Gazing into our children’s eyes

From the first few hours of life, eye contact is one of the most powerful ways in which we bond as humans. This continues throughout our entire lives.

Making eye contact with our children from the first few hours of life is a crucial way to communicate love and form a secure attachment bond. Babies are born with the ability to see only a 30 cm distance, which allows them to see the face of their mother as they breastfeed.

Benefits of Eye Contact

Eye contact has innumerable physical health, mental health, cognition and social benefits to both the parent and child.

Benefits include:

• Physical health: slowing down our heart rate, increasing our energy, increasing our oxytocin levels
• Mental health: increasing our feelings of happiness and increasing our sense of closeness, promoting secure attachment, promoting parent-child bonding
• Cognition: children’s brains (from birth) develop at a very rapid pace when they gaze into the eyes of their loved ones. This is especially true for the brain areas responsible for emotional skills, social skills, language and areas responsible for learning.
• Social benefits: Children who feel securely attached to their caregivers are more likely to thrive in subsequent social relationships and have less behavioural issues

If done consistently, the benefits of eye-contact will benefit a child’s development and help them throughout their entire lives.

Eye contact is a crucial skill to communicate connection and respect, and is something we can use in all our relationships. We should make an effort to stop and focus on our children, spouses, mothers, fathers and friends.
Respectful eye contact can change someone’s day and make someone feel loved and valued and seen and heard.  “Attention is the purest form of love”.

Neurodiversity

It is worth noting that children who are neurodiverse may struggle with eye contact and find it stressful, overwhelming and anxiety-provoking.
Parents know their child best. If your child prefers shorter periods of eye contact or other ways to communicate love, it’s best to respond to the individual needs of your child.

Bonding ideas with newborns

For more Bonding ideas with newborns, click here

Helplines/ Useful Information

Bonding with newborns: https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/connecting-communicating/bonding/bonding-newborns

Play ideas with newborns:https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/play-learning/play-ideas/thinking-play-newborns Positive attention to children: https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/connecting-communicating/bonding/positive-attention