Bonding with your baby

From the father’s point of view, bonding with your baby is not only hugely important, it can also be hugely problematic:

Bonding research has long focused on the maternal relationship, but we are starting to see that paternal bonding is just as important to the child’s overall development,” says Dr. David Lamm, a family counselor and a researcher involved with the USU study. “Though it is important for babies to have a relationship with both parents, fathers often have a difficult time finding ways to bond with their newborn infants.”

From a father’s point of view, there are plenty of ways that you can encourage this bonding process: being part of the baby’s routine, making plenty of eye contact, holding your baby regularly, bottle-feeding where appropriate etc etc.


Babies: what goes in, must come out

From the baby’s point of view, things are much more straightforward. Your father is doing all the hard work on the bonding front. It’s your job to test him in order to check that he is suitable for that paternal role. This examination process is very simple, having only two steps:

  1. Prevent your father from getting a decent night’s sleep. (It should be noted that this forms an integral part of torture routines used by shady organisations worldwide.)
  2. Exude unbelievably large volumes of fluid (or semi-solids) from every orifice at every available opportunity. Extra marks will be awarded for soiling nappies and items of clothing immediately after they have been changed at 2am.

If your father still greets you with a smile when you wake the following morning, he has passed. Although, you might want to wait until he has had a shower, then vomit in his hair a bit and test his reaction, just to make sure.