Postpartum Bonding: Exploring the Causes and Conditions of Connection 

It’s commonly suggested that newborn bonding underwrites all future relationships babies have, preparing them to form secure attachments in the future.

One of the early theorists of maternal-infant bonding was developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, a pioneer of what’s known as modern-day attachment theory. Ainsworth described four types of behaviors responsible for fostering secure bonds with your infant:

• Sensitivity – Responding to an infant’s needs
• Acceptance – Recognizing and acknowledging a baby’s needs
• Cooperation – Acting in accordance with (rather than against) a baby’s behavior
• Accessibility – A parent’s psychological and physical availability to the baby

According to Ainsworth’s theory, new parents can form intimate, secure attachments with babies when each of these elements is in place during and beyond the postpartum period. In practice, this newborn bonding theory usually entails prioritizing the following types of caretaking practices:

• Physical touch – Skin-to-skin contact and touch are crucial for introducing babies to their physical and interpersonal world. Studies show that infants placed on their parents’ chests tend to build more robust connections with their parents; it also has practical baby development benefits like helping babies latch properly during breastfeeding.
• Eye contact – Because newborns can’t talk, eye contact is one of the primary ways they communicate nonverbally. Making intentional eye contact with your baby communicates emotions and helps reinforce infants’ sense of security and recognition.
• Responsive caregiving – Responsive caregiving means acknowledging and responding to the signals babies send caregivers about their needs. This process is intimately regulated by the brain’s reward system: When you respond to your baby’s cues, your brain releases dopamine to chemically cement your bond. Responsive caregiving also helps parents become attuned to their child’s communication signals, fostering the emotional bedrock of trust they need to grow.
• Positive interaction and play – Playing, reading, making silly faces, and the like can all feed into your newborn’s biologically wired craving for positive interactions. Positive feelings and experiences help strengthen your emotional connection, allowing your new baby to feel recognized, safe, and adored.
• A safe, secure environment – Both environmental and interpersonal safety and security communicate to your baby that they’ll be protected and cared for. In practice, this means fostering a calm and stable home environment. It may also mean using self-care and emotional regulation strategies to help you and other household members find composure during the postpartum period and later in life. As you take steps to bond with your newborn, also explore must-haves for new moms that can support your own well-being during this transformative time.

Scientific baby development consensus holds that the first year after childhood is the most decisive for maternal-infant bonding, as it can determine an infant’s attachment security in the long term. However, if you’re struggling to bond immediately with your little one, there’s no need to worry: neuroimaging research shows the structural changes signature to the maternal brain endure for at least 2 years after a baby’s birth.

In other words, you have plenty of time—and room for trial, error, and inconsistencies—to lay the bricks of the foundation you’ll keep building over a lifetime.

How to Bond with My Baby: Tips for New Parents 

Though the postpartum period is precious, parent-to-baby bonding actually starts during pregnancy in what’s known as prenatal bonding. Babies can hear their parents (and the external world) as early as 16 weeks along, and around this time, many parents start singing or talking to their unborn babies to prepare them for the 1:1 bond they’ll form later.

Postpartum bonding starts the moment babies enter the world. Parents are encouraged to hold or physically interact with their newborns within the first hour after their birth, which helps trigger biological bonding mechanisms that help babies regulate, adapt, and transition to the outside world.

After you’ve left the hospital—or wherever you’ve delivered!—keep the following suggestions in mind to lay a fertile foundation for your bond.

#1 Build a Caregiving Routine

Parents of newborn babies have several basic priorities:

• Feeding their baby
• Putting their baby to sleep
• Soothing their baby
• Keeping their baby out of harm’s way
• Taking care of themselves so that they can care for their baby

While the demands themselves are relatively simple, cobbling together a consistent caregiving routine helps give infants a sense of rhythm and predictability, creating space for a bond to form. From bathtub games to feeding rituals, try picking regular times, settings, or using familiar props to facilitate their sense of safety.

One challenge parents can run into happens when a developing baby’s needs and rhythms become inconsistent. From nursing strikes to chaotic sleeping schedules, the immediate needs can sometimes hamstring the routine you’ve lovingly curated. Familiarizing yourself with newborn sleep patterns will aid in establishing a comforting bedtime routine, fostering a secure bond. Observing your baby’s sleep habits, like if your baby sleeps with their mouth open or if your baby twitches in sleep, can offer insights into their comfort and well-being.

In these cases, Ainsworth’s cooperation and responsiveness take precedence over your usual routine: Simply showing up as their caregiver is the best thing you can do to help them build their sense of being protected.

#2 Prioritize Tender Touch

Physical touch is elemental to every successful parent-child bond, triggering a hormonal cocktail that includes oxytocin—one of humans’ primary bonding chemicals. Be sure to engage in touch-oriented behaviors like:

• Cuddling or swaddling
• Rocking or holding them while they sleep
• Nursing or feeding
• Carrying them around with you
• Gentle massage
• Playing

When you’re engaged in work or other household tasks, simply keeping them near you can help them feel a sense of closeness (availability), even if you’re physically preoccupied.

#3 Use Your Voice

Singing, cooing, and gentle speaking are tremendous sources of comfort for babies. Fascinatingly, research indicates that recognition underwrites social bonding across the animal kingdom—in mammals with smaller brains, smell (olfaction) is the primary sense involved in recognizing kin. For humans, sight and sound are primary.

Knowing that, you might try:

• Speaking to them in a soothing voice between activities or while going about your day
• Describing what you’re doing or how you’re feeling
• Reading aloud from a soft children’s book
• Singing them lullabies

No matter how you use it, simply hearing your voice fosters a tranquil environment while helping your baby form the neural grooves for recognition. With continued communication, don’t be surprised if you start developing your own language of both auditory cues, nonverbal cues, and microexpressions!

#4 If Possible, Breastfeed

Breastfeeding your baby is one of the most potent ways to nurture the biological mother-infant connection. Some research indicates parents who nurse show greater long-term maternal sensitivity to their children than their non-breastfeeding counterparts. This may be due to the chemistry of the process: breastfeeding stimulates prolactin and oxytocin, both of which help parents feel pleasure and intimacy with their child.

That said, the bonding effects of breastfeeding may simply stem from the physical closeness organically involved in the process. Parents who bottle-feed can still build profound bonds so long as physical touch is a part of their feeding rituals. If you’re unable to breastfeed, engaging in physical touch, eye contact, and other forms of tenderness can still help your connection flourish.

#5 Take Care of Yourself (and Delegate!)

Though biology shows us that mothers play a central role in newborns’ lives, it’s just as important to allow other caregivers—whether partners, family members, or friends—to pick up some slack from time to time.

Inevitably, there will be occasions when you need some time to rest, meet your needs, or simply detach. Letting others take over with caregiving can help to:

• Show your baby that their cues won’t go unrecognized, even if you aren’t present
• Allow your baby to experience an extended support network
• Broaden others’ opportunities to authentically bond with your baby

Remember, a nurtured parent is better able to nurture her baby—you can’t pour from an empty cup! Whether it’s a 30-minute YouTube yoga class during naptime or a warm bath while they’re playing with another loved one, try dedicating some time each day to meet your own needs. This can help you stay more present and calm around your child, ultimately reinforcing their feelings of safety. As you prepare for your newborn’s arrival, consider exploring a list of things to do before your baby arrives, ensuring you’re fully prepared for this exciting new chapter.

Build Your Bond Earlier with SneakPeek® 

The connection you share with your baby ignites long before you meet them in person, so start getting to know them earlier with SneakPeek Test.

With SneakPeek’s at-home Early Gender DNA Test, you can learn your baby’s gender as soon as 6 weeks into your pregnancy journey with over 99% clinically proven accuracy and DNA-based gender blood test results. Simply take your sample at home, mail it to SneakPeek labs, and we’ll triple-review your results and typically return them on the same day we receive them.

Over 1 million parents trust SneakPeek to break the news of their future baby’s fetal sex earlier than ever. Find out why we’re the #1 OBGYN-recommended at-home early fetal sex test by exploring SneakPeek online today.