Difficulty bonding with DC2

[ClodiaF]

DS2 is five weeks old and I still feel little or no connection to him. With DS1 it was pretty much love at first sight, but this one is just a little stranger. I want to do right by him of course, and I don't want him to come to harm, but at the moment everything I do for him (including EBF on demand) feels more or less forced. I can't help but compare him unfavourably with his brother, thinking how much easier, better-looking etc he was, which makes me feel guilty. Maybe it doesn't help that he is quite an anxious baby and difficult to feed tho gaining weight well (he has mild tongue tie) but maybe that's just a false rationalisation. I had an easy pregnancy and straightforward normal birth (same as DS1), and I don't think I have PND as otherwise I feel fine. Will I get to feel the same way about this baby as the first one eventually, do you think? How long might it take?

[Spellcheck]

I hear you! I went through the same thing in March when I had DC5 and found, to my surprise, that he was exactly as you said - a little stranger! I promise you, it does go eventually. I think I was just so used to the others and wrapped up with them. It took a good couple of months. And one day he smiled at me, and that was that.

[Theyaremysunshine]

I had this.

Love at first sight, fairy tale style with DS. Total buzz.

Dd I had a hard pg but was still v excited, much wanted baby. Felt absolutely nothing when she was born. Just a sort of, oh that's a cuteish baby, better look after it, not what I was expecting, where's the wow moment???

She was actually a much easier baby too.

I started to feel something about 8 weeks. It helped massively to admit this at my 6-8wk check, where my fab gp said how normal it was and how it would come and be all the stronger for the love growing as I got to know her.

By 6m I loved her. But it took til nearly a year before I adored her with the same absolute devotion as her brother. It's been slow to grow but my love for them is now equal and immense. Where I first loved DS as "my baby", I first loved dd for herself IYSWIM.

It will happen. It's ok to feel this way. Tell someone how you feel. Lots of skin to skin (not just bf), carry rather than buggy, cosleep if it suits. Forced will become natural. You will love him just as ferociously as his brother, you'll just have to wait a bit longer and be kind to yourself.

[proudmama2772]

Just chiming in to say I had this too. It goes away.

[minipie]

Just to add to the advice above: get the tongue tie cut. Even if he's gaining weight ok, there are other effects of a tt which are subtler but still unhelpful (like wind, bad sleep, mouth grows in a bad shape for teeth, speech issues later on...)

[TheFirstOfHerName]

DS1: 3 months (possibly complicated by severe PND)
DS2: instantly
DD: a few days
DS3: a few weeks

The different timescales have not affected my relationship with any of them long-term. I feel equally close to all of them.

[TheFirstOfHerName]

There can be a certain amount of going through the motions with a young baby. Hang on in there, the love will come.