Bonding with Your Baby:♥️ From a Homesteading Doula 🌻🌼

Your daily interactions with your baby are the base on which they will build their future. In meeting your baby’s needs, your little one is learning they trust in you. Their cry is the only way they can communicate with us. So when they cry and parents respond and meet their baby’s needs, a loving secure bond is built. Your responsiveness, presence, and fun interactions in those first three years will affect your baby's brain for the rest of their lives.

Most pregnant moms-to-be have a bond with their baby before he or she is even born. The little kicks, hiccups, and wiggles do something to a mama’s heart. Once your baby is born, a few things can help encourage further bonding.

SKIN TO SKIN

Have your baby placed on your chest as soon as it is born. (Remember to prepare yourself for what your baby may look like. Their heads may be cone-shaped and covered in vertix and blood.) Having your baby placed on your chest helps to regulate your baby's temperature. and allows the baby to initiate breastfeeding. And after all that work, I am sure you can not wait to meet your baby.

TALK AND TOUCH YOUR BABY

Your baby knows your voice. They have just come through the most tragic moment of their lives. Talk to them and soothe them. Touch them. Count their fingers and toes. Their skin is their largest organ. Your touch will be comforting to your baby.

MAKE EYE CONTACT

Do you know how far a newborn can see when they are born? They can see you when they are held in the crook of your arms. Isn’t that so perfect? Make lots of eye contact in the awake period that follows birth.

So all this is great because it feels great to mama and baby. It is great because it begins bonding, but it is also great because holding, touching, talking, and making eye contact with your baby helps your body to make oxytocin.

WHY DOES OXYTOCIN MATTER?

Oxytocin is a hormone your body naturally makes. It helps the uterus to contract back to its normal size. It is also responsible for making milk. Oxytocin is known as the love hormone.

SO WHY IS CREATING A BOND SO IMPORTANT?

It is creating trust. Babies grow up to be toddlers and if you are there to kiss the skinned knees and attend your schoolager’s school functions and games, Then when they become teenagers, They will trust you and come to you for guidance and help. This makes a more secure, confident generation.

Nurturing your baby will affect your grandbabies and great-grandbabies and therefore nurtures the future.