Bonding with your newborn

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•  To newborns, everything is new.
•  A good relationship is the best thing a parent can offer a child.
•  Emotional care and physical affection make your baby’s body and mind grow.
•  Stimulating all your newborn’s senses helps them to grow and develop.
•  Respond when your baby cries: that’s how babies learn to trust you.

It is no coincidence that brand new humans are called ‘newborns’ instead of ‘just-borns’ or ‘recently-borns’. To these tiny humans, everything is new.

Although a newborn’s brain has about 100 million cells, the parts of the brain responsible for thinking, remembering and movement are not well developed. Emotionally, newborns are somewhere between the peaceful snug state they were in for nine months and dealing with a constant state of ‘whoa, what was that?’

Newborns can’t figure out how to move their limbs to get more comfortable and they’re still not sure if they’re feeling hungry, tired, uncomfortable, ‘this-is-all-too-much’ or ‘I think I’m happy’.

Repeated human contact through touch, cuddling, talking, singing and facial expressions will help your baby’s brain to develop. These actions make the brain produce chemicals and hormones that make a baby grow emotionally and physically.

Your newborn needs:

•  an established routine 
  
•  a nurturing and soothing environment 
  
•  lots of loving noises 
  
•  plenty of physical affection.

Emotional nourishment

Newborns need food to grow, but they also need love. Love actually makes a baby grow physically. Love causes the brain to produce chemicals that make the cells connect together and develop. In practical terms, you can make those connections happen by being physically affectionate and by going to you baby when she cries for you.

Physical affection can be holding, cuddling and rocking, talking, smiling and singing. Babies feel reassured and secure when held – they can identify the smell of mum, dad or whoever looks after them. Babies particularly love warm skin-on-skin contact and soft reassuring stroking. Contact that is part of a baby’s routine (such as changing, washing and breastfeeding) is not only pleasurable for most newborns, it also makes a baby feel secure.

Your baby gets emotional nourishment when you respond to her crying. Sometimes she’s crying because something is wrong: her nappy is wet or she’s hungry or the light is too bright. When you fix it, you make her feel more comfortable and safe. You may not be able to tell why she’s crying, but by going to her anyway you’re teaching her to trust you – that you can be relied on. You cannot spoil your newborn.

There are plenty of ways you can make your newborn feel safe and secure. Providing good head and neck support when holding your baby not only protects the brain, but makes her feel secure. Swaddling or wrapping her up recreates the secure feeling of being in the womb, helping her stay calm when she is starting to get fussy or when she needs to go to sleep.

Mental stimulation

Your newborn’s world is much more about seeing, hearing and feeling than it is about thinking. Providing sensory experiences for your newborn’s eyes, ears and skin puts her brain to work and makes it grow. This in turn helps the parts of the brain responsible for memory, thought and language to connect and develop.

Talking to your baby as often as you can in soothing, reassuring tones helps her to identify your voice and teaches the basics of language. So too does telling stories or singing songs. It might feel silly talking to someone who can’t talk back, but rest assured that you’re doing something very worthwhile. Babies learn to recognise sounds and voices they hear often.

At this age, babies are most attracted to pitch and rhythm and can enjoy the sounds of soothing music. While you talk, look your baby in the eye and make facial expressions – it will help her to learn the connection between words and feelings.

Your newborn can feel even the gentlest touch from the moment she’s born. Her brain knows she’s being touched too. Regularly touching and cuddling your newborn will make her feel safe and secure. It also sparks the brain to produce chemicals that make your baby feel good.

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