Hold that Gaze with Your Infant Boy

In those first precious weeks and months of your baby's life, your interactions with your infant are significant, but limited to a few cherished activities. A fist wrapped around your finger, the smell of your baby's soft head, and gazing into one another's eyes, are all important ways of bonding with your little one. Parents of baby girls enjoy many prolonged moments of eye contact with their infants. But parents of baby boys may have noticed that this eye contact is intermittent, lasting just a few seconds before your baby shifts his focus to other objects in the room. There's a scientific reason that explains your baby boy's sporadic gaze, and a very good reason for you, your partner, and your baby's caregivers to be patient and maintain as much eye contact as possible with your baby boy. Dr. Patricia Love, Ed. D., a marriage and family therapist, and Dr. Steven Stosny, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, have explained why baby boys hold eye contact for shorter periods of time than their female counterparts. They explain that baby boys have a “heightened sensitivity to any type of abrupt stimulation, which gives them a propensity for hyperarousal...” According to Love and Stosny, your baby boy's tendency to look into your eyes briefly, look away, and then look back after a period of time, is “a function of his sensitivity to arousal...” The infant boy finds this uncomfortable. This behavior is confirmed by Joan H. Hittelman and Robert Dickes in their article, Sex Difference in Neonatal Eye Contact Time published in the Merrill-Palmer Quartler of Behavior and Development in 1979. According to their research, infant girls “spent significantly more time on the average than did the males gazing at the interacter's eyes...the duration of eye-to-eye contact was longer for the females than the males.” Drs. Love and Stosny explain that you can bond with your baby boy by holding his gaze and being patient as his eyes wander from your face to other objects in his field of vision, and back again. Baby boys enjoy eye contact. If you allow your baby boy to gaze into your eyes, look away, and come back to your face at his own pace, while you continuously fix your eyes on his, he will feel comforted when he does return to your eyes. Eventually, he will stay focused on your face for incrementally longer periods of time. Dr. Linda Acredolo, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UC Davis, asserts that babies may avert their gaze from yours when they are feeling overstimulated. Instead of looking away, distracting him with other behavior, or aggressively trying to stay in your baby's line of vision, Dr. Acredolo encourages parents to be patient, and allow your baby's gaze to turn back to yours, where you'll be waiting for him with close eye-contact and a smile. Why is maintaining eye contact with your infant boy so important? Love and Stosny explain a bit about the types of interaction with your young baby that will curtail feelings of rejection and shame, even at a very young age. If a parent breaks his or her eye contact with their infant boy the moment their baby does, when this little boy focuses back on his parent's distracted face, it may signal a loss of interest and result in a feeling of rejection, or a “shame response”. At this stage of development, you can prevent feelings of rejection and the instinct to feel shame by holding your infant boy's gaze, patiently allowing him to return his eyes to yours, and giving him the comfort of knowing that he can take his time and eventually return to your waiting face. While it may seem like your baby boy doesn't want to hold your gaze, rest assured that this is not the case. Remind yourself to keep your eyes on his face, and and he will come back to you. When it comes to your infant son, understanding and patience are virtues that will deepen your bond with him for years to come.