Bonding with your Baby
This post was written by Sarah from Nurturing Beginnings. Sarah is a mum of two, birth and postnatal doula, and runs baby massage classes in Cheltenham.
Nurture the Bond
Bonding with your baby and getting to know them is probably something you have been thinking about for a long time. Imagining every aspect of them and bonding with your little one may not come instantly but is something which you can develop over time. The great news is your baby thinks you’re amazing! All they need in those early days is you. There are loads of ways you can get your relationship off to a great start.
The Early Days
In the very beginning, the best thing you can do for yourself and your baby is rest, recover, and spend time together. Gazing into your babies eyes, enjoying the smell of your baby, feeding and cuddling your baby is a perfect start that lets those natural, parental hormones do the good work of building your mutual bond. Our bodies are designed to work together with our newborn baby. So, allowing yourself to trust your instinct as a mother is a fantastic gift to give you and your baby. Keeping your baby close or, even better, skin to skin cuddles will enhance this connection.
However you choose to feed your baby, loads of skin to skin contact will really help to ease your little one’s transition from womb to world. They spent 9 months inside you. So, it’s no surprise that the place they feel safest is right with
you!
To help with your feeding journey read our post on how to make up a bottle of formula or breastfeeding tips for new mums.
Rest, rest rest
Taking as much time as you can to rest and keeping enthusiastic visitors at bay will be hugely worthwhile! Everyone wants to meet the baby (and they will!), but prioritising yourself, your partner, any older children, and spending time together as a family will be a valuable (and necessary) investment. Getting to know your baby, read their cues, and learning to communicate with your baby is something which can get lost in our fast paced busy world. So, taking the time to be ‘lazy’ together is something which may feel unnatural but is a key part of your role right now.
Read our post on why the world can wait – the fourth trimester for more tips on this.
Talk to your baby
Simply talking to your baby – perhaps narrating your everyday activities – can be an easy way to begin to communicate with them. Remember, your baby spent nine months listening to your every conversation and loves the sound of your voice! Following on from that by reading to and singing to your baby is a wonderful way to continue to bond with them. The familiar sound of your voice and knowing you are close will reassure and comfort your baby.
Check in with yourself
Becoming a mum is a life changing experience. So, it’s important to take time to get to know your own feelings. Your relationship with your child is one to invest in so, giving yourself time to sit with your emotions as well as share them with someone else may be really valuable. Allow yourself to be honest about the range of feelings you’re experiencing – it may be exciting, full of love, indescribably wonderful, but also exhausting, disappointing, scary and overwhelming. The birth may not be how you’d expected it and becoming a mum may be a huge shock. Reminding yourself that all these feelings are normal and trusting in your mothering instinct can be so helpful.
Tell stories
To nurture the bond with your baby, you could tell them the story of how they grew inside you. All of the adventures they joined you on while you were pregnant, and how you dreamt about meeting them. You can tell them about the other important people in your life, the beautiful gifts you’ve received, all of the things you hope to do together, and relive this exciting story together with your baby. Continuing to read with your baby, sing to your baby, learn all about their growing body and rapidly developing mind will further nurture your bond. You will very quickly begin to reap the rewards of this loving relationship as your baby begins to recognise your face, your voice, and give you smiles when they are pleased to see you. This story telling can be a wonderful pastime alongside supporting bonding with your baby.
Physical Touch
Physical touch is the first love language any of us experience and you can enhance this with Baby Massage teaching them the feeling of being loved, respected, and nurtured.
There are so many other ways to support bonding with your baby
Gazing, resting, massage, talking, singing, reading, skin-to-skin contact, and feeding all help you to get to know each other. Those early bonds you create will help you to attune to your baby whilst giving them their first experience of love, trust and safety. This can be with both mother and father to secure your new family unit of love.
Thank you to Nurturing Beginnings for this blog post. You can follow them on Facebook here for more content like this.
What did you do to support and nurture bonding with your baby? Did you feel it instantly or did it develop over time?
