How to Have a Strong Emotional Bond With Your Infant and the Importance of Attachment

You may have seen babies sitting or laying in baby beds, swings, carriers, and bassinets being ignored by parents and other family members until they begin fussing and crying, and needing to be fed or changed. Scientists and other proponents of early brain development would cringe at this image. This article discusses how you can develop and sustain a close emotional attachment with your infant.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Hold your baby often and while bottle feeding rather than laying them down with the bottle propped in their mouth.
2. Talk to your baby when you are holding them or if they are in the room with you about what you are doing at the time and about how much you love them.
3. Play with your baby by moving an object slowly in front of her and letting your baby follow it with her eyes. Play adds to the attachment between your child and this also help them begin to track movement with their eyes.
4. Read, sing songs, play music, recite nursery rhymes or short poems to your baby. This not only helps strengthen the bond and attachment between you and your baby, it teaches them the sounds and routines of daily life.
5. When feeding your baby or just holding them look directly into your infant's face so they will learn to recognize both your profile and full face, which appear different.
6. Read to your baby beginning at 3 to 5 minute intervals increasing the time as they get older even though an infant does not know what a book is yet. If the book is a picture book, point to the pictures and say the words.
7. Introduce items with different textures for your baby to play with while you are holding them and talk about how the objects feel.
8. As your child gets older the emotional relationship between you will continue to grow. It is the interaction between you and your child that helps set the stage for the relationship you will have with them as they get older.

Tips & Warnings

• Early brain development gets a boost through attachment, aiding with emergent language development, sight and vision, hearing, and emergent literacy.
• Learning begins at birth
• A child who lacks an emotional and physical attachment with their parent or other primary care giver may grow up with the inability to form attachments with peers, siblings, or relationships.
• A child who is deprived of the opportunity to form an attachment with a parent may feel unloved, may develop serious emotional issues, and may not understand why a parent does not want to hold, cuddle, or play with them.