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Home › Articles › Breast is Best › Bonding Over Breast or Bottle

Bonding Over Breast or Bottle

Connecting With Your Newborn During Feeding

By Nicole Gray

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Breast versus bottle: We've heard this debate and read what the experts think. Unfortunately, the debate over whether to breast- or bottle-feed a baby, and for how long, has taken center stage as the primary determinant of how mothers can affect the long-term well-being of their newborns.

In reality, the goal of feeding is for babies to be well nourished. Mothers of newborns accomplish this goal in different ways, but the intent and the intensity of love is the same. Bonding with your baby during feeding is an equal-opportunity activity over which all mothers can gain mastery. After all, says Dr. Rosemary White-Traut, Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute advisor and associate professor in the Department of Maternal-Child Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, "For newborn babies, feeding is the most central activity in their lives."

A Positive Impact
By understanding your baby's perspective on eating, you can start to grasp the positive impact that you can have during feeding on your relationship with your baby, your baby's development and your own emotional well-being. According to Dr. White-Traut, there are four major components of bonding:

  • Auditory Stimulation – The newborn baby is stimulated by the mother's voice. Mothers instinctively use "infant-directed" speech when communicating with their babies by raising their voices into a higher pitch, speaking soothingly to their babies and pausing so that their babies can respond.
  • Tactile Stimulation – The mother strokes and touches her baby. Some babies prefer gentle massaging, while others like the "plain touch" approach, which can be very soothing to an irritated baby. Often, it just depends how they feel, but being touched always helps.
  • Visual Stimulation – Eye-to-eye contact is important to both Mother and Baby and a crucial part of bonding. Studies show that babies prefer to look at the human face rather than objects for visual stimulation. When making eye contact with your baby while feeding, tilt your head so that it is in the same plane as your baby's head. Also, since newborns have a narrow range of focus, your face should be positioned 10 to 12 inches away within your baby's field of vision. This occurs naturally during feeding.
  • Vestibular Stimulation
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