by BabyCenter Featured Expert posted in Parenting

By Jill Simonian
Those first few weeks with a new baby can be a trip. Who is this new person" Why is she staring at me" Man, she's tiny and cute...but she just keeps staring at me! To say I was freaked out about first-time motherhood is an outstanding understatement.
Seven years and two daughters later, I'm now drunk on the momlife punch. Anyone who knows me personally knows I take bonding with my daughters -- and specifically, bonding with babies -- very seriously. Whether we have five minutes or five hours, even our smallest efforts add up to stronger mom/child relationships before our angels turn into angsty teens.
With my first daughter, bonding didn?t come instantly -- breastfeeding didn't work out (another story for another time) and my husband was much more at ease with our newborn than I was, which took me a few weeks to accept and be okay with. At first I was annoyed with his baby-ease (which, turns out, is completely normal and something I've discussed at length in my book), but soon realized that the bonding experience varies for all new moms. "This is my job: to bond with her," I remember thinking. Since nursing wasn't going to be our thing, I knew I had to get creative and find other ways to bond...or teeter on the edge of sanity trying. Here's what worked for us back then:
1. I talked out loud.
No, she didn't talk back, but doing this made me feel less alone, less isolated, less lonely dur...