As a father bonding with your newborn is crucial. Here you are, 40 weeks passed and now the baby’s here. You just went through a serious rite of passage; you watched another human come out of your better half. Whether you’ll admit it to your drinking buddies or not you’re probably overwhelmed with emotions (and questions). Like, will your lady’s fun parts bounce back to their former glory? They will don’t worry and you’ll be ready to get working on baby #2 before you know it.
But more importantly, what’s next? I’ll tell you what’s next, let the nurses clean the baby up cause they’re probably pretty slimy. BUT after that it’s time to start bonding with your mini me (it’s pretty funny that the woman just went through 40 weeks and however many hours of pain pushing a baby out of them… and the damn kid looks just like us. The time you spend with the baby in the first hours and days are important, not just for the baby but for you too. In the first few days of the baby’s life they will be spending a lot of time with mom, kind of hard not to when the babies next meal is supplied from her body. But it is still important for us dads to make the connection too. Studies have proven time and time again that when a father makes a connection with a baby early on that they have a stronger and happier relationship. It also is extremely important for the baby’s mental development and can actually help reduce a new father’s stress level. So, here’s some tips to do just that!
*START EARLY, LIKE REALLY EARLY
I’m talking like 30 min or an hour after baby is born, the mom is probably still laying in the hospital bed exhausted, sweaty, and ready to clean up a bit (this is a really good time to get some photos of the mom you can use to blackmail her with later). This is the perfect time to kidnap the baby (seriously she’ll be too tired to notice), but for real, take this opportunity to hold the baby, and have some one on one bonding time. You probably held your new kid right when they came out and maybe even cut the umbilical cord, but then they get passed to mom, now it’s your turn to spend some real time with your child.
Whether mom knows it or not she probably already needs a break, her bodies been through a lot so now it’s your turn to save the day. Just hold your new child, look into their eyes, rock them, or lightly bounce them, whether you realize it or not something as simple as just looking in their eyes and holding them is important. This brings us to my next tip…
*Skin to Skin
By this point you’ve probably already heard and been told to do skin to skin with your baby. Listen to those people telling you that… they’re right. Skin to skin has many physical and physiological benefits for newborns. We all know how important it is to have skin to skin with baby and mom; it can help regulate body temperature, heart rate, and breathing. Skin to skin with the father can have many of the same affects. Plus, what kid doesn’t feel warm, safe, and content while being embraced in their father’s arms. Also, if you’re like me and a direct descendant of a grizzly bear and have chest hair, don’t worry about shaving it. If anything, the prickly stubble will be uncomfortable on their sensitive skin.
*Take Baths Together
I know I know; most adult men don’t exactly openly admit to taking baths often, it’s usually more convenient to just take a shower (don’t lie we know you use the pink bubble bath sh*t). But baths are calming for babies, it’s a great opportunity to spend some quality time with your newborn and pretend you’re a kid again and play with bath toys. You don’t even have to be in the bath with them, just get one of the infant tubs and hang out with them while they relax in the bath. There’s a couple different type of infant tubs, here are 2 examples of types that we’ve personally used:
*Talk/Read/Sing
You probably don’t have a voice like George Strait, but that’s ok. Your kid doesn’t even know who King George is (yet). So, sing to them, talk to them, and read stories. Your newborn likes to hear your voice, especially if you talked to them while they were still in the womb. When my little girl was a newborn something about the song Seminole Wind by John Anderson just calmed her down, anytime she was upset I could sing that song to her and she would instantly calm down and just stare at me and listen. It doesn’t really matter what you talk about, just talk. With my little girl I used to come home from work and just talk to her about how my day was and what I did. Same thing with my son, I would just tell him what I did that day and ask him what he did (they’re not great at holding conversations yet but they get better don’t worry). Just sitting and talking with your kids is a great way to start forming a strong bond. They also love funny sounds, I would make car sounds with them and they both thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and there’s nothing better than your child’s laugh.
*Play/Exercise
Yeah you heard me, put a barbell on your newborns back and teach them proper squat form. In reality though, for a newborn “playing” is actually exercise for them. Dance with them and move their arms to the beat while they’re laying on their back, they think it’s hilarious and it does a great job of exercising they’re joints. Moving on their own is still new to them and they can’t control their body yet, so helping them move around while having fun doing it can help with physical development and they will love the quality time with dad. A really great investment is to get one of the baby gyms, you know the play mats with the toys that hang over top of them, this also helps them learn to start reaching and grabbing, here is the one we bought and it was well worth the money, especially considering the reasonable price:
*Massages
So maybe baby isn’t ready for a deep tissue massage, but you can still lotion them up and they love it. Just spend some time with your kid (maybe after that bath you just took together), and gently massage the lotion on to them. Also, check out gas massages, if your baby is fussy they may just have gas making them uncomfortable. Give them a gas massage which is basically just rubbing their belly and “bicycling” their legs. More than likely they’ll involuntarily let out a powerful burst strong enough to knock your poodle off the bed and make any dad beam with pride.
These are just examples from my experience, but the principles can apply to any dad with a new baby. The important thing to remember here is to just make the effort, forming a strong bond with a newborn may seem difficult for a dad but, you don’t need to be perfect, just make the effort. Find what works best for you and your kid. But most importantly, just enjoy the time with your new baby, every day you spend with them is a memory and that moment will be gone shortly, and you’ll never get it back.
–That’s Just Dad Shit
