothers‟ greater experience and knowledge of the child‟s needs. Such suspension of
disbelief and delay of gratification on his part is made more likely by a primary placement mothers who can
genuinely “sympathize with how difficult it is to maintain involvement with the infant in a temporarily secondary
role. [In turn, it is] to the mother‟s as well as the child‟s future benefit to lay the foundation in the early years for the
growing importance of the father‟s contribution.”
Ways and Resources for Parents’ to Ease a Young Child’s Adjustment to Overnight Placement
Judicially imposed placement schedules are unlikely to conform to what either parent‟s view of what is best for the
child. Still, the following practices and resources can lessen presumed ill effects of non-ideal placement plans.
Child-related conditions
Knowledge of their child’s temperament and development help parents individualize the placement schedule –
frequency and duration of “visits,” inclusion of overnights, etc. – to meet their child‟s specific needs. Infants and
toddlers with “easy” (flexible, secure) temperaments are less stressed by change and more adaptable to the departures
27
and reunions of placement transitions. These youngsters will not experience or readily show dramatic shifts of
emotion or mood; even when troubled, they tend to go with the flow. During periods of placement away from the
primary caregiver, children with easy temperaments are likely to manage any separation anxiety with less apparent
distress than would be displayed by children with either “difficult” (active, feisty) or wary (cautious, slow-to-warm)
temperaments. Easy children rely on the perceptiveness of caregivers to pick up on feelings lying below the surface,
which less trained parental eyes might not see. In turn, regardless of temperament, young children are often alert and
responsive to parents‟ relative receptivity, or reactivity, or unresponsiveness to their expressions of affect. The extents
to which child and parent are reciprocally attuned and able to emotionally communicate (“mind-to-mind”) may help
explain the discrepancy between some youngsters‟ positive mood and undisturbed behavior during overnights with a
secondary placement parent, as compared to their overt show of distress upon returning home.
If contact with the secondary parent has been limited, the child may benefit from a planned period of transition. When
infants and toddlers have had little prior opportunity to acquaint themselves with the non-primary parent, Solomon
(2005) suggests “many briefer stays in the care of the alternate caregiver during a prolonged period of familiarization,
lasting up to several weeks or even months, should precede the shift to an overnight schedule.”
Transitional objects (the child‟s "blankie," favorite comfort toy or stuffed animal, photo of mom, etc.) may help bridge
discontinuities between more and less familiar placement settings.
25
While consuming the lion‟s share of attorney caseloads, highly adversarial divorces approximate only ten percent of marital dissolutions.
26
Solomon (2005), footnote 22.
27
Temperament is the natural or characteristic style of an individual‟s emotional responses and interactions with people, places, and things.
Whether easy, difficult, or insecure, temperament is a normal feature of human biology, which is present from birth and for upwards of two-thirds
of the population, broadly stable throughout life. Temperament is an enduring style of behavior and is most noticeable when children enter and
adjust to a new interpersonal situation. See Donald T. Saposnek, Mediating Child Custody Disputes, Jossey-Bass, 1985.
8
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
Establishing routines and rituals of separation and reunion for the child when s/he departs and re-enters each care
setting, for example, planning an hour‟s undivided attention, can ease placement transitions.
Scheduling the child’s return to his/her primary home well in advance of bedtime, so that reunion and readjustment to
accustomed routines and expectations can be unhurried and reassuring, for mother and child alike.
Having a shared understanding of their child’s individual needs will enable both parents to schedule overnight visits in
ways that lessen the stress their child experiences, for example, by combining fewer transitions and longer stays or
more frequent transitions and shorter stays with the alternate care provider.
Parent-related conditions
Empowering an overwhelmed primary parent to be more assertive and confident – instead of anxious, defensive,
impatient, or rigid – when interacting with the difficult “ex” and/or with her needy child – can make these relationships
more manageable.
Likewise, parents’ access to calm support systems can help them “let go” and, if need be, “fall apart,” in order then to
refocus and return to parental responsibilities without subjecting the child to adult disappointments, frustrations, fears,
anxieties, or resentments. Especially, primary placement parents need time for adult leisure, self-care and recreation.
Both separated parents also benefit from confidantes who do not fuel the fire of discontent, anxiety, distrust, or
hostility, and, instead, provide non-judgmental, non-emotionally charged practical support and guidance with which
stressed parents can refuel.
Conditions related to the co-parental alliance
Each parent‟s separate ability to care for the child can be indirectly affected – enhanced or diminished – by the
support or opposition each gives and is able to receive from the other.
Solomon (2005) writes:
Attachment security grows from the young child‟s experiencing contact, protectiveness, and reassurance
that comes in response to his or her distress or fear…[that is, by] repeatedly experiencing …the caregiver
meshing his or her behavior with the young child‟s needs or signals, and the child repeatedly experiencing
the caregiver‟s psychological attentiveness. However, [f]athers who seek overnight schedules with their
young children often have had little or no opportunity to learn about this specific child and his or her
needs….
Solomon also notes that an infant‟s ambivalence as well as separation anxiety may be at play to unsettle the primary
placement parent. A child‟s “mix[ing] biting and hitting with hugging and kissing” might express such ambivalence
– happiness in having been cared for (but then being separated from) the secondary placement parent as well as
anxiety during the same period of separation away from his/her primary attachment figure.28
In most functional intact, recently separated, and long-divorced families, the finely tuned, intimate details of the young
child‟s behavior and personality are initially often learned by the less experienced from the more experienced parent.
Sharing of insights and coordination between parents to accommodate changes in their youngster‟s mood or transitions
between activities can serve to support the child‟s overall adjustment to the two-household family. Open, detailed
child-focused communication between parents fosters sensitive (knowledgeable, perceptive, and responsive) care
giving by each. Obviously, such high quality communication is less likely when parents‟ interaction is reactive,
rejecting, or conflict-ridden.
However, communication and cooperation is harder and less likely when parents scarcely know each other, or have
become mutually competitive or reactive. Under such adverse circumstances, an understandably anxious primary
parent/mother might feel even more pressure to educate her child‟s less experienced secondary placement parent and
reassure herself by providing unsolicited – albeit valuable – information and direction. In turn, an insecure father
28
Knowledge of early development will help professionals and parents understand problematic behavior in the context of normal, predictable
developmental challenges. The behaviors identified by Solomon are not unusual for infants and toddlers. Very young children often explore
their world by touching and mouthing. Biting, grabbing, and hitting – while possibly problematic for the recipient – is often an extension of
exploratory behavior, which starts out as affectionate caressing and kissing. That is, the adjustment reaction described by mother in the scenario
on page 2 also can be observed in non-conflicted, separated and intact family relationships. In the absence of stress and conflict, these reactions
are generally more moderate and more easily resolved. (See, Lorna Aaronson, “Love at First Bite: The Problem of Biting in Young Children,”
Child Care Information Center, Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction, http://dpi.state.wi.us/rll/ccic/ccicrbit.html.)
9
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
who feels defensive about his readiness for care giving might view such efforts as intended to control him
personally.
Regardless of the reasons, when essential information about a baby or toddler is not communicated – back and forth
– between parents, the mother as well as the father will be less knowledgeable and able to appropriately care for
their child. As a result, the child‟s adjustment to the placement plan will be made harder. In many instances, this
unwanted result will worsen parents‟ own anxieties and ability to understand and jointly manage the inconsistencies
in the child‟s moods and behaviors between homes. As Solomon (2005) says, “The challenge to the alternate
caregiver is to communicate fully with the primary caregiver and respond sensitively to the infant despite [that is, to
not „take personally‟] the mother‟s wariness about his care giving.”
Likewise, when the more experienced and confident care provider/mother can be balanced, receptive, and
responsive to her co-parent‟s good faith disclosure of difficulties in meeting the child‟s needs, or to his requests for
suggestions to improve the quality of his parenting, both parents and their child benefit. The father will be more
skillful and confident in his parenting. In being able to trust the father and focus on child-related factors
contributing to her returning youngster‟s acting-out, heightened dependence, disturbed sleep, etc., the mother can
breathe easier. That is, when co-parent communication is open and constructive, such signs of distress are more
readily viewed and managed as inevitable expressions of the child‟s individual needs and adjustment difficulties,
rather than as indications of the father‟s negligence or mistreatment of the child. A child always gains when both
parents are able to see his/her best interests as one another’s foremost priority.
Recent Research
To date, psychologist Marsha Kline Pruitt and her colleagues are the only researchers to examine the effects of
multiple caregiver placement when periods of placement away from the primary parent include overnights.29 Their
sample was composed of mothers and fathers who, at some point during the first 18 months of separation, agreed to
a placement plan by means other than court-based evaluation or litigation. Pruitt, et al. found and suggested the
following30.
1 Particularly among children 0 to 3 years, boys had more difficulty than girls adapting to overnight
placement schedules.
2 In and of themselves, overnight periods of placement do not negatively affect young children‟s short-term
social-emotional adjustment.
3 The young parents who composed the bulk of this sample (who may have assumed that their infants and
toddlers were insulated from their hostility), reported co-parental conflict not to be a large influence on
children's adjustment.
4 According to mothers and fathers, the biggest contributor to overnight adjustment difficulties was
problems in parent-child interaction.
5 Most importantly, children adjusted well to “overnighting” with secondary placement parents when the
schedule remained stable or “consistent” from one week to the next.
6 Placement inconsistency tended to occur during the work week, “when parents were apt to gear the
parenting plan to their work schedules or [to] day care availability.”
7 According to both mothers and fathers, “children with overnights and those with more caretakers had few
social problems.... [In contrast, moms and dads of] children within inconsistent schedules [reported] more
social [and emotional] problems.”
8 It is still widely believed that infants and toddlers (children of especially “tender years”) require the
advantages of a home base with a single (primary) attachment figure (mother). However, other things
equal, very young children whose parents separate close to birth, and who have “never known living
29
Pruitt, et al. (2004), footnote 22.
30
Well-respected researcher and clinician Robert Emery points out Pruitt‟s conclusions are based small although statistically significant
correlations (“Developmental Considerations for Parenting Plans: Alternatives for Parents with Cooperative, Distant, and Angry Divorces,”
Wisconsin Interprofessional Committee on Divorce, Annual Conference, May 18, 2007.
10
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
arrangements other than those set up” at that time (which incorporate overnights and multiple caregivers),
may adapt more easily than older children for whom regular overnights away from home represents a
departure from what they are accustomed.
9 That is, “the worry about implementing overnights and parenting plans with multiple caretakers for infants
and toddlers [could be] misplaced, as preschoolers[at the time of family breakup] may bear the brunt of
such arrangements.” (Italics added.)
10 If placement consistency is as important as this research indicates, then – compared to a parent‟s rights of
access arranged around his or her availability – when there‟s a choice, placement schedules should be fixed
around the benefit children derive from schedule consistency: In summary, Pruitt, et al. found that
overnights do matter, but what matters more to [young] children is whether they occur on a regular,
unchanging schedule. This consistency gives the child the best chance of adapting to the challenges
and stresses inherent in mastering a [placement] schedule…. [which involves] adjusting to two
homes, rooms, beds, and all the trappings associated with overnights. (Italics added.)
Reflections
As yet, there is no simple guidance for third-party professionals who influence and resolve placement disputes
between very young children‟s most significant but highly conflicted attachment figures. Still preliminary empirical
research suggests that, other things equal, infants and toddlers – better than many experts once thought – are able to
manage and even benefit from31 overnight periods of placement away from primary attachment figures. However, in
the case-by-case encounters of family law practitioners with early childhood development, other things are never
equal.
Despite the best co-parental circumstances, attributes intrinsic to the particular child, such as a difficult or wary
temperament, can weigh against placement schedules that, for example, require adaptability to significant between-
household parenting style differences. Equally, an easy infant or toddler‟s adaptability to change – such as from one
home environment or attachment figure and another – might be necessary but is not sufficient to project the child‟s
positive adjustment to overnight periods of placement with a non residential parent. When the two parents are
unable to jointly assess and accommodate their young child’s needs apart from their own interests, the child’s
overriding interest in developing a healthy, secure attachment to one “good enough” parent should override most
other considerations. Many times, primary placement with one parent and every other weekend periods of
placement with the other will be preferable – when the child‟s alternative is to live within a substantially shared
placement plan implemented by parents who continue overt hostility and competitive or conflicting parenting styles.
To highlight three factors: first, the potential long-term consequences of secure or insecure attachment in early
childhood for long-term personality formation should be a foremost consideration in placement planning during the
first eighteen to forty-eight months.32 Attachment is a process whose quality is shaped by the intimate give-and-take
between the neurobiology of a unique young mind interacting with a few adult care providers. Thus, when having to
accommodate the universal developmental task of social-emotional attachment to legally imposed logistics, such as
the transitions built into any placement schedule, the comparative goodness-of-fit of each parental attachment figure
with the particular needs of the individual child should be heavily weighted. 33 For the children of the most difficult
high conflict separated parents, it falls to Guardians ad Litem and Family Court officers to devise placement
schedules that square children‟s temperament and other individual characteristics with parents‟ personality traits,
and their parenting styles and abilities. In doing this, it is essential to ask: how discerning, responsive, and
consistent is each parent in providing the reassurance and encouragement needed for securely attached infants and
toddlers to explore and to master the challenges and opportunities of their two-household family environment?
Second, apart from their respective attributes as individual caregivers, parents vary in motivation and ability to co-
parent. As applied to arranging, monitoring, and – from time to time – altering the placement schedule, a competent
co-parent will accommodate or even to set aside his/her own needs and expectations to the child‟s separate, multi-
faceted, unanticipated, and often uncertain best interests.
31
Warshak (2000), footnote 2, and Kelly and Lamb (2001), footnote 3.
32
Sonkin (undated), footnote 11.
33
Jonathan W. Gould, Solomon’s Sword: A Practical Guide to Conducting Child Custody Evaluations, Jossey-Bass, 1989.
11
Overnight Placement for Infants and Toddlers
Finally, after twenty-five years of interviewing children about their parents‟ breakups, despite the adults‟ intense
animosity and maddening acting-out long after the intact family can be for the child but a dim memory, and
notwithstanding children‟s “left brain” knowledge that the parents will not and should not live together ever again, it
is remarkable that some children still wish this were possible. Judith Wallerstein‟s longitudinal study of a small non
representative sample of children of divorce similarly found that, although at the time of divorce some would have
been too young to remember the original intact family, they still cast their imaginations back to it as a lost golden
age; if only the parents had stayed together, they thought, their lives might have been so much better. 34 This fantasy
is partially reality-based. After all, if parents had not divorced, there would not have been absent fathers, angry
mothers, long weekend commutes between homes, and diminished material lifestyles and future opportunities.
I believe that early childhood bonding does not only occur to one or a few distinct attachment figures. Children are
cared for, grow, and adapt to multi-person social contexts, principally – when there has been one – the original
biological or adoptive family. When family is chaotic, conflicted, abusive, or violent, the quality of the young
child‟s attachments are often insecure and “dysregulated.” I suggest that similar effects occur when family comes
apart: that ruptures in biologically based attachment occur not only between child and one or both parents.
Previously secure (or insecure) attachment lodged in the integrity of the original family configuration also may be
profoundly shaken.
Separation or divorce usually restructures the original family into two households. But this rupture in attachment
will not necessarily result in a family that is permanently “broken.” When parents living apart are able to maintain,
renew, or newly fashion a functional, peaceful two-household family environment, they stand to have much more
control and ability to moderate any adverse effects of disrupted attachment for their youngest as well as for their
older children. Even under difficult circumstances of separation and divorce, the best guideline in placement
planning– including overnight stays – for very young children is found in parents’ child-centered potential to set
aside their own momentary impulses, wishes, and interests in order to more fully attend their children’s present and
longer-term developmental needs.
Judith Wallerstein, “The Long Term Effects of Divorce on Children: A Review,” Journal of American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 1991,
34
Vol. 30, No. 3, 349-360.
12