How can dads bond with baby

Your ability to contend with challenging moments is crucial to becoming a confident parent, so learn to be fearless in the face of fussiness.

You need to become the baby whisperer. You may have to get creative with silly faces or songs. Some babies settle with white noise like a hair dryer or stove fan. They include swaddling, sucking, shushing, swinging or bouncing, and side or stomach lying, which means holding the baby prone along your forearm—google it.

Photo: Stocksy. Wake up with the baby for one-on-one time A word to the wise: Babies are usually in a better mood in the morning than during those fussy evening witching hours when you get home from work. Joseph Communications uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Being pregnant is hard. Being a part of planning and preparation can help you take on more fatherly responsibilities before baby is here. For starters, help your partner make the birth plan.

Together you can discuss the kind of birth experience your partner envisions. Also, take time to learn how best to support your partner during labor and delivery.

Attend prenatal classes, ask what your partner needs and reach out to friends and family who have been the support person for their partners. Now that baby is here, daddy-baby bonding time can hit a new level. Babies can recognize voices as young as 1 week old. Make sure your voice is one of them! Talking to your baby strengthens language development, helping the part of the brain that understands language grow.

So, talk to your baby throughout the day just like you would to any other member of your family. For an early start, dads can talk to baby in the womb. Babies can begin hearing sounds and voices around the week mark.

Are there any specific benefits of dad talking to baby in the womb? You may have heard that skin-to-skin contact is an important way to bond with baby. Touch helps baby feel safer and can even help reduce how often they cry.

Your body can also help baby regulate their temperature and heartbeat. This a natural ability that both moms and dads have. Skin-to-skin touch also provides tons of other benefits for baby, including improved mental development, reduced stress and possibly a lowered risk of obesity in the future.

These create feelings of love, protectiveness and happiness. Plus, they can help reduce stress and boost your confidence as a parent. It sounds easy, but making eye contact with your baby is one of the keys to their early development. Babies can recognize their parents pretty early actually — as young as 4 days old. To help your baby get a good look at you, hold them between 8 and 15 inches away from your face while looking into their eyes.

But you can and should take part, too. During the first month, newborns eat between eight and 12 times a day. Be the parent who carries baby to and from mealtimes.

This will give mom a break and give you some prime cuddle time throughout the day. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to be physical and to suppress their emotions. And the contrasting socialization continues into adulthood. Women are far more likely to lean on a support network of family and friends to get through the challenges of pregnancy and parenthood.

Men have fewer role models and often face obstacles if they choose to pursue a nurturing role. At-home dads, for instance, face the stigma of doing "woman's work. His reservations weren't because he doubted his ability as a parent but rather because he was often the only guy at the playground and because some people seemed to frown on his lifestyle. There is another explanation for the difficulties that men have connecting with their babies: lack of time.

As much as women have progressed in the workplace, men remain the primary wage earners in most families. Moreover, while women typically take a maternity leave of three months or more, men usually don't feel comfortable taking off more than a week or two after a child is born or can't afford to.

Hence, most new fathers have only nights and weekends to interact with their newborns. Add to this the fact that more than half of all new mothers breastfeed -- limiting dad's role as a food source -- and it's hardly surprising that men usually bond a bit later than women do.

Steve Bigwood, 32, a finish carpenter from Palo, Iowa, admits that when he first held his daughter, Rhianna, now 9 months, "I thought I was going to break her. Fun Guy, swinging and tickling Rhianna and enjoying the resulting smiles, giggles, and coos. Although Bigwood's extensive caregiving -- he does much of the feeding and buys most of Rhianna's outfits -- fostered an early bond, play helped cement it for both of them.

Ultimately, say experts, it doesn't matter whether men face greater challenges than women do in bonding with their babies. What's critical is that they establish a secure bond on their own terms. And the best way for a man to get to know and love the little creature that has taken over his world is simply to spend time with her -- whether giving her a bath or playing peekaboo.

Further hormonal testing may prove that fathers aren't really that far behind -- that evolution has imbued them with the capacity to connect with their babies as readily as mothers do. But even if that turns out to be the case, it will be up to both parents to make that attachment happen. According to Dr. Parke, mothers should encourage fathers to take on more everyday baby tasks and should provide positive reinforcement -- even if, say, a diaper is put on sloppily.

And Dr. Storey, a pioneer in the groundbreaking hormonal research, says it's vital that dads carve out active caregiving roles. Dads can make that determination themselves. Reprinted with permission from the October issue of Parents magazine. By David Sparrow October 05, Save Pin FB More.