# What are the signs that a baby or toddler has bonded well? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 16, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463 "2014-10-16T02:02:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/1 "2014-10-16T02:02:32Z")
I have been googling and can’t seem to find an answer to this question. I have a toddler who was born with a heart condition (now repaired). I barely got to hold him at birth before he was whisked away. He was in NICU and PICU for the first three weeks of his life. (I still remember him the day after the surgery, sucking so hard and long on that tube they put in his mouth, even when he was asleep. It broke my heart, that that tube was his only comfort that night.) When he came home, I found him to be a difficult baby. I didn’t seem to know how to comfort him and he was endlessly fussy. The bottle always seemed a better comforter to him than me. He also seemed to prefer daddy to me - he would smile and laugh for daddy, and only rarely for me. It took me a lot of time to feel like we were bonded - at least four months. Going back to work actually helped me, because I wasn’t so exhausted from tending to him all the time. Now that I’ve had another child with a normal birth, I know what it’s like to feel instantly bonded to a baby, and now I’m worrying about my older child. Did I ever bond with him correctly? Does a lack of bonding explain his his demanding and oppositional behavior, or is that just a normal 3yo reaction to having a new baby brother? Googling brought me to pages like this one: [Reactive Attachment Disorder Treatment, RAD](http://www.reactiveattachmentdisordertreatment.com/ssi/checklist.html). A lot of the items in the list would get a check from me. But another checklist ([Reactive attachment disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/reactive-attachment-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20032126)) got zero checks. Surely learning to hold the bottle himself was a normal developmental stage, and surely some babies just like being held in an outward-facing position? He never liked lying on my chest (though his little brother does), but as a young baby he had a scar there, so maybe it was uncomfortable or even painful for him to be in that position. As a toddler, he has never run to me when I pick him up from daycare, he usually shouts “mommy!” and seems happy to see me, but then runs away. For what it’s worth, I love putting him to bed at night. We read books and talk about our favorite part of the day or what we’re going to dream about. He’s always calm and happy during this time of the day, even if the rest of the day has been tantrums and attention-getting behavior. I’m probably overthinking this, so if anyone has any knowledge about how to identify attachment or lack thereof, please help me stop my overthinking with some actual knowledge! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/2 "2014-10-16T02:51:22Z")
Do you prefer the facts first or the anecdata first? Facts first, attachment disorders are most often found in kids who didn’t get any parental care until they were 3yo or older, kids who were treated like little eating and shitting machines: a few weeks in the NICU do not count, even the orderly who cleans that place is more of a caretaker than the people working in Romanian orphanages. Second, many people whose kids have normal births do not bond instantly; there are also moments when someone who’s bonded to a baby finds that the toddler seems like a different little person. These boards are full of threads where that kind of issues are mentioned, have a few. What’s the one thing you wish someone had told you about parenting an infant? [Big baby - C-section or not?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=701063) [All-purpose baby, pregnancy and parenting thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=681711) Third, things such as what position a little kid likes to be held in is a personality thing: my nephew couldn’t stand having his arms held; he liked being able to look at Shiny Things (anything electrical, even if it didn’t happen to be on) and preferred holding onto people’s shoulders (so, facing behind them). His sister couldn’t stand having her legs held and liked looking at people’s faces (which usually meant facing in the same direction as the person holding her). Both of them are psychologically boring, and I promise they were made by the same pair of parents. ---
**Author:** ![Toastmaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Toastmaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toastmaker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/3 "2014-10-16T03:14:21Z")
When he starts taking out the trash without being ordered to. . . ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/4 "2014-10-16T03:36:21Z")
Fact: “bonding” is somewhat overrated in the US. Like Nava said, your baby was taken care of, fed when he was hungry, soothed when he was upset, and cleaned when he was soiled, by a fairly regular set of people that treated him with affection and interest (even if they were NICU nurses). That’s pretty much all it takes for little tiny ones. Fact: kids have very different personalities and preferences. My brother and I are fairly similar, but my mom and aunt are night and day, and have been since birth. In addition, my grandmother’s personality fits much better with one of them than the other (not important here which) and if the concept of lovey-dovey gooey-eyeballed ‘bonding’ had been prevalent then, she would freely say that she wasn’t ‘bonded’ to the one she fit less well with. My husband often says that it’s totally acceptable for you to love your family members, but to not necessarily like or even understand them. Also, he’s three and has a new sibling. If he wasn’t oppositional and melting down, THAT would be abnormal. ---
**Author:** ![wellanuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@wellanuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wellanuff)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/5 "2014-10-16T05:24:28Z")
Read the symptoms on the mayoclinic link again. Just from your posts in this thread I can tell your oldest doesn’t exhibit those symptoms. (I’m not intending to write that in a dismissive way, I mean it as reassuring.) More anecdote: I have had four children (well, my wives have had four children…I didn’t do any of the birthin’); the last baby, I didn’t even get to meet her until she was two months old. She is six now and calls me the “best dad in the world” (I’ don’t know, I suppose its _possible_ she’s biased…) and likes to read with me and practice her spelling with me and laugh at my jokes and sit on my lap while we watch TV. I don’t think missing the first two months of her life prevented her/us from bonding. That thing you do at night, with the reading and the cuddling and the talking and the good night kiss and the calm and the happy? That’s now more important than anything that might have happened in the first three weeks of his life. The stuff you are doing now is what he is going to remember. Fondly. Kids are resilient. It sounds like his heart condition posed a lot of challenges for all of you, and the fact that you now have an oppositional 3yo who throws tantrums and wants attention and likes cuddling and reading with you and smiles and laughs at your husband’s jokes means that all three of you faced up to those challenges well. You obviously love him, or you wouldn’t be concerned. When he comes out of preschool, he calls out “mommy” to you as a greeting, but he doesn’t need to run to you because he already feels secure and there’s a whole world to explore out there. He knows he’ll get that hug from you at night. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/6 "2014-10-16T10:12:39Z")
I am no psychologist, but I am a parent. What I see here is worried parent syndrome or some such. If what you describe in your post is accurate, then I think you should stop worrying and start enjoying your children even more than you already do. It’s a tough world out there and children who come from a happy, secure home, with two parents, have a much better chance for success, whatever method you use to measure it. At some point in the future, and all to soon, you will stop being Mommy Who Knows Everything and magically turn into Mommy Who Knows Nothing. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/7 "2014-10-16T17:31:08Z")
**What are the signs that a baby or toddler has bonded well?** Its arms and legs don’t easily pull off. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/8 "2014-10-17T01:15:58Z")
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Why yes, I do have worried parent syndrome. But fortunately, I have a sane community here that talks sense into me every time I start getting all crazy like. > [@njtt](#): > > **What are the signs that a baby or toddler has bonded well?** > > Its arms and legs don’t easily pull off. 😛 Lol! ---
**Author:** ![wombattver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b77776/32.png) [@wombattver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wombattver)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/9 "2014-10-18T02:43:40Z")
Not that I’m encouraging you to over-analyze everything, but if you are interested in reading some more about it, Deborah Gray’s book “Attaching in Adoption” was a great resource for me when we adopted our son at 11 months of age. I read a lot of books at that time and did a lot of research, but the Gray book was most helpful and geared specifically toward toddlers and younger. We already had a bio daughter when we adopted, so I had some comparison and could notice certain physical behaviors and differences, but it’s always a question of how much is really the adopted/bio issue vs. just regular personality uniqueness. Remember, too, that it’s not just the child who needs to attach and bond, but the parent as well. It’s perfectly normal that you didn’t feel that rush of complete attachment when you brought him home that you later felt for the other child - after all, you didn’t get that access and being a first-time parent takes some getting used to! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/10 "2014-10-18T04:47:15Z")
Speaking as the parent of three biological children and one adopted child, and as a pediatrician who has a large internationally adopted population in his practice, I offer an opinion that we know a lot less about reactive attachment disorder than many of us think we do. For precisely the reasons **wombattver** alludes to. First the parent perspective - My bio kids are all, for better and worse, hands dealt from the same genetic deck, stacked one way. My adopted child was dealt from another one, stacked entirely differently, also for better and worse. She is well bonded and at 13 has a long history of being much more socially aware and empathic, more open wih hugs, good with boundries, so on, than her sibs ever were. To a large degree this is just who she is and we thank the gene pool that was not ours. She is by any checklist metric more bonded than her bio brothers ever were, despite the fact we met when she was over a year old. Now as the pediatrician - First a biological child who is making poor eye contact, is emotionally “off” and non-expressive, prone to outbursts and inappropriate displays of affection with strangers. Maybe will get labelled as autitistic spectrum, or ADHD, or oppositional defiant, or put into a host of other boxes but not one - that kids is unlikely to be called reactive attachement disorder. Same kid except you have been told was in an orphanage until 13 months. No knowledge of family history, if parents were bipolar, ADD, drug users, or anything. Suddenly all those other diagnostic labels move down and reactive attachment disorder moves to the top of the label list. Personally I am bothered by that. Don’t get me wrong - it is very clear to me that neglect over the first year of life can have serious consequences, more in a second on that, but assuming causation seems uncalled for. Should I assume my daughter’s excellent interpersonal skills are due to her early deprivations as well? Again, it is clear that it can play role, [some amazing studies in Romania](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/752.full) provide solid evidence of that, but applying that to any individual, assuming that that individual’s problems are not genetic but secondary to deprivation when the same child who was bio would be labelled otherwise … just does not seem justified. For the interest of some this extract from the linked article (Science 15 August 2014) about those studies (and I am unsure if it is behind a paywall or not). > [@](#): > > … a controlled study comparing a group left in orphanages with a group randomly selected for high-quality foster care in Romania. In a stream of reports since 2003, they have shown that children reared in institutions suffer an array of setbacks, some reflecting long-term changes in the brain (Science, 21 December 2007, p. 1937). The team is now analyzing data from the 12th year, measuring things like disparities in brain structure. > > Findings from the Bucharest project have buttressed those from smaller and less controlled studies, many based on U.S. children in troubled homes. “We are all reporting the same effects,” says Megan Gunnar, a clinical psychologist at the University of Minnesota (UMN), Twin Cities, who is not part of BEIP. “The brain needs stimulation to develop,” and when it doesn’t get it, cognitive and emotional growth are stunted. > > Today, Nelson is convinced that early life without parenting can be “more disastrous for brain development” than living with an abusive caregiver. But the Romanian work also confirms that many children can bounce back to something like normality, if placed in a supportive environment. … > > … The “creepiest thing” about the Romanian orphanages and other places where young children suffer chronic neglect is that “they’re quiet,” Pollak says. In most U.S. elementary schools or child care centers, he says, “you hear talking and screaming and crying … it’s just raucous.” But in “an environment where children are not being attended to, there is this kind of dead silence. … Children are learning: ‘Why should I cry, or gesture, or make eye contact if no one is responding?’” … > > … After screening to exclude children with genetic or neurological abnormalities, study leaders selected 136 children for the trial, ranging in age from 6 to 31 months. By random assignment, 68 went into a group that received BEIP-funded foster care and 68 were left to continue with “usual” care—that is, they lived in an institution. Foster caregivers were screened, trained, and paid a “living wage,” Nelson says. It was deluxe care even by U.S. standards. BEIP experts monitored and consulted with the caregivers, who also had 24-hour pediatric medical backup. As controls, BEIP included a group of 72 children from Romanian communities who had never lived in an institution. Researchers gathered test results at 30 months, 42 months, 54 months, 8 years, and 12 years. They have been funded to return at 15 years. > > Children in the institutional care group showed dramatic deficits on a variety of measures when compared with the community group. In an age-adjusted system that converts test results from young children into IQ-comparable scores, known as the developmental quotient (DQ) scale, the institutionalized kids at the outset earned an average DQ score of 74 compared with 103 for the community group. This was “two standard deviations below the mean” for children of that age, according to BEIP, suggesting “profound intellectual delay.” > > In time, the kids placed into foster care advanced toward the normal DQ and IQ ranges, though they continued to lag behind the community group. When BEIP tested children at 42 months, researchers found that the older a child was when placed into foster care, the lower the cognitive score was likely to be. Those who left the institution by 18 months scored above 90 on the DQ scale, whereas those who left at 24 to 30 months scored just over 80. Those who remained in institutions up to age 8 exhibited a “progressive decrease in IQ with age,” the BEIP authors wrote. > > Strangely, as they reached 8 years of age, the foster care children began to slow their climb into higher DQ and IQ scores and came to rest on a par with the children in the institutionalized group, with IQ scores hovering near 80. Both ranked “far below” children who had never lived in an institution, according to BEIP, perhaps because their recovery from the effects of early neglect had reached a ceiling. … > > … The good news is that IQ does seem to rebound in children who leave institutional care—the sooner they leave, the better, according to Nelson’s group. BEIP found that children who left an institution by 24 months seemed to recover best. Other researchers agree about the need to get out early, but differ about timing. For example, the United Kingdom’s ERA study found that children adopted into British families seemed to score just as well as community kids if they left the institution by 6 months of age. Both BEIP and ERA have found that certain behavioral problems, such as poor attention and hyperactivity, persist among kids who were in institutions for any period. … > > … members of the BEIP group reported on an imaging study of Romanian children 8 to 11 years old. Using magnetic resonance imaging, Margaret Sheridan of Boston Children’s Hospital and others found that Romanian kids raised in an institution had significantly less brain tissue, especially gray matter (a mix of various cell bodies), than those who had never lived in an institution. But children who had been placed in foster care showed a smaller deficit. “These reflect profound effects on the brain,” Nelson says. > > Like other studies, the BEIP project suggests that brain development passes through critical periods. The first 24 months of life seem especially important for cognitive development, and Nelson says that **the critical period for healthy attachment to a parent lasts through the first 20 to 22 months.** For language, the window appears to be up to 16 months. But\*\* there are no sharp lines\*\*, says UMN’s Gunnar. “The general story seems to be that the brain is remarkably plastic” and can find many ways around obstacles. But neglect makes things harder. … Bolding mine. FWIW. It seems to me that we parent each individual child we have, based on who he or her is, his or her strengths weakeness and idiosyncracies, whatever the label that does or does not get attached. Enjoy the differences! ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-signs-that-a-baby-or-toddler-has-bonded-well/701463/11 "2014-10-20T07:31:58Z")
I’m not an expert, just another parent. However, I do have a little different perspective, since my Taiwanese wife and I had our children in Japan and then moved to Taiwan when they were four and two. You would be amazed at the things which one culture declares is absolutely essential for children but which another culture doesn’t care about. When my daughter was in a Japanese daycare, we were able to have our schedules as such that I could take her in at 10:00 am and my wife could pick her up after work. That would give me a little more time with her in the morning. No problem, right? No. The daycare had a morning assembly which all children needed to go to. Even four-month-old babies. They take their group mentality there seriously. It’s not unusual for Taiwanese to have their babies raised by the grandparents, sometimes in other cities, and then go back to the parent at three or four. We were living in Tokyo when the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima disaster occurred. Because we didn’t know what the hell was happening, we took the kids (then my daughter was two and son was five months) down to Taiwan until things were a little clearer after a couple of months. After two weeks, my wife needed to go back to Japan for her work but I had more flexibility, and so I suggested staying with the kids. My wife was really unhappy that I’d suggest making her go back to Tokyo alone, because the kids would fine with the grandparents. Not just fine, I was told, but have the grandparents take care of the kids 24/7 was just the same as parents. Our Japanese and my American friends thought she was derelict as mother, her Taiwanese friends thought I was a cold husband so we got a divorce. Not really, of course, it was another cultural learning experience. The rather long-winded point is that cultures has particular ideas that may or may not necessarily valid, and I think the US is really strong about “bonding” where as others have pointed out is not really that well established.