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Seven ways to bond with your baby
Bonding is not a single magic event in the relationship between parent and child. It's a growing feeling that happens as two people fall in love and deepen their relationship over time
The ways babies come into the world, and the ways their parents greet them, are so varied that there is not one singular moment in which bonding takes place. Some people take one look at their baby and are overcome with emotion.
Others look at their little wrinkled stranger and aren't sure what to think. Some people are worried if they don't instantly feel the same kind of love for a second child that they have developed over time for their first. It is important to understand that bonding can happen in many different ways, at many different times.
Here are seven easy ways you can begin to deepen your bond with your new baby:
1. Minimise other activities
A new baby brings a flurry of activity to parents' already busy lives. There can be lots of visitors and people who want to get involved but these first few weeks and months offer rich opportunities for parents and new babies to get to know each other and to strengthen their bond. Work to cut down activities that aren't essential.
2. Cuddle your baby
Babies crave and need touch. It is as important to them as food and oxygen. Let your baby sleep naked on your bare chest. Hold your baby close while you feed him and let your baby spend as much time as possible with you, skin-to-skin. Smell your baby and let your baby smell you. This is the way nature intended for us to bond.
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