Core idea 7
Your baby will need to be attached to you
I am not a big fan of the word “attachment” because it implies a sort of superglue between the baby and parent. Attachment is a strong mutual investment between the parent and infant for each other that becomes evident during middle of the first year of child’s life. Attachment for the mother is rooted in biology. For you, attachment is based on your emotional experience, your frame of mind. Of course that is important for mothers as well. But our involvement with our children is more of a psychological and emotional comment than one based on biology.
The mother carried the child inside her. Our first moment of holding our baby in our arms is our first opportunity for falling in love with this precious new person. Smart mothers make sure the father has the opportunity to rock, sing, touch, massage, clothe and if possible feed the baby to begin shaping his own relationship with his child. Because many of us may feel awkward around babies, we need partners to encourage us to help us feel more confident.
Psychologists will insist that all it takes a baby to thrive is for one person to form an attachment. That is an essentially a true but incomplete statement. If both the child’s mother and father make the commitment of love, a child can go beyond the minimum of what is needed to experience a richer and more fulfilling life as they grow older.
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