How to Bond With an Unborn Baby

Some cultures have complex ceremonies to welcome babies still unborn. Indeed, recent research indicates that bonding with your unborn baby may help with personality development. Bonding with your unborn baby is a fun and safe activity that will bring you and your partner closer together and help you prepare for your baby's arrival. Here are tips.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Stimulate your baby. Your unborn baby can see bright lights and hear sounds. Try shining a light, playing music or talking to your abdomen. Some people sing a specific song before birth and then sing that song again after the baby is born. Though you may feel silly, most babies respond to this by moving around a great deal.

2. Try a meditation. There are many meditations for pregnant women that help women focus on their babies and focus on the little movements your baby is making.

3. Lift up your shirt and stare at your belly. This works great in your last trimester when your baby is big enough and you can actually see lumps moving across your abdomen. Have you and your partner touch the moving lumps-you're actually touching your baby!

4. Massage your belly. Using a vigorous (but not painful or too firm) stroke, stroke your abdomen. Most babies respond by kicking and moving around.

5. Take a prenatal yoga class. Prenatal yoga not only helps pregnant women get exercise and prepare for labor, but a big portion of the class involves bonding with the unborn baby.

6. Write your baby letters. Tell your baby what you hope for them, who you think they might be and what the world is like the year they were born. This is a great activity dads can do, especially if dads are feeling a little left out of the whole experience.