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New Born Baby Bonding » Spend time with Baby

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New Born Baby Bonding - A newborn baby sleeps for most of his first days, so you should spend all of his waking time with him. Research has shown ....

Early Physical Contact - Following on from the first few days you should try to keep your baby in contact with you as much as possible. By contact I mean on your body, for instance...

Importance of Smell - We know that your smell is one of the first associations that your baby makes with you. You give off a smell...

Sounds & Effects - Newborn babies do not like loud noises. While your baby is becoming used to your voice, speak or sing in a soft...

Spend time with Baby
A mother's response to her baby can be affected by the amount of time she spends with him during the first few days of life. A group of mothers who were permitted nothing more than routine contact with their babies on a hospital ward was studied. Another group of mothers in the same ward was allowed to have contact with their babies for an extra fifteen hours during their three days in hospital. The two groups were interviewed one month after delivery and a year later and revealed a number of quite surprising differences. The mothers who had been given extended contact were found to be more reluctant to leave their babies, to be more responsive to their crying, to engage in more eye-to-eye contact during feeding and to be generally more attentive to their babies. The remarkable thing is that these differences are accounted for by just fifteen hours of additional contact during the first three days of life.

While it's undoubtedly true that early physical contact helps bonding, it's not the only factor involved in the development of maternal or paternal feelings. In a study of premature babies, where the most extreme form of early separation arises because the baby has to stay in an incubator for an extended period, mothers were allocated to two groups. In the first, the standard hospital procedure was used and each mother was permitted only to look at her baby during the several weeks he stayed in the incubator. In the second group the mothers were permitted to handle their babies in the incubator from the second day onwards. The mothers were questioned after one week and one month and then after discharge from hospital. It was impossible to find any consistent differences between the two groups. This important piece of research suggests that a mother's attachment to her baby may not be seriously affected by a temporary separation immediately after her baby's birth. That's just as well, otherwise there would be little hope for adoptive parents and their children. Mothering is much more complex than a simple dependency on the hormonal changes that occur at childbirth. The most likely explanation for the way a woman develops mothering and maternal instincts is that it stems from the mother's own childhood. Love develops early on in life on a reciprocal basis. It stems from the experience of being loved by parents who give a child the capacity for loving others. It enables the child to return love when it is given and to transfer it to others later on in life. In other words, when a child is loved it makes him fit for love; if a child is deprived of this experience the ability to love is stunted. This is why it's so important for your child to have your loving attention, care and concern.