How to Bond with Your Newborn

Use these specific ideas for encouraging newborn bonding, which will also boost your baby's brain power. Encourage her brain to grow during your first days, weeks, and months together, as excerpted from Boosting Your Baby's Brain Power.

When you anticipate what your baby needs, you are able to read her signals and respond appropriately. Keep your baby's environment calm and pleasant. Keep lights low as your new baby's eyes are still getting used to the light. Play quiet songs or even read the paper out loud so your baby hears your comforting voice. Provide quiet times when she seems overstimulated (acting fussy or bored and looking away). You are teaching her that you and her new life are a secure and safe anchor. And in such a place, your baby's brain will grow.

Personal interaction with your newborn is the best toy ever. Show your happiness when handling your baby and smile at her. Look deep into her eyes and watch how she stares back. Soon baby will stop crying if held and comforted, and she will smile when she sees you after the first few weeks of life. What a treat! Let's take a look at more specific ideas for encouraging your baby's attachment to you—and encouraging her brain to grow!

Face-to-Face Contact

As a newborn, your baby will gaze at faces, especially at the eyes and mouth. In fact, she will gaze at faces longer than at anything else! She can see clearly eight to 12 inches away, about the space between her face and yours while feeding. Human faces, after all, are full of motion and sound. Stick out your tongue, and your baby just might stick hers out, too! Position yourself close to your baby when singing or talking to her. She'll get to know your face very quickly. It will seem like she is examining every part of your face—every nook and cranny! And that is exactly what she is doing. Repetition will make Baby remember who Mommy is and that she is the sure thing in her life. (Most infants prefer female faces to male faces due to this "mommy connection.") This security enables her to soon move on, in baby steps, to the next milestones. It is also an early intellectual development—college, here she comes! Imagine her studying a chemistry book as deeply as she is studying your face!

Sucking

This natural reflex provides your baby with great comfort and satisfaction. Her sucking will become better and voluntary a few weeks after she is born. Allow her to use her thumb, fist, or pacifier to meet the natural need for sucking. You can even help her put her fist or thumb in her mouth. Remember that repetition makes strong neural pathways that make Baby's brain grow.

Baby Heather was born with blisters on her thumbs from sucking them while in the womb. As soon as she was born, her thumb went straight back into her mouth as if birth had only temporarily disrupted her. Her mom did not have to help baby Heather find her thumb for the next five years!

Babies are born naturally knowing how to get nutrition through the sucking reflex. At first this is an involuntary action, but soon your baby will make the connection that sucking is pleasurable and provides feelings of security. Experts disagree on thumbsucking as the baby gets older. Some experts point out that thumbsucking in toddlers and preschoolers can interfere with the alignment of teeth and influence the shape of the child's palate and facial development. Other experts feel that an older child will be too busy playing and running to remember to suck her thumb, and therefore the habit of thumbsucking will die out on its own. Work with your pediatrician on this issue as your child grows into toddlerhood and preschool. But in the first year, thumbsucking, pacifiers, and fist-sucking are calming and positive experiences for the brain.

Tummy Time

Tummy time is important for strengthening your baby's upper body, and it's another way to teach your baby that her world and you are safe and secure. Lay your baby on her tummy on a soft blanket. Put one or two colorful toys in front of her or around her in a circle. Allow her to practice movements for very short periods of time at first. One minute of tummy time three times a day is a good goal for a newborn. She will work hard to hold up her head and look around. She may drop her head in exhaustion, bonking her little nose in the process. Pick her up and don't let her get frustrated. Make tummy time just part of play. As weeks pass, you'll pick up on her cues that tummy time can last longer. Never leave your baby by herself while she's on her tummy (to avoid the risk of suffocation). Rub her back, talk to her about what she can see, rattle a toy. You can even lie on your back and have baby lie on your belly, looking at your face. Chances are your baby will keep her head up longer if she sees your face and hears your voice. If she's not a big fan of tummy time, it may help to put a firm pillow or Boppy under her chest, with her arms out in front of her, so she can see what's going on.

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