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Home › Articles › Fatherhood › Baby Bonding

Baby Bonding

Dads and Their Newborns

By Cara J. Stevens

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Once the baby arrives, it's up to the dad to roll up his sleeves and get involved. "He cannot wait for an invitation," says Dr. Klinger. "Researchers tell us that new parents of a first baby are equally incompetent at the time of the child's birth. By the end of the first year, moms typically have outdistanced new dads in terms of their care-giving skills and self-confidence primarily because they spend more solo time with the baby. So dads have got to spend solo time with the baby to earn the trust of the baby and self-confidence themselves."

Moms also play an important role in helping fathers get involved. "Just as men help their wives breastfeed longer and more successfully, women play a large part in helping fathers," says Dr. Brock.

New mothers often see the biochemical bond of pregnancy as an obligation to fulfill all of Baby's needs after birth as well. The fact is, however, that when there are two parents, there are twice as many hands and twice as many ways to cater to Baby's needs. Moms need to learn that it's OK to take a step back, and it's totally OK to let dad take over, even if he does things in a completely different way.

"My advice to moms is don't take the crying baby away because you feel you know how to do it better," says Dr. Brock. "Women don't see that when they do something like that they are making their own motherhood role more difficult than it has to be, because dad will not have the skills he needs to do it, and then she won't leave the baby with him. It becomes a cycle that is hard to get out of."

Capitalize on the Differences
"The child-to-mother bonding process is predicated on the predictable, soothing and comforting response by the mother to the child's outcry of need," says Dr. Klinger. "More than 80 percent of the mother's interactions with her child are triggered by infant crying."

Dads, on the other hand, have completely different interactions with their children. According to Dr. Klinger, dads have been found to be "more spontaneous, agitating, rougher and more playful" than moms. The fact is that babies not only need to be comforted, they also need to be engaged and stimulated, and this role is a perfect one for a dad looking to get involved.


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