Bonding
You’ve probably heard how important it is to bond with your baby. But a deep emotional connection doesn’t always happen right away—it often takes some time. After all, you and your baby don’t know each other very well at first. In the early weeks of a baby’s life, simply responding to their cries and meeting their physical needs helps build a secure attachment—even if you struggle with your own emotions at first. Knowing they can count on you makes your baby feel safe, and feeling safe helps build a strong bond. As you talk, smile, and play together, you can deepen your connection with this special new person in your life ♥️
In this article:
- Why bonding is important for child development
- How babies recognize their parents
- How to bond with your baby
- Bonding activities for babies
- When a baby prefers one parent
- Bonding challenges
Why bonding is important for child development
Studies show children who receive focused, consistent attention and physical intimacy from a parent or primary caregiver have more emotional stability, higher IQ scores, and better physical health than children who don’t. In other words, what we know instinctively to be true—that all babies need love—has a lot of scientific evidence to back it up.
Early relationships shape the architecture of your baby’s brain, influence their self-esteem, and form a model for their future social attachments. Meeting your baby’s physical needs for food, sleep, and cleanliness is essential to forming a strong bond. But addressing their emotional needs for security, soothing, and comfort is important, too.
A strong, positive attachment to a caregiver serves as a buffer against stress, allowing a baby to confidently explore the world and recover more quickly from setbacks. At the same time, chronic or extreme forms of stress—like poverty, abuse, exposure to violence, or neglect—can harm brain development and long-term well-being in children.
How babies recognize their parents
When babies are born, their vision is still developing. Your baby can’t see your face clearly yet, but they can recognize you by the sound of your voice or the smell of your skin. By 2 to 4 months of age, their eyesight has typically improved and they begin to recognize your face. Their acknowledgment of you and other regular caregivers will grow over time. In just a few months, they’ll get visibly excited when they see you 🙂
How to bond with your baby
Contrary to what you may have heard, you really can’t spoil your baby by holding them too much. When your baby is content, you can set them down in a safe place within eyeshot for a few minutes, but they may not want to be out of your arms for long. Each time you respond to their needs and hold or talk to them, you help them feel safe and strengthen their trust in you.
Caring for your baby also helps build your connection to them. Renowned developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik explains the nature of the human bonding process: “Even more than other animals, humans respond to the act of caring itself. Taking care of a baby helps us love that baby, and that baby in particular. Holding and caring for babies increases our [levels of] oxytocin—[the hormone responsible for] that warm feeling inside.”
At the heart of bonding are touch and communication. Here are some bonding practices you can include in your baby’s daily routine:
- Practice skin-to-skin contact. Holding your baby naked against your skin can help you feel close to each other. The sound of your heartbeat and voice is also calming to them and can regulate their temperature and breathing.
- Make eye contact, especially during feedings. Communicating with your eyes and facial expressions is meaningful to your baby before they understand words. Make a point to meet your baby’s eyes while feeding them. Your baby may not actively look at you the whole time, but your attentiveness will reinforce your bond.
- Discover and respond to your baby’s cues. Before your baby can talk, you’ll begin to pick up on their subtle signs that they’re hungry, tired, or in need of soothing. As you respond, your baby will begin to understand that their efforts to communicate have results. For example, if you turn on a bright light and your baby scrunches up their eyes, turns their head, or arches their back, you can stroke them and say, “Oh, that light is so bright. I’ll turn it off.” After you switch it off, you can say, “There. Is that better?”
- Have “conversations.” Your baby will use body language, eye contact, cries, and coos to show they want to interact with you. When they do, be sure to reply. For example, if they look at you and coo, you might say, “Yes, I hear you. Are you saying hi?” Your baby may coo again in response. This back-and-forth interaction is essential to both bonding and their brain development.
Bonding activities for babies
Try these stage-specific relationship-building forms of play over the course of your baby’s first year.
Bonding activities for 0 to 3 months
Face-to-face focusing practice: 0 to 2 months
Interacting with your baby as they rest on your body facing you can boost their emotional and cognitive development. They learn by looking at your face, while being in close physical contact with you helps them feel calm.
Insert the Simple Black & White Cards in the Standing Card Holder. Sit on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor and prop your baby’s back against your thighs. Hold the card holder in front of your chest, so your baby can see the high-contrast patterns. This encourages them to practice focusing their eyes to help improve their blurry vision. As your baby examines the images, join in by smiling and talking about them in an animated, high-pitched voice.
Book sharing: 1 to 2 months
The goal of exploring books with your newborn is to bond over a shared experience. Read the words or describe the images, but you don’t need to get through every page. Focus instead on tuning in and connecting with your baby. Try these strategies with the Wooden Book:
- Make eye contact and talk slowly as you describe what’s on the page.
- Pause and give your baby time to respond with a smile or coo.
- Watch for signs that your baby’s interested—for example, they may focus on an image or kick their legs.
- When your baby starts to look away or make fewer sounds or movements, it’s time to stop.
Faces in the mirror: 2 to 3 months
Your baby is fascinated with faces right now—especially yours ❤️ They learn by studying your expressions, your eyes, and your mouth movements. At this age, face-to-face play can help your baby develop their attention span, understand social cues, and deepen their connection to you.
Attach the Mirror Card to the clips on The Play Gym. Lie next to your baby with the mirror in view and talk about what they see. This builds their visual skills, social-emotional awareness, and bond with you.
Bonding activities for 3 to 6 months
New twists on skin to skin: 4 months
Skin-on-skin isn’t just for newborns. It offers sensory stimulation that encourages bonding, prompt social and cognitive development, and reduces crying long after the early weeks. Continue offering it during feedings and at other convenient opportunities. Try taking a bath with your baby or giving them a gentle massage with their skin on yours.
Magic Tissue turns: 5 to 6 months
Practicing shared attention with your baby can boost their focus and help you tune into each other’s nonverbal cues. To do this, try taking turns pulling tissues out of the Magic Tissue Box with your baby.
Start by modeling the action, then encourage your baby to imitate you. Narrate as you go: “It’s your turn to pull. Look, it’s a yellow tissue. Can you grab the tissue? You did it!” ❤️
Bonding activities for 6 to 9 months
Family picture book browsing: 7 to 8 months
Your baby may be starting to recognize photos of the special people in their life. Try turning the Soft Book into a family photo album to reinforce their connection to these loved ones.
Slide images of family members into the book’s insert windows. Let your baby page through the book independently or sit them on your lap and look at it together. Tell stories about people in the photos and describe your baby’s relationship to them. For example, you could say, “Look, there’s Papa. Remember when he took you to the playground?”
Serve-and-return exchanges: 6 to 7 months
Serve and return is a phrase coined by Harvard researchers to describe back-and-forth social interactions. One person “serves” by offering a sound, smile, word, or gesture, and the other “returns” with one of their own. Noticing and returning your baby’s “serves” is a great way to practice:
- When your baby looks at you, smile at them.
- When they wave their arms, say, “Hi, Baby!”
- When your baby makes a sound, repeat that sound back.
Interactions like these teach your baby the pattern of conversation, strengthen your emotional bond, and contribute to their cognitive growth. It may not always be easy to tell when they’re seeking an exchange with you, but even if you’re unsure, you can take the opportunity to connect by talking to them ❤️
Bonding activities for 9 to 12 months
Joint discoveries in nature: 9 to 12 months
Taking your baby outdoors to introduce them to elements of the natural world encourages both of you to tune into each other’s actions and reactions. Let your baby examine grass and leaves up close. Find a tree and encourage them to touch the trunk as you describe its texture—rough, bumpy, or smooth. Sharing explorations like this strengthens the connection between the two of you.
A diaper change connection: 11 to 12 months
At around this age, your baby may struggle to lie down long enough for a diaper change. The “Animals I See” Mini Book may engage your baby long enough for you to change their diaper and have a social exchange with them about the book.
Encourage your baby to hold the book in both hands as you quickly change their diaper. Ask them something about what they see: “Do you see a cow?” They may respond with a quick glance or babble. However brief, all these little moments of connection add up throughout the day.
When a baby prefers one parent
Starting at 2 to 4 months, your baby may show a clear preference for one parent or caregiver. They can identify close caregivers by smell, sight, and sound, and may want to be with the person who takes care of them most often.
This is very common but can be hard for everyone involved. If you’re the preferred parent, you may feel overwhelmed while your partner feels helpless and unable to offer comfort and support. No matter who your baby prefers or how long this phase lasts, they will ultimately form a healthy bond with all the loving adults in their life ❤️
These tips may be helpful if your baby begins to express a caregiver preference:
Remember that it isn’t personal. If your baby cries when you hold them and is only soothed when you return them to your partner, it can feel like a slight. But your baby doesn’t mean anything by it—they don’t have any sense of the impact their preference can have on others.
Give your baby a chance to warm up. If you’re away all day, you may want to pick up your baby as soon as you get home. Try to take a moment to read their cues. If they’re smiling and looking at you, they’re likely ready to be held. If they look away or don’t smile, give them some time. Sit near them and softly talk to them for a while before holding them.
Schedule one-on-one time with both parents. Planning for the nonpreferred parent to handle a routine, like bath time, tends to work well. During this time, it’s best if the preferred caregiver stays out of sight and far enough away that their scent isn’t detectable to the baby’s strong sense of smell.
Let your baby experience some disappointment. It’s okay for them to feel sad about not being with a preferred caregiver. Healthy attachment involves your baby learning that multiple people can soothe them, and that people who leave will come back. If your baby won’t take a bottle from you, for example, there can be some logistical challenges. But it doesn’t mean anything is wrong. It’s just not something you do together right now.
Recognize that this is a phase. It may take days, weeks, or months, but at some point, your baby’s strong preference for one caregiver will soften or pass. Some babies may cycle between preferring one caregiver, then the other, and typical developments like separation and stranger anxieties can prompt changes in your baby’s preferences. This kind of partiality is a typical part of a baby’s social-emotional development and often ebbs and flows.
Bonding challenges
It can take a little while for a parent to feel emotionally connected to their new baby. Expect your relationship to blossom gradually as you and your baby get to know each other.
Newborn care can feel overwhelming. In the early months, your baby’s needs are constant, and your sleep may be frequently interrupted. This can make being emotionally available to bond with your baby more difficult.
For biological mothers, the hormone shifts that follow childbirth can add to the challenge. These cause up to 80% of mothers to experience the baby blues—mood swings, tearfulness, and feelings of anxiety or restlessness. Fortunately, the rollercoaster of emotions is usually short-lived. It typically begins within the first few days after delivery, peaks at around one week, and resolves by the end of the second week postpartum without any intervention. If you have similar symptoms that begin, persist, or worsen more than two weeks after your baby’s delivery, reach out to your doctor for support.
Fathers and adoptive parents also experience hormone changes associated with caregiving, sleep deprivation, and new roles and responsibilities. If you have ongoing feelings of anxiety, sadness, or emptiness, see your healthcare provider.
For more on this topic:
Podcast: How and why human touch is important for kids
Your newborn knows you by scent and sound
Why skin-to-skin time isn’t just for the hospital
Building attachment with your baby may be easier than you think
Meet the Experts
Learn more about the Lovevery child development experts who created this story.
Research & Resources
Abraham, E., Hendler, T., Shapira-Lichter, I., Kanat-Maymon, Y., Zagoory-Sharon, O., & Feldman, R. (2014). Father’s brain is sensitive to childcare experiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(27), 9792-9797.
Bick, J., Dozier, M., Bernard, K., Grasso, D., & Simons, R. (2013). Foster mother–infant bonding: Associations between foster mothers’ oxytocin production, electrophysiological brain activity, feelings of commitment, and caregiving quality. Child Development, 84(3), 826-840.
Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 759–775.
Fisher, S. D., Walsh, T., & Wongwai, C. (2024, July). The importance of perinatal non-birthing parents’ mental health and involvement for family health. In Seminars in Perinatology (p. 151950). WB Saunders.
From best practices to breakthrough impacts. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2020, October 29). https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/from-best-practices-to-breakthrough-impacts/
Gopnik, A. (2017). The gardener and the carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children. Picador, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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