But it is a myth to assume that the larger amount of early stimulation you provide, the more beneficial it will be. The truth is that babies can be overstimulated--which is what many parents, intent on beginning to groom their progeny for college in the cradle, end up doing.

Instead of being a static one-time event, bonding is a process, a dynamic and continuous one. Thus, a reciprocal, loving attachment is still realizable even when early contact is delayed--as it is for many mothers and their prematurely born infants, or when illness of either the newborn or the mother intervenes.