Five Ways to Bond with Your Bub and Why

Five Ways to Bond with Your Bub and Why

AUCKLAND, NZ, October 12, 2018 — A parent’s bond with their baby means everything. It’s that feeling of unconditional love and unbreakable attachment so unique to the parent-child relationship. However, like all relationships, strengthening it requires work. Indeed, while all parents intrinsically understand the importance of this bond, many are not aware of the very bests ways to foster it.

Shedding some light is the Storytime Foundation, a New Zealand charity enhancing early attachment by gifting books to Kiwi families and encouraging parents to read, talk, and engage with their babies more. Ahead of its ‘30 Days of Bonding’ campaign this November, Storytime CEO Tony Culliney shares his top five tips to bonding with your baby below:

1. Schedule a date with Hairy Maclary
Whether it’s Hairy Maclary, Wonky Donkey, or Maui and the Sun, it’s never too early to bring out the baby books. Not only is reading to your baby critical to developing their early vocabularies, but research shows it also stimulates the parts of the brain responsible for connection and bonding. Studies have also shown that children who were read to in the early years have a larger vocabulary, as well as more advanced mathematical skills, than other kids their age. “It is well-documented that reading to your child has a significant, positive effect on bonding, and is essential to their learning development,” Tony affirms. Bonus points if you can put on a different voice for each character.

2. Embrace the baby talk!
Don’t be afraid to talk it out with your new BFF. As Tony explains, “Simply speaking to your child stimulates their brain and strengthens the bonding process as they listen to the rhythm and intonation of your words”.

3. Play
If there’s one thing all babies share, it’s their insatiable curiosity. Channel this into a wonderful learning and bonding experience by introducing games into your day-to-day interactions. And no, we’re not talking about Fortnite. Rather, simply playing a game of peek-a-boo together is fun, stimulating, and bolsters the bond that you share.

4. Get creative!
Channel your baby’s inner Picasso and get out the arts and crafts. Alongside making something that you’re sure to keep forever, bonding over shared creative activities such as painting and colouring help your baby to develop their motor skills.

5. Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Everybody knows the lyrics, but few realise just how conducive nursery rhymes are to parent-child bonding. Just like story reading, singing these helps your baby to learn your voice, thereby reinforcing that they can trust and rely on you.

For more ways to bond with your baby, stay posted to the Storytime Foundation’s Facebook page, where it will be sharing new tips each day of November during its inaugural ‘30 Days of Bonding’ campaign. Alternatively, visit its website at http://storytime.org.nz.

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Since establishing its Books for Babies program in 1997, the Storytime Foundation has gifted over 150,000 books and worked with more than 55,000 Kiwi families to help strengthen family bonds.

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