Still pregnant but looking for ways to start bonding with your baby? Here are a few ideas for both moms and dads to begin forming connections with their baby before they are even born.
Photo By S.M.
As many of you know, my husband and I are pregnant with our first baby. Being a former teacher, I truly believe you can never start teaching your child soon enough, so why not start while they are still in the womb.
Research is all over the place as to when officially a baby can hear, but many say that around that 18 week mark, babies can hear sounds inside the womb. From there they begin to develop their hearing farther and in the early twenties can hear low frequency sounds outside the body. By the mid twenties though, somewhere around weeks 25, babies are able to hear and respond to sounds outside the body like your voice or music. Around this same time is when babies can feel and respond to your touch as well. Of course every mom and baby are different, but these milestones gave us an idea of what sorts of things our baby could experience inside my belly, and at 36 weeks, it's fun to try different things and feel our baby respond with kicks.
Here were a few of our favorite things we tried for bonding with our baby!
Reading to Baby
This is one of our favorite bedtime rituals. I'm a huge reader and always encouraged reading in my classroom, so our house is filled with children's book, and recently we've started stocking up on board and cloth books as well. Almost every night we pick a story, get comfy in bed, and just read to our baby before we head to bed. He is very active during this time each night, so it's fun to feel his kicks during the story. Sometimes I read, but since our baby gets to hear my voice all day long, my husband usually does most of the reading, and let me tell you it already melts my heart every time I watch him read to our little guy. Want to learn more? Just Google "Reading to Baby in Womb", and thousands of articles will pop up on the benefits and importance of doing so.
Talking to Baby
Did you know that according to an article from UW News by Molly McElroy, babies start to absorb language during the last 10 weeks or pregnancy. That means that everything you talk about and all the words they use are already being stored in their brains and building up their vocabulary for later. Talking to my baby is one of the many things I do that has just become a habit. I talk to him in the car while I'm driving, when I'm sitting at my desk at work, when I'm cooking, and so many other times. I find myself telling him stories and sometimes even go as far as explaining the different things I'm talking about that he has yet to learn about such as the seasons or holidays. Hearing your voice is just one of the many ways you can begin to create a lasting bond with your baby before they even arrive.
Singing to Baby
I pretty much constantly have music on. When I'm driving, I'm listening to music. When I'm cleaning, I'm listening to music. When I'm outside gardening, I'm listening to music. Sometimes even when I go out for a walk, I'm listening to music. So there are plenty of opportunities for me to sing. Sometimes I sing my favorite songs to the baby. Other times I try children's songs on Pandora or YouTube. It's fun to sing all sorts of things, plus singing to your baby is a great way to build language development. And if you're not a big singer, think of this time as your practice before baby comes and you're singing all the time.
Playing Music for Baby
They say that sometimes babies show memory of songs they hear in the womb once they are born, and often times find these songs to calm them. When we set up our baby room, I wanted it to be a relaxing and comfortable place for everyone, and from the moment we were done with it, I found myself spending more and more time in there. There's one station on Pandora in particular that I started listening to called Relaxing Radio. Sometimes after a long day at work, I would come home and change, then just sit in the rocker in our baby room and play the Relaxing Radio station from Pandora and do just what it says, relax. It became one of my favorite things to do, and I started to enjoy many of the instrumental songs, and even have favorites, one of which was played at our wedding so always brings back amazing memories. What I found after listening to the station so many times, and my baby probably hearing it as well, is that most times if I turn down the volume really low, and hold the speaker to my belly on this station, my baby will start to kick. My husband and I may not have much musical talent, but maybe our future baby will have more of that gift.
Touching and Feeling Baby
Touch is the first sense a baby develops. One of my favorite things about being pregnant is putting my hand on my stomach and feeling my baby respond by kicking back. My husband does the same too. We feel like sometimes its the little things that make a big impression and touching the baby and feeling him respond is our way of telling him hey we're here for you or we recognize you moving in there and can't wait to meet you. Studies have shown that babies may feel the same way we do about feeling our touch. It starts to develop that bond between you and lets them know they are safe to enter into the world. Read more about the benefits and results of touching your belly while pregnant at BellyBelly.
What sorts of things have you done to bond with your baby? What have you heard others do that they seem to love? Is there one thing that makes your baby react or makes you smile the most? Share below in the comments! We'd love to hear!
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