Contents:
- Medical Video: How to Bond with Your Newborn Baby: Tips for New Parents
- How to bond father and baby
- Through touch
- Bathe, wear clothes, and replace diapers
- Accompany him to sleep
- Play together
Medical Video: How to Bond with Your Newborn Baby: Tips for New Parents
Being a father is just the first time it might be fun and surprising for men. Surrounding people may focus more on the bond between mother and newborn baby. However, what is equally important is the connection between father and baby. The relationship between father and baby can be fostered even before the baby is born into the world.
Research from Canada shows that prospective fathers experience biological and hormonal changes to prepare themselves to become parents. The testosterone hormone in prospective fathers will decrease, while the hormone prolactin and cortisol (both related to hormones in pregnant women) will increase 3 weeks before the baby is born. This shows that the father's body has prepared himself to be a parent since the baby is not born.
Before the baby is born, the prospective father can begin to build bonds by singing songs or reading books while the baby is still in the womb. This helps the baby get to know father's voice. Accompanying a mother to a doctor can also help build relationships with the fetus. Pregnant women must also feel supported by their husbands and this is positive for the development of maternal health. Follow every development of the mother's pregnancy. So that after the baby is born, the father is not too difficult to bond with the baby.
How to bond father and baby
Accompanying the mother during childbirth is a good start in building a bond between father and baby. Research shows that fathers who accompany mothers to give birth and touch their babies after birth have a father-baby bond that is almost similar to the bond experienced by mother-baby in the first few weeks after birth. Fathers who spend a lot of time with babies during the first months after birth can build good relationships between fathers and babies until the baby grows bigger.
Here are some ways to bond between father and newborn:
Through touch
During the first weeks after the baby is born, touch the baby whenever you can, and look into his eyes. The power of touch can make closeness between father and baby. A touch between father's skin and baby's skin is also needed, not just a touch between mother's skin and baby's. Daddy can hold the baby and put the baby on the father's chest so that the baby is comfortable. Babies can hear dad's heartbeat and it helps the baby to maintain his body temperature.
Spending a lot of time with babies is the best way to bond between father and baby.
Bathe, wear clothes, and replace diapers
Fathers can also help mothers bathe, wear clothes, and replace baby diapers. It also helps establish bonds between father and baby. The more often the father is involved in taking care of the baby, the easier it is for the father to bond with the baby. Maybe when you first hold a baby, bathe, wear clothes, and replace a diaper, dad is afraid of being wrong and injuring the baby because he feels that the baby is very fragile. But, don't be afraid, so you don't do it.
Making mistakes is natural. If dad keeps trying it many times, surely over time the father will be able to do it well.
Accompany him to sleep
Sleep the baby and accompany him to sleep is also one way to bond with the baby. Daddy can put the baby to sleep while singing songs or reading stories to babies. It also helps the baby to be familiar with his father's voice, so that every baby hears the voice of the father, the baby understands he is with his father and feels comfortable.
Play together
Playing with babies is fun. Daddy can make funny faces, funny behavior, play airplanes, play "peekaboo", etc. that make babies smile and laugh. Father may be the first person to make a baby smile. Seeing a baby smile is a special joy for father. Father can be a pleasant person in the eyes of a baby. And this is very helpful in establishing closeness between father and baby.
When the baby has returned home, maybe the father will be busy returning to his daily routine. Father will work and go home at night. Don't worry, dad will still be able to bond with the baby. Father can play with the baby after work. When night falls, dad can accompany the baby to sleep and look after him all night. Being close to the baby and touching it makes the baby sleep comfortably.
Every time spent together between father and baby can be an emotional investment for the future in building relationships between father and baby.
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