New Born Archives - Raising World Children

1. Skin-to-Skin Activities

One thing you can do to bond with your newborn during quarantine is skin-to-skin activities. Allowing your baby to feel your skin is soothing, and it helps your baby feel closer to you. This also allows both of you to smell each other. It may not sound like much, but you and your child give off a scent that helps you build a strong bond.

During quarantine, this is going to be a relatively easy thing to accomplish, but you can try a few activities that could help. For example, you can look for positions to hold your baby in online. For example, Silver Bee Photography who does newborn photography in Austin has a great selection of pictures to reference for practicing positions to have your baby in with skin to skin contact. Looking for references online is a great way to find perfect ways to provide skin to skin contact throughout the day.

2. Communication is Golden

While you are in quarantine, you can also do your best to make communication a priority. Your baby cannot understand you, but that doesn’t mean communicating with your baby isn’t important. You have to do your best to talk to your baby and to be as expressive as you can so that your baby can see your expressions.

It is important to make eye contact while you are talking to your child. In the beginning, you might have some difficulty talking to your little bundle of joy, but be patient with yourself. Quarantine is giving you time to get used to talking to your baby, so use it.

3. Doing the Back and Forth

Your baby needs to feel like you react to him or her. Communication involves at least two people responding to each other. This is something you can achieve with your baby, and it’ll help you bond with each other. Of course, your baby can only coo and may smile at some point.

These are the tools your baby uses, and you can use these tools to communicate with your child. When your baby coos, go ahead and respond with your own; every so often, initiate the coo and wait until your baby responds. Smile when your baby smiles at you, and initiate the smile every so often as well. Your baby will get better. Just give him or her some time.

4. Get to Playing

Games are important for your baby right now, and you can play all day long with your newborn during quarantine. All of this heavy interaction with your baby should help you feel good, and it should help your baby feel more connected to you. There are a lot of games you can play, from classics like peek-a-boo to just singing a song.

Of course, you also need to make sure you include games meant to teach your baby something. Newborns experience a lot through touch, so focus on games that’ll help your child with that. For example, you can tickle your child in different places around the body. You could also have your baby touch different surfaces so that he or she experiences new things every day with you.

5. Feeding is Sacred

Okay, feeding is not sacred in any magical way, yet it is pretty special. This is a time where your baby learns you are his or her caretaker. Your baby is getting nourishment from you, which allows your child to bond with you. Make sure every time you feed your child that you hold your baby as close as you can.

On top of that, you also have to make an effort to lock eyes with your baby and talk soothingly. Those who are breastfeeding are going to experience a bonus: oxytocin. This hormone is released during breastfeeding and encourages bonding, which is going to go a long way towards establishing a loving relationship between you two.

These are just some things you can do with your baby at home as you try to fight this pandemic and bond with your baby. Try some or all of these things during this quarantine.

Parenting is all about facing adapting to challenges. I experienced the magical moment of motherhood in India at my age of 24. Aside from the excitement and happiness, I felt the fear of responsibility. I had already decided to give my little baby girl the best.

In the initial days, I tricked myself believing that overcoming the sleepless nights will be the only challenge I have to face and everything else would be easier as the days pass. But each day I had surprises that made me realize I was totally wrong. However, I had my family’s support which made my mommy journey bit easy. Everyone advised me to relax and told that I have enormous time to get skilled in parenting.

When the time came for my husband to return back to Chicago, we all thought that it would be easier to travel together with a 4 month old. So, I decided to travel back to Chicago with my husband. It was our own tiny self-sufficient universe.

Me and my husband both invested ourselves deeply in the minutiae of everyday life. Adapting to the new lifestyle introduced me another level of complexity. I saw it as a balancing act.

Coping Without Family in USA

Now, my only concern was my baby. I didn’t have the time or energy to stress over with the household management like I did in India where there were other family members helping out. Mothering my kid without my family’s guidance was intimidating. I quickly became too wrapped up with the demands of caring for a tiny person and myself.

Acclimating with Chicago Weather

Being a South Indian, having to face the fickle weather in Chicago was pleasure at times. But the excitement didn’t last for long. I realized I hate winter season. I was frustrated with spending the unending winter days by binge watching series on Netflix. Now having a baby made me crazy. I worried about how my daughter would grin and bear with the Chicago weather.

The horror stories of frostbite, flu virus, cold feet haunted me. But fortunately, the weather forecast is fairly accurate. Mostly we stayed at home. We made sure not to expose her too much to the winter as she was still 5 months old. We spent our winter mostly in hibernation mode. I wished we could take her out more often.

Thankfully over time, the warm summer sunshine came as a welcome relief. The timing was perfect for indulging in activities like playing in the park, strawberry picking etc., Thankfully, now my daughter is 26 months old and she has accustomed to USA weather.

Beginning Solids Differently

I never had to worry about my daughter’s diet since she was breastfed. But breastfeeding alone isn’t sufficient for a 6-month-old and I was supposed to introduce the solid foods as per doctor’s recommendation. In India food prepared with rice is considered to be the best option for an infant in the initial days. Preparing the boiled rice and mashing it enough for a kid to easily chew and swallow is a recommended method for introducing solid.

I have seen kids here feeding themselves as early as possible in the high chair with table usually with Cheerios or other cereal, small pieces of boiled veg or fresh fruit and packed fruit or vegetables. But I had no confusion on which diet to follow for her.

Fortunately, Indian grocery stores were the saviors which made my decision easy. But, at the same time, I don’t want to give the food cultural shock to my kid by making her dependent with the Indian cuisine. However, she has to cope with the American menu when she enters her preschool. So we add Cheerios and other American food items occasionally to our menu.

Leaving Cloth Diapers Behind

When we stayed in India my kid used to wear cloth nappies traditionally called “langots”. We used diapers only for travel or doctor visits. It was more of a cultural decision. So, no questions asked. But, staying in the house covered with carpet I have no choice but to make her wear the diapers.

I felt very bad and worried for her. I hated to see my kid in a diaper. Sometimes I sounded like a grandma who would be whining all the time. The fear of diaper rash made me crazy. Even though I was so strict with a schedule of diaper change(every two to three hours), she would suffer from diaper rash sometimes. Thankfully, diaper rash creams helped me and preventive creams are truly a reliever. However, my daughter was comfortable with wearing diapers.

When the winter approached I really understood the advantage of disposable diapers. Without diapers, my daughter would have slept in a pool of her own pee and being tired, I would have snored away. This, of course, would have let her catch a cold. Now I’m thankful for disposable diapers.

Potty Training Later

Comparatively, potty training the kids in cloth nappies are easy than training kids in diapers. Probably because the wetness helps kids learn sooner. If my kid was raised in India I would have started the potty training at her age of 1. That’s not the case here.

At her 15th month, I gradually started the potty training and of course, we had some setbacks in the initial days. She became diaper free at home at her 20th month and we used diapers only for travel. At her 24th month, she amazed us by getting rid of the diapers completely. We are now one diaper free family and I am proud of her.

The only way to getting around these change was expecting the unexpected. Even though it was hard to me, knowing ahead of time and understanding the cultural differences made me survived in the name of compromises.

Now as a 26-month-old my kid is coping with both traditional(Indian) and modern(American) lifestyle we impose on her. I am very proud of my daughter and I owe my whole life to her. I hope she will grow with better values and the ability to understand and work with people from different backgrounds.

Most importantly, a better human being!

Sindhuja Kumar is a proud mom and a lifestyle blogger living in Connecticut, USA and origin from Tamilnadu, India. She is happily married and nothing excites her more than being a mom. She blogs to keep herself sane, more or less writing about positive parenting adventures, DIY Craft tutorials & scrumptious recipes that empowers every mom and woman to stay inspired and living an elegant life in a creative way. Check her work @ PassionateMoms.