It’s You and Me Baby

 Did you realize that the process of bonding with your baby and creating a secure attachment would influence your baby’s success in life? Well, developmental experts tell us that when a baby has bonded nicely with his or her caregivers it helps baby build trust in relationships and an ability to connect with other people. In Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s book Great Kids he says, “Throughout her life, a child must be able to ‘read’ and relate to a range of people. As she grows up, this ability to connect will allow her to make friends and form a variety of relationships with significant loved ones, with casual acquaintances, and with colleagues and clients. In times of stress, she will turn to those close to her to help her feel better and find solutions to problems. Through connections with others, children and adults share the pleasures, joys, angers and sorrows of their lives.” So bonding with your child is important, not only to feel safe and secure as an infant and child but also to learn how to form healthy, successful relationships as an adult. The lessons of engagement start with the intimacy of an infant’s bonds with his or her parents. So how do you “bond”? Well, it’s a process and doesn’t necessarily start with one magical moment. Ways to bond with baby almost sound simple–see the following:

1. Talking. Even though young babies can’t repond to someone with words they can communicate. Developmentally they start with a socially responsive smile at 2 months of age!

2. Playing (games like peek-a-boo, my kids are 2 years and 4 years now and still enjoy peek-a-boo!) and singing are quite interactive.

3. Reading (even to young infants) provides a time of closeness being one-on-one.

4. Holding, caressing, infant massage, babywearing (the practice of wearing your baby in a baby sling)

Being held is a biological need for babies to thrive. Babies are “held” for nine months in their mother’s womb.  They were safe, fed, soothed by mom’s heartbeat and the rocking motion of her movement.  After babies are born being held helps them feel all of this.  Being held promotes attachment and bonding which babies need.

Research has proven the many benefits of babywearing. Babies cry up to 40-50% less when held.

They often nurse better, and gain weight better. Being held enables mom or other caregiver to notice their baby’s feeding cues earlier and before crying starts, as crying is a late cue for hunger in babies. And if you are able to start a feed before the baby is crying frantically usually the feeding goes better.

Holding your baby can be much easier when you wear him or her in a fabric baby sling.  Fortunately with the increasing popularity of babywearing there are many baby slings and carriers on the market.  The difficulty may be trying to pick one.

A mother’s touch can improve cognitive function and provides resilience to stress.  For an infant, a mother’s touch provides a feeling of security, comfort and love.  In fact, research at UC Irvine is showing that it does much more. Caressing and other sensory input triggers activity in a baby’s developing brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress. “What’s noteworthy about this study is that it reveals that brain structure is influenced by the environment early in life, and especially by maternal care,” says researchers.  When you think about it that’s pretty powerful.  Infant massage is a great way to increase your touch time with your baby as well as babywearing–the practice of holding or wearing your baby in a fabric baby sling carrier. 

Well, when it comes to bonding with your child especially your baby touch is an extremely important form of communicating your love to your child.  Holding is touching and this helps your child feel safe and secure.   One way to maximize your time available for holding is to wear your child in a baby sling carrier or baby wrap.  Something that keeps your baby or child up against your body, feeling your warmth, the rhythm of your breathing, and your heart beat.  It’s a wonderful way of communicating your love as the bond between you and baby grows.

The benefits of babywearing are real.  Studies have even proven it.  For example, neonatal intensive care units that take care of premature and ill babies use what they call “kangaroo care” in which a premature baby is wrapped, skin-to-skin, up against the mother’s or father’s chest. The parent rocks, holds, and gently moves with the baby. The rocking motion, the skin contact, and the rhythmic motion of the parent’s chest during breathing produces the following beneficial effects:

• More stable heart rates
• More even breathing
• A healthier level of oxygen in baby’s blood
• Faster growth
• Less crying and increased time in the state of quiet alertness
• Better sleeping

Researchers believe that using kangaroo care helps the parent act as a regulator of baby’s physiology, including reminding the baby to breathe. In other experiments, infants with breathing difficulties were placed next to a teddy bear stuffed with a mechanism that seemed to “breathe”; these babies also had fewer times of breathing pauses. When the results of this ”teddy technology” hit the newspapers, a reader wrote in, “Why not use the real mother?”  The same thing happens when you wear your baby in an infant sling.

When a baby is worn in a baby sling carrier attached to his mother he feels the rhythm of her breathing, the beating of her heart, and the movements she’s making.  For newborns and young infants this stimulation helps them regulate their own physical responses.  For example, being held in a sling exercises a baby’s vestibular system which controls balance.  The sling is like a transitional womb for a new baby whose nervous system is learning to control his bodily functions and movements.  Research has shown that premature babies who are touched and held gain weight at a faster rate and are sent home sooner than babies who aren’t.  Mechanical swings and other holding devices do not provide the same benefits.  Wearing your baby this way has been practiced for centuries around the world and is gaining a more recent increase in popularity in Westernized cultures.  While using a sling baby carrier provides developmental benefits to baby and promotes bonding, it also provides a huge convenience to caregivers who use them, is comfortable and ergonomic (distributes baby’s weight across one’s back to take the strain off one’s arm). 

Certainly if you are breastfeeding your child you know that he or she wants to be near you and next to you alot.  Well, wearing your baby in a baby sling carrier or nursing sling is a great adjunct to breastfeeding.  While being worn in a sling your baby will have the benefit of feeling your warmth and the rhythm of your breathing and heart rate.  These are very soothing to a baby.  Your baby also knows your scent.  Being carried this way results in an more content baby.  Studies have shown that babies who are held more cry less.  There are physiologic and emotional benefits.  Babies who cry less have lower levels of stress hormones circulating in their bodies.  This is better for weight gain and development.  In addition, babies who cry less feel more safe and secure which helps with attachment to their caregivers.

There are so many great reasons to wear babies in  sling- or wrap-type baby carriers.  Parents and caregivers quickly realize that carrying their babies in a baby sling is very comfortable and convenient but what they might not realize are all the wonderful things it does for babies.  Babies worn like this are more content and cry less.  Maybe it’s because they feel the rhythm of mom’s heart beat or the father’s warmth.  Or maybe it’s because parents respond to baby’s needs more quickly because they are more in tune with their needs and cues.  Whichever the reasons all of the above is better for baby.  Wearing your baby increases bonding between parent and child.  Also, baby feels more safe and secure.  This will translate later to more self-esteem and actually being able to separate from parents when the child is older and more mobile.  Don’t forget that there is a window of opportunity for wearing your baby because he or she will not be a baby for long! 

Babies learn best when they are in a quiet, alert state.  Since babies who are held or worn in a fabric baby carrier or sling are more content and cry less this gives them an opportunity to learn from their environment.  A caregiver can add to baby’s learning by talking to him or her.  When you wear or hold your baby you can sing to and talk to him or her more.  This also helps with learning and language development.  So follow your instincts and hold your baby as much as is mutually desireable.  You’ll be helping him more than you know.

It sounds bizarre but wearing your baby helps him be organized.  What do we mean?  Well, the environment of the womb automatically regulates your baby’s systems.  After birth, wearing your baby in a baby sling helps him stay organized.  It mimicks the womb environment and helps your baby adapt to life outside the womb.  By extending this experience the baby-wearing caregiver provides an external environment to counteract baby’s tendency to become disorganized.  For example, have you ever noticed that the more tired a baby gets the more he or she cries?  It doesn’t make sense but that’s the way it often happens.  This is an example of how a baby gets disorganized and can’t become calm automatically.  Wearing your baby in a baby carrying sling provides an external regulating system.  Mother’s rhythmic walking while she is pregnant, for example, which baby experienced for 9 months and is imprinted on his brain now occurs in the outside womb of the sling and calms baby.  The feel of mother’s breathing, heart beat and voice with baby pressed up against her chest is replicated when baby is worn in a sling, wrap, or pouch.  Wearing a baby this way helps him or her adjust to the world.