The arrival of a baby lays the foundation stone for celebrations and joyous moments for every parent and their families as well. Every milestone the baby crosses creates a sense of pride for everyone involved with the baby. Parents want to take every care and precaution to ensure that their baby grows well in every sense of the word. While most milestones may come automatically, bonding with your baby is one of the important exercises that creates a strong connect with your little one and ensures that they grow and develop well.
Bonding means the parents feel a deep sense of love and attachment for their baby. A bond makes your baby feel secure with you and your partner. You will be motivated to spend sleepless nights with your little princess, just because of a lovely bond. Once their baby starts feeling safe and secure with you and starts developing affection, this also forms the foundation for their emotional development.
In This Article
- Why is it Important to Bond With Your Baby After Birth?
- How Should Mothers Bond With Their Babies?
- How Long Does it Take to Bond With a Newborn?
- How do Dads Bond With Newborns?
- FAQ’S
Why is it Important to Bond With Your Baby After Birth?
Your warm smiles, tender touches and gracious cuddling make your little one realize that you and your partner are their universes. Once they feel safe and loved, they begin to express themselves. Your love and bonding with them, at this age, leaves an imprint on them and helps them to grow and develop in their later years too.
Connecting with your newborn acts as a catalyst for her physical and mental growth. Her brain releases hormones when you do these activities; touching, speaking, hugging, singing to her, and looking at each other’s eyes.
These hormones support your darling’s brain growth in aspects like memory, language and thought.
How Should Mothers Bond With Their Babies?
As a new mother, you may be wondering how to form a bond with your baby, especially since they cannot express what and how they feel and what they need. Here are some effective ways in which you can bond with your little one.
1. Bonding With Breastfeeding
A deep intimate bond forms between you and your baby when you provide them with nourishment. When they suck up your milk, they also get familiar with your smells, heartbeat and skin contact.
2. Gazing at Their Lovely Eyes
Whenever the two of you look into each other’s eyes, your newborn form an impression of you in their memory. They can feel it when you hold your compassionate gaze and look into their eyes.
3. Giving All Your Attention
When you spend quality time with your little one, both of you will get attached. Therefore, keep the phone aside and cherish every moment of your time with your baby.
Your colleagues, friends and family members know that now you’re occupied with your precious one, they’ll understand. Initially, it may take some time for the mother and the child to form a bond. However, it happens naturally and sometimes, slowly.
4. Answering All Their Cries
Many parents have a common misconception that too much caring and love may spoil their baby. However, in the early phases of her life, a newborn needs all your love and care.
This establishes faith that you’re the special someone who’s always there when they need you. Therefore, cuddle up and coo to your little one anytime you hear their adorable cry.
5. Reading a Book With Them
Your precious one gets to know many expressions and tones of your voice in your storytime before night. Even if they can’t understand what you’re saying, reading aloud to them accelerates their language learning abilities.
In addition, both of you enjoy a nice time with each other.
How Long Does it Take to Bond With a Newborn?
You may need days, weeks or even months to have feelings of unconditional love towards your baby, and that’s okay. Do not believe in notions which suggest that a mum must experience a deep bond with her newborn instantly.
Under certain situations, the mother may take some extra time to properly connect with her infant. Some of them are
- A prolonged labor
- Hardships while giving birth
- Newborn exhaustion
- An infant with health conditions (additional care)
- Further, the transactional phase from being a lady to becoming a mum makes you a bit nervous. And you might get anxious about not getting a good night’s shuteye for a long time.
- It’s crucial to note that even if you’re not going through any of the above situations, still, bonding might happen slowly and gradually. So don’t panic, you’re a good mother, and you know that.
How do Dads Bond With Newborns?
Papas should start showing their affection when the baby is still in the womb. It sounds completely hilarious, but your infant can hear your voice when they touch the 18th-week milestone. So go ahead and sing, talk and read aloud to your precious one.
Some more tips are
1. Do Some Cuddling
Babies form a bond with you quickly if they can touch you, smell you and lend an ear to your heartbeat.
2. Give a Good Massage
A body massage releases oxytocin into the minds of the dad and the newborn. This happy hormone builds a bridge of fondness between the two.
3. Playtime With your Little One
Once your baby is at least six months old, you can hold and play the aeroplane game with them. A little bit of tickling and bouncing will also help.
Sometimes, the intervention of a pediatrician is important in cases where your baby doesn’t seem to be bonding. Contact your pediatrician if months have gone by and you still haven’t bonded with your little one.
In some cases, parents suffer some health issues which makes it a bit tough to bond. Postpartum depression among mothers is a typical case where the mother may fail to bond with the baby. In such cases, a trip to the gynecologist and the necessary treatment are vital.
Bonding with your baby is extremely important for you and your baby as well. It helps in the formation of strong connections and also helps in the emotional development of your little one. As a parent, you must take every care and measure to ensure the formation and development of a strong bond with your baby.
FAQ’S
1. Can Babies Not Like Their Mothers?
She gets all her nourishment from her mother. Therefore, a baby promptly gets attached to her mum. However, if she doesn’t receive the extra love and attention, she might take some time to like you.
2. How do I Know if my Baby is Bonding With me?
It’s a natural process. They will give a response to your touches, gazes, funny faces, etc.
3. How Does a Baby Recognize Her Mother?
Your voices, smells, faces and love lets your baby know that you’re the special person who takes care of them.
