Does holding my sleeping baby count as bonding?

Quiet contact still counts

She's comfortable, she's asleep on your chest, and it's lovely — and there's still a nagging sense that no bonding is occurring, because bonding feels like it should involve something happening.

It is the opposite. She is taking in your smell, heartbeat, breathing and voice, and she does not need to be awake for that closeness to matter. Papa realised quite early that Ari being comfortable enough to sleep on him meant a bond was already growing. She felt safe with her father. The protectiveness and pride he felt became the beginning of their father-daughter relationship: she feels safe with me, she loves me, this is good.

Stay awake while she sleeps on you

This is the part to get right, and it's narrow.

Holding her while you are awake and upright is fine, and is one of the better things in the day. The danger is falling asleep with her — on a sofa or armchair especially, where she can slip into a gap or against your body, and in a bed with soft bedding.

The free-time problem

There is an honest complication here. For a stretch, the only real free time Papa had was while she slept on him. That made the contact nap both the nicest part of the day and his only gap, and those two things pulled against each other.

What helped was not pretending that was fine. It isn't a substitute for actual time off, and treating it as one means you never ask for the real thing. We ended up protecting both separately: contact naps because they were worth having, and a genuine break because a nap with a baby on you is not rest.