Responding sensitively to your baby

What sensitivity means

Sensitivity means noticing your baby's signals, reading them correctly and responding promptly and lovingly. This is the heart of secure attachment. You need not be an expert; your attentive effort already counts. No one understands every signal at once, and that is completely fine.

Learning to read signals

Babies communicate through facial expressions, sounds, movements and crying. Over time you learn to tell hunger from tiredness or overstimulation. This reading grows naturally the more time you spend together. Trust that you understand your child better and better.

Prompt responding does no harm

You cannot spoil a baby by reliably responding to their crying. On the contrary: a baby whose needs are answered reliably learns that the world is safe. This early experience of reliability is the foundation of basic trust.

Misreadings are okay too

Sometimes you offer the breast although your baby is tired, or rock them when they are hungry. Such failed attempts are normal and do no harm. What matters is not always being right but staying with it and trying again. Attachment grows in the effort, not in perfection.

Repair counts

No parent is sensitive without interruption; that is simply not possible. What matters is that you find your way back to your child after a missed moment. This reconnecting, this turning towards again, is even more valuable for attachment than constant perfect attunement.

Looking after yourself

Being sensitive is hard when you yourself are exhausted or overwhelmed. Caring for yourself is therefore no luxury but a precondition. Only when you are reasonably well do you have the calm to perceive your child's signals. Get support when you need it.