New Dads

Daddy/Baby Bonding – Why It’s Important and What You Can Do

March 15, 2017 By Jenn Sanders Leave a Comment

Each time you cuddle with your baby, you’re forming a bond with him as the oxytocin, which is a vital relationship-building chemical, is released. It’s one of the reasons doctors place the newborns on their mothers’ bare chest. In this way, the baby and the mother will have skin on skin contact allowing the initial connection to arise naturally.

Daddy baby bonding is necessary today. Generations ago, fathers were seen as breadwinners. They’re the ones who went to work and didn’t bond with their kids. In the past decades, however, it has changed. Daddy’s role has evolved. They’re now more nurturing and very involved. They bond with their babies more than they were before, which is crucial to the development of their babies.

Critical Period of Child’s Development

Baby’s brain is growing faster, from the beginning of pregnancy to three years of age. It’s considered as a crucial period of development of the baby as it creates a foundation for long-term positive outcomes.

During this time, baby’s neural pathways are forming, and their brain’s development is determined by daily experiences with parents and the world. If they have positive experiences at this early stage, it supports healthy brain development and promotes healthy learning. Thus, it’s vital that daddies should also bond with their babies.

Fathers who bonded with their kids from birth would ensure that their babies are would grow up to be emotionally secure. They also tend to be confident when they explore their surroundings.

As they grow older, they can have better social connections with their peers and they are less likely to get in trouble at home or school. Furthermore, they are less likely to use illegal drugs and abuse alcohol.

Studies also showed that children who bonded with their fathers when they were still babies have higher IQs than those kids who don’t have a nurturing and involved father.

What Can Fathers Do to Bond with their Babies?

1. Keep Your Baby Close When Holding

When mothers breastfeed their babies, they cuddle them up close their chest. Fathers, too, must cuddle their baby and keep them close to their chest in a way that baby can gaze up at them so they can connect and bond naturally.

2. Become the Rescuer of the Night

Daddies are not around during the day to comfort their babies. To bond with their little ones, they can share the night time shift with their partners by becoming the rescuer of the evening. It will give daddies a chance to have a precious alone time with their babies while their partners have an opportunity to get a long overdue sleep.

3. Soothe Them

It’s tempting to just hand crying babies to their mothers. But you, as a father, can be brave and soothe your baby’s tears. You can sing to him or walk around with him in your arms. Baltic wonder amber necklaces can also be a soothing source.

4. Be There with Your Partner

Another way to bond with your baby is to be there for your spouse. By being more involved with child-rearing, you’re likely to bond with your child, thereby, giving him the best start in life.

5 Things Dads Must do for Their Daughters

September 21, 2012 By Ken Myers Leave a Comment

Raising a daughter comes with a whole world of complications – especially if you’re a single dad. You have no one there to help you when it comes to finding the perfect dress for the first day of school, or to teach you how to teach her to navigate through her changing hormones. There’s no one there to tell you to calm down when she brings home her first date, or to prepare you for the realization that your little girl isn’t so little anymore. However there are several things you can do as a single dad to help prepare your daughter for the real world.

These five things will help her be more equipped to face the world on her own when the time comes:

1. Get her a toolbox and teach her how to use it. Some girls can use tools more efficiently than their male counterparts, and others have as much interest learning about tools as they do about slugs. However even if she has zero interest in being a handy(wo)man, teaching her how to navigate through a toolbox and fix things on her own is an invaluable skill that you can give her.

2. Find a hobby you both enjoy. It’s not uncommon for dads to share similar interests with their sons and for moms to share similar interests with their daughters, but if you’re a single dad raising a little girl then you have the unique opportunity to share a hobby with your little girl. Enroll her in the swim team and practice her strokes with her during the week; let her pick a sport and then attend all the major league games in your area; spend weekends getting up early and going fishing together. These are the types of things that she’ll look back on and cherish.

3. Say no. Dads are notorious for being pushovers with their little girls, and little girls learn quickly when they have dad wrapped around their little fingers…meaning that they can coerce him into whatever they want. Say no sometimes. She’ll be better off not thinking that everything should go her away 100% of the time.

4. Teach her how to change a flat tire. While you may love coming to her rescue the first few times she has a flat tire, at a certain point she needs to be able to handle that situation on her own. Most boys learn at a young age how to quickly change a tire, while the majority of girls don’t. Don’t only teach your sons this trick, your daughter needs to know how to also.

5. Build up her self-esteem. Pay attention to her. Comfort her when she’s crying. Tell her she’s beautiful. Dance with her at weddings. Remind her that she can conquer anything if she puts her mind to it. Daughters need their dads to be heroes for them, but they also need their dads to be their biggest fans. She’ll soar knowing that she has you backing her up.

Single dads may have it a little tougher when it comes to raising girls, but they can still succeed with flying colors when it comes to raising her. Be her dad, be her hero, be her best friend.

Dad’s, Be Good to Your Daughters

May 24, 2010 By Keagan Pearson 4 Comments

Although I may be biased, having three daughters of my own, there is something very special about a father/daughter relationship. Certainly my childhood provided some valuable examples of this, but each passing year with my own family has done nothing but solidify this perception.

Over the years I have read multiple articles and posts that discussed the nature of a dad’s influence on the growth and ultimate psychological health of a daughter. Even though my early understanding was often limited to whether or not a dad lived in the home, the value and extent of fatherly interaction plays an equally significant role.

With this in mind, I wanted to post an article that I found on the struggle facing fatherless children. Dr. Gabriella Kortsch, the author, titled the piece “Fatherless Women” and it focuses primarily on fatherless women and how this fact manifests itself in adulthood. Although I posted the full link to the article here, I wanted to insert a section that I found particularly meaningful.

Dad’s, you can be sure that the time spent now will form that woman you see in the years to come.

“• Seeing the Self Reflected -Optimally, a little girl needs to see herself reflected in the love she sees for herself in her father’s eyes.

• Belief in the Self-Clearly, self confidence and self esteem can be forged through one’s own endeavors during the life course, even if a father has not been present, but the path to success in such endeavors, and the reasons for which they are even attempted, tend to be quite different in the adult woman who was raised with a positive relationship to her father, as opposed to the one who was not.

• The Multi-faceted Arena of Relationships– Perhaps the arena in which the most painful process of learning how to deal with the early lack of a father is played out is in that of relationships. If a girl has not been assured of her value as a woman by that early relationship with the father, she finds it difficult to relate to men precisely because she may often unconsciously seek to find that recognition in the eyes of the beloved…and this may lead her down an early path of promiscuity…

• Avoiding Engaging the Emotions– Another possible scenario is that of avoiding relationships totally.

• Marrying ‘Daddy– Other women may choose another route, falling in love with an older man and thus marrying ‘daddy.’ At this point many different scenarios may ensue. If the man is at all psychologically aware (something often, but not always lacking in older men who like younger girls), he may have a vague inkling of what is going on. Therefore, once she starts – within the secure confines of the relationship or marriage – the process of growth, which will inevitably lead her to separate from her husband in some ways that are emotionally and psychologically necessary in order for her become her own woman, he will not blanch in fear at this process, and allow her the necessary space and freedom to do so.

• Finding Self-Confidence and Recognition in the Self– The core of the matter is, of course, that the self-confidence and recognition so avidly sought must be found within oneself rather than in the outer world.“