Adoption: Bonding through Connection

Attachment Parenting has been in the news recently, but in reality it is the most basic and oldest “style” of parenting in the world. In current culture, “Attachment Parenting” has been promoted in the adoption community by adoption specialists for years. Adoption specialists have promoted baby and child wearing to help foster attachment/bonding for the new parent and the new child. There is a trust element that is developed when a child is making physical contact with the parent, being able to hear the heartbeat of the person, and being able to have that security as they also observe and interact during the day.

Our son, Samuel, came into our home when we adopted him from Ethiopia at almost four-years-old. He was large for his age, but once we started using our Ergobaby Carrier, his weight was distributed easily. He loved being in there. Our adoption specialist also was happy we were giving a child of his age so much time in a carrier. Adopted children, even past the age of toddlerhood and infancy, need attention that is often thought of for very young children or babies. This is a normal and healthy part of the attachment process for many adopted children.

Whether you adopt a child in infancy or after, there is a bonding period that needs to happen. You both are strangers to each other, and that is a normal feeling to have. Trauma has occurred, which is a heartbreaking and unavoidable part of adoption.  With the trauma comes introductions to new people and there is a need to build a trusting relationship with one another. There are also stages of getting to know even a biological child that take place during newborn, infant, and toddler phases of life. I feel like we went through all of that with Samuel at a much quicker pace.

Having Samuel in the carrier was also helpful to our routine. He would sometimes fall asleep for naps, and I would go about my work for the day. I would be able to stop at any time and just bow my head down to smell his neck and realize he still has the baby smell I remembered my biological son having when I would hold him for his naps as an infant. I was able to go through a grieving process of not knowing my child when he was an infant, but in those moments I saw what his mother saw, and it made me realize how many people love this child and are helping raise him up into the man he is supposed to be.

In those moments, bonding started to happen.

I noticed his attachment to me, and the importance of physical touch in relation to attachment. Samuel was able to recognize the difference between his mother (his second mother) and strangers. I was the one who provided him comfort. It was my heartbeat he listened to as he slept.

We would start using the back pack function to go out together on walks and he would point things out so we could discuss them. We were able to use the pack in a playful aspect as a backpack this way. Samuel would sometimes prefer being on my back and he, with great excitement, would tell us that the women in Ethiopia would carry their babies the same way. So, we had the added bonus of reminding him of something pleasant from home.

There are so many ways to build a strong attachment with an adopted child, but I firmly believe the idea of touch and physical connectedness by baby/childwearing is extremely helpful to adoptive parents.