For all the talk about love for others, we want to talk about love for you. You, and your baby.
Bonding is all about that natural feeling of love and protection you feel for your baby. These incredibly strong ties are what provide our baby’s with their first model for close relationships and give your baby their sense of security and self-esteem. It is also a strong part of their social and cognitive development.
Touch and sound are two incredible ways to help you bond with your baby.
Touch is like a language as babies respond to skin-to-skin contact. Gentle massage, stroking, rocking and cuddling is incredibly soothing for both of you and is thought to promote growth and development. If doing massage, try finding out about local classes or watch some of the amazing videos online on how to do it properly.
Babies love the sound of human voices and will soon enough enjoy trying it out for themselves. Just having conversations around them is comforting and helps them in their language development.
Most babies are ready to bond with their mums and dads from the get go. Whereas we are not so simple, and can have a lot of emotions around this. Whilst with some parents the feelings can be instantaneous and be very intense. For others, it can take a little longer and can be filled with a whole host of other emotions.
Bonding is a process, not something that has to happen within a fixed amount of time, and not everyone will feel exactly like everybody else.
This can be an overwhelming time—think of all the amazing work your body has done so far, and that it continues to do! Take good care of yourself, rest when you can, congratulate yourself on what you have achieved, every little step of the way, treat yourself, eat well, talk, share, and get support from others around you. There will be others in very similar situations, and even if they are not, they will want to help. Do not feel alone in this crazy new journey you are on.
xx Cat & Alice
Other articles:
