Many parents surprised to see their babies demonstrating their feelings of affection towards them. Babies usually start to hear, feel, and smell their mothers right from the moment they are in the womb.
Babies form emotional bond with the people who fulfill their needs and give them daily care. The first step to ensure that your baby loves you is to attend their needs on timely fashion. From gazing into eyes to flashing big smile there are many other signs to tell that your baby loves you.
You love your baby more than anything but, did you know that your baby loves you back? What are the cues that babies use to express their love? Scroll down to know more about your baby’s love.
Do Babies Love From Birth?
Babies are likely to develop the emotions as a result of bonding and having their needs met at the right time. Love grows along with the trust and the bond.
Babies let their parents known their needs through the non verbal cues. They will cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable and other than that they are unable to make you know their needs verbally.
Here is a timeline of love for your newborn baby:
• Recognition of voice at the birth
• Having their needs met on timely basis
• Developing trust and personality traits
• Expressing love
Since your baby recognizes right from the movement they are in the womb, it is you at whom they looks when they are in need. Bonding continues to strengthen as soon as long as their needs are met.
As per the stage theorist, Eric Erickson, trust verses mistrust is the first stage in the human psycho social development. Especially the trust means a lot for the babies. Babies start to trust you when their needs are met regularly. This lays the strong foundation for their emotional love.
As the baby grows, their brain also grows continuously and the babies start to express their affection and love in both the general and individual ways.
The love that the babies show is the combination of human social development and the nurturing they receive.
Interconnection Between Mother’s Love And Hormones:
Hormones may affect your mood adversely during the child birth. Some hormones drop sharply down contributing to the postpartum depression. But the hormones including endorphins, adrenaline, prolactin, and oxytocin play a prominent role.
They do the following:
• Prepare your baby to give birth
• Triggers the process of labor
• Prepares your baby’s body to live outside your body.
• They help you to get both of you ready for the breastfeeding
Oxytocin initiates the process of labor by making the uterine muscles to contract. This hormone does very most important duty after the birth known as magical hour. Bonding between the mother and baby begins with the first touch, sounds, and the eye contact. Magical hour is the process of holding baby with bare body touching the breast of the mother. This magical hour is a part of bonding and attachment.
Signs That Your Baby Love You:
The never-ending art of the parenting is to give your baby immense love. How to know that your baby loves you back? Here are a few surprising ways to know if your baby loves you from the first few weeks of their life throughout the toddlerhood.
1. Baby stares into your eyes:
Newborns loves to look at the faces and of all the faces they see, they love the faces of their caregivers much. The heartful gaze that babies have seems like it is designed to attract the love and attention of their parents. It is the beginning of their love and makes the baby to realize that how important you are in their life.
Newborn start to look at the faces of their feeding moms right from the birth within the range of 8-12 inches and this radius gradually increases as the baby grows and moves to the later months of their life.
2. Baby’s first social smile:
Encouraging baby to smile is to encourage them to develop self esteem. It makes the baby realize that her feelings are most important and she can affect the environment around her. It also stimulates the overall development of the baby. When this social smile turns more common when your baby looks at you it is a sign that your baby loves you.
Sometimes a smile in the early weeks of their life is a sign of passing the gas. But between the ages of 6-8 weeks babies start to smile when they see the faces of others especially you.
3. Baby recognizes you:
Baby prefers you and needs cuddles from you. Babies prove this by turning their towards you and crying, raising their arms towards you, and searching for you. Babies cannot spend more time without you. They crave for your attention, affection, and love.
4. They follow your voice:
Babies start to reciprocate the bonding process by turning their heads in response to your voice. As early as the 16 weeks of the age babies start to listen to the voices of their mom and the people around. So the initiation of the bonding should start right from the moment that your baby in the utero. You can do this by chatting to your baby and making the baby to listen to some music. From the moment they are born, babies prefer to turn towards the voices they recognize. Even the babies can not talk, they express their communication by wiggling their head side to side and some other facial cues and hand gestures.
5. Opening their mouth:
For the baby, you smell amazing. Many studies have shown that the babies can identify their mothers by the smell alone. If you give your baby a bunch of fresh roses and the milk strained T- shirt, your baby will go for the T-shirt every time. In another study, newborns were presented some breast pads that are saturated with the human milk. Babies tend to show the more sucking reflexes when they sniffed the pads containing their mother’s milk.
Your baby does not care whether you are having a bad hair day or looking messy. The only thing that your baby cares about is that mom is around them. The sense of smell that babies have tells that you are near them. This makes them feel relaxed and happy. It is a good sign that your baby loves you and have the successful bonding with you.
6. Baby cries when you are not around:
If you baby cries when they did not see you or you are not in the room for few minutes, it is because of the reason that they love you and they worry that you might not come back. Gradually your baby learns that you will come back.
When your baby grows and can understand your voice, let them know where you are going and demonstrate your love with a hug or kiss when you come back.
7. Wait for your go ahead:
Some babies look at their babies before they do something like crawl up the stairs or picking up their favorite toy. If your baby looks at you before doing something that they want to do, it is a sign that they love you. They want to verify with you that they are safe to do something and they are showing attachment and the level of trust towards you.
Turning their heads towards you before doing something is a non verbal sign seeking your permission for the go ahead.
8. Happy when cuddled up:
If your baby settles down from the cry when cuddled up in your arms closer to you, it is a sign that they trust you and love you more. No one else can comfort your baby as much as you can. The happy cuddles are the best catalyzers for the attachment and bonding with your baby.
Just think about how we will snuggle into our partner just because we love them and trust them than any other. Our babies feel the same way after once they have the strong bond with you. It is a cutest sign of baby’s love that we can experience.
9. Glow in their eyes:
The same way that our eyes light up whenever we saw our friends at the party, babies follow the same way. The level of the excitement that the babies express on seeing you is a sign that they love you. When your baby loves you they lit up their eyes when they cuddled up their moms.
Babies can not fake up their emotions, what you see on their faces is real. For the babies, seeing their mom even after a few minutes is something to celebrate and you can see this in their eyes.
10. Separation anxiety:
It is the babies normal fear of being away from the parents. Separation anxiety is a sign that your baby loves you. Babies express this feeling as you are the only adult that they trust or familiar with. You can notice the signs of separation anxiety in your baby when you are leaving them knowingly at their grandma’s place and some other well known place.
In order for the children to feel the separation anxiety they must first establish significant attachment with their parents.
Make your child know that the separation is temporary and you will be coming back for them. Separation anxiety usually starts at the age of 8 months and maximizes when the babies reach 14-18 months.
11. Reach out their arms towards you:
If the baby tries to reach out their arms towards you, it is a sign that they want to be held by you all the time. This is a good sign that your baby loves you.
Babies usually start to reach out for the things from the 3 months of the age. It is also the sign that the babies always want you to be around within their eye sight. Hold your baby and give them a gentle hug when the little arms try to reach you.
12. More often look for you:
Once the babies start to move independently by crawling, they start to explore the world around them. When the babies get older, though the babies start to play themselves, they still want your presence and need you to be around them. Your little baby will search for you all around in their mid play to seek some appreciated cuddles from their mom.
Cuddles are the happy moments for the babies who have successful bonding with their mom. Cuddles offer reassurance for the babies that someone is always around them to protect and make their life happy.
13. Show some gestures to seek your attention:
All the babies require attention from their parents. To express it, babies often cry and make some sounds. Do not leave your baby unattended for longer time. Not upsetting is the your baby’s way of communication. Be more attentive towards your baby and let them know that you are talking to them even though you are doing some other chores.
14. Attempts verbal communication:
It is well known fact that the babies copy your actions, they also try to copy your words. Babies make some sounds to feel good and show their affection towards you. Babies start to coo at you, laugh and even try to speak some words in their own cute way.
15. Babies share their interests:
The babies only interests are to imitate the actions of their care givers. They start to do the actions that you do regularly. This behavior starts when your baby is just few months old. This is a sign that your baby is more observant towards you and values your actions.
16. Baby attempts to hug or kiss you:
By observing your cuddles and kisses for your baby, babies start to learn these and use these actions as the way to express their love and affection. Before they learn the perfect kiss, they keep their mouth open over your nose or suck your cheek leaving a little wet.
17. Babies start mimicking facial expressions:
We all known that imitation is a form of flattery. This fact is true in case of babies. You can notice that your baby starts to mimic you from the age of 3 to 6 months.
Baby learns many things by watching your face. If you show your baby different expressions like smiling, tongue sticking out then you will observe your baby doing the same. Babies start to copy you and your gestures of love.
How To Stimulate Your Baby’s Love?
Here are a few ways to strengthen and stimulate your baby’s love for you:
1. Breastfeed your baby:
Breastfeeding promotes bonding because of the large amount of skin to skin contact involved. Oxytocin levels are increased both in the baby and mom due to skin to skin contact. This helps in increasing the positive hormonal interactions.
2. Look into the eyes of your baby during the feeding time:
Keep contact eye contact with your baby during the feeding time. This helps you to let your baby know and remember who you are and what you mean to her.
3. Give her a massage:
Massage therapy increases the baby’s oxytocin production. Oxytocin is a natural hormone which is produced through physical touch, affection, and cuddling.
4. Give your baby more attention:
Keep your phone away and pay some attention towards your baby and make them feel loved, secured and cared always.
5. Look into the mirror together:
Babies can not understand the concept of reflection. Babies love to look at the human faces and is a great way to get him.
6. Go skin to skin:
You have carried your baby in the womb for nine months. your baby might be missing the constant physical connection. Cuddle your baby closer to your breast and it helps to regulate your baby’s breathing and heart rate.
7. Come up with a pet name for your baby:
You can call your baby with any name you want. Nick names will be like a secret that only you both can share.
In conclusion, enjoy and feel the gestures that your baby shows reciprocating your love. Be more attentive to the needs of your baby and offer comfort, and love and make them feel secured.
