I hardly ever post here but really wanted to answer you. I felt exactly the same way after 6mths. Now, my DS is nearly 10mths and it's really getting better.

It's so wonderful when they do really big things, like getting their first teeth, starting to crawl, starting to pull themselves up on the furniture and taking little steps. You finally start to really get a reward for all your hard work (if you know what I mean!)

Just try to be patient, relax and let it happen in its own time

Before I had my DD everyone told me I would be a great mother. I had worked with special needs kids and also always had a good relationship with friends kids. Then I had a really tough time with my DD's birth (emcs), all she seemed to do was cry and I didn't feel able to get anything right. I think I was in total shock and I certainly didn't feel any rush of love for her.

It is so different now. She is 15 months and has a personality that I am really growing to love. I so look forward to seeing her when I finish work.

For the first year, all you can really do is keep them clean and fed. When your DS starts interacting with you more you will be able to play with him and then the fun starts.

You are not a crap mother. Take a look at some of the tragic news stories to see what a crap mother really is. All any of us can do is try our best and do what we think is right.

Why do you wish you didn't have a husband either? Is he not being supportive enough? Sounds like you need to have a good chat with him, tell him how you feel and what you need from him. Make sure you get some time off! Even just a relaxing bath while he takes the baby out for a walk can make huge difference.

I don't think its pnd, I just think that I never wanted children for all sorts of reasons that still apply but now I have a child. At the moment I wish I didn't have a husband either. I miss being young free and single and think its such a shame that this beautiful baby boy will probably grow up with a crap mother who doesn't really love him

Oh, yes, my mum's always admitted that she really found us pretty awful as babies, toddlers, and young children but she absolutely loved us as older children and adores having grown up children. Whereas my gran loved babies for some reason, but didn't much like older children. The odd thing was that my mum was desperate to have kids, and then had three of us, so I don't know why she kept going if she found babies so awful.

I was a bit like a rabbit caught in headlights for the first six months, felt like I had to concentrate on getting the feeding, changing and bathing 'right'. It took a while to just sit back and relax.

Really don't worry about this, all perfectly normal and they just get better as they get older.

i'm 'worse' than you guys i think. i don't mean that but i can't think of any other clear way to say it. i just find these babies with huge brains and residual bodies we give birth to weird. am fierce about them and fine for them, and 'get' them very well from the get-go but honestly until they speak and move, until their neurology really hits a certain point, i don't feel the idealised maternal love i read aobut everywhere. i'm just patterned enough into it i think, having been raise quite tom boyish. i kind of remind myself of the mothers in a benighted part of south america i once worked in, who didn't even name theirs until they'd survived infancy, as their community was so plagued by poverty and environmental problems. but i don't have those reasons. but i must say, i've never beaten myself up about it, i just do the right thing by them as babies and as maisiestar says, grow into proper rich long term love as they develop.

I too have had soem of these feelings and like others have said - it did grow as he grew and became more of a person and also as I became more comfortable in my new life and role as a mother.
I realised that I was scared of being overtaken by the 'mother' feelings - I would look at him and it would literally take my breath away - I felt swamped by the strength of emotions I felt and so it felt easier to cut myself off from it.
I think I approached my relationship with my son in the same way that I approached any other deep relationship i'd had, which for me was an initial caution and almost fear - it takes me a long time to fall in love and to willingly submit to those feelings and the pattern was the same with my DS.
I still look at him and it takes my breathe away, but I welcome that feeling now rather than feel I can't handle it and need to insulate myself from it - he's 5 now!
Becoming a mother isn't the same as having a baby - I kept wondering when my life would return to normal and it took me a while to realise that 'normal' wasn't ever going to return. Instead I'd ended up in a different place and that this place would eventually feel like normal.

i felt same about ds1, took alot longerr to feel anything like i felt for ds2 when he came along. i think its normal, but a taboo to talk about xx

Took several years for me - really I think until they stopped being babies. They are now 6 and 4 and I love them to bits. I too was not the "mother type" and I think that the baby phase was particularly hard for this reason. I love talking to my children and I love them making me laugh. It will come.

I don't know .... was just saying what I thought because of my own experiences as a mum ... what would you never have admitted ? having pnd ?