HOW TO NURTURE LOVE FOR BOOKS IN A NEWBORN AND BABIES

Wouldn’t it be amazing if babies would have
an innate love for books and when they
grow up, this would grow into love for
reading? Nurture and nature are both at
play here, and nature is always happy to
accept help from nurture.
Babies love looking, in fact, that is one of
the main perceptual channels they use at
this early age to learn about you and the
world, even on day ‘zero’.
I thought it was quite odd in the hospital
when the midwife wrote on my son’s chart,
DAY — 0. My precious baby, I thought,
travelled a tremendous journey through a
‘warm hole’ from one world to another*,
experienced, felt and saw for the first time
so much and it is all only his day zero! “Only
tomorrow your son will be 1 day old, as 24
hours have not yet passed since his birth”,
she gently added.
Research has proven that newborns can
crawl on their mother’s chest to the breast
right after birth and successfully feed within
an hour of birth. It has been considered that
in addition to the odour produced by the
breast, the baby seeks out nipples due to
their contrast against a mother’s skin. The
areola and nipple become very dark in
pregnant women, which make them stand
out like two contrasting beacons for the
newborn to home in on.
Newborn babies, literally, continue to home
in on high-contrast objects and images as a
way of discovering the world around them.