aibu to dislike my child and hate mums who love theirs so much?

[jigsawlady]

Ive got an 8 week old baby and I dont feel like im suffering from pnd as im not sad im just disinterested in my baby but I am starting to feel awful everytime I look on fb at other new mums putting statuses saying how much they love their baby and how they are the best present they could ever get for xmas, etc.

I hate my baby most of the time. She isnt particularly bad (doesn't suffer from collic, only wakes once during the night) ive got a really supportive partner he gets up wt every night feed then lets me sleep while he puts her back to bed.

Im not evil I do care about her and feel anxious if she seems upset or uncomfortable but I dont seem to care as much as dp when shes being cute and he's cooing over her.

Most of the time I wish I'd never suggested having a baby so that our lives could go back to how they were.

Am I being a bitch and selfish?? Should I be loving my baby more or are these women on fb lying about how easy and wonderful they are finding motherhood??

I could've written your post until DD was about 8 months old and became "interesting" I most certainly didn't and don't have PND. DD is almost 2 and whilst I can remember and miss my life before her, now I absolutely cannot imagine my life without her.

The "love" so to speak will come. You are not a monster or a bad mother.

PND is not about sadness necessarily. A big part of PND can be a failure to bond with your baby, which it sounds as if is what is happening with you.

Please go and talk to your GP or HV.

Can only agree with what a lot of people have already said.

I had PND and didn't really start bonding with my baby until she was 5/6 months old. I would never have harmed her or neglected her physical needs but I felt like I was on auto pilot and there was no actual emotion behind what I did for her.

She is 9 note and the absolute light of my life, we couldn't be closer and no-one would ever imagined how indifferent I felt in the beginning.

I found reading Life After Birth by Kate Figes hugely helpful, as were my GP & HV. There is lots of help and support out there if you ask and I promise no-one will judge you for how you are feeling.

Hi just wanted to add that I felt exactly the same as you. Your post sounds exactly like my life back then, right down to hubby getting up with me in the night.
The only difference being that my feelings came on very quickly after my baby was born, the midwife was still coming to the house and she spotted that whilst my baby was being cared for, I most definitely needed support.
I was so desperate to have my old life back, (career, freedom etc) but it really was just adjusting to such a huge change in my life. That last sentence actually doesn't do justice to the enormity of your feelings. It truly is an awful way to feel when you are living it. I went on to have twins a couple of years later and I was worried that I would go through that experience again. Not a bit of it!! It was obviously hard work but I had a new normal life by then and two new babies didn't change that, they just slotted into the normal that the three of us had carved out.
But I do know that you need some support, it might only be for a little while. I was referred for some counselling, it took place in my home and was only for a few weeks but it really made a huge difference.
Anyway sorry for rambling and length but your post really struck a cord with me and I wanted you to know that you can do this. I really believe these feelings are not your forever feelings. X

You feel exactly as I did with DS and I was quite sure I didn't have PND. With hindsight I'm certain I did. I grew to love DS gradually, as you will with your baby and life will be good again. Take one day at a time.

I fell in love with my first. I had this white hot primitive need to keep him safe, but I dien't like him very much, and resented how much my life had changed. I fell in love with him gradually and even now, a little bit more each day.

Speak to your HV or GP. You are not abnormal and love will come with time.

And as for FB, best MN quote I've ever seen about it was "don't compare your behind the scenes with their edited highlights"

I was the same when I had my first, very detached and felt like a baby-sitter, not a mum.

I got progressively worse within myself over the months and ended up being very anxious about everything and very, very guilty that I was 'not normal'. I was eventually diagnosed (at about 4 months I think, I can't remember exactly) and was put straight on anti-d's and also saw the psychiatric nurse regularly to talk things through; after that it was only a matter of weeks until I started to feel better and the feeling for my son started to sort of blossom from there.

Nobody else knew I felt like this, they all thought I was the life and soul and breezing motherhood - it was very exhausting keeping the front up.

See the GP and say what you said in your OP, be honest and tell them everything - they won't judge, quite the opposite.

I was the same.
I think I did actually have PND but not as bad as some people get it, and it was only when I started to get better that I realised what it had been.

In a couple more months your child will become the most interesting person you have ever met. Promise.
It's ok to not like your baby all the time. It took me a long while to feel that rush of love that all the textbook mothers seem to.

I felt exactly the same way, if I'm honest it probably took me about 6 months to get to that stage, to feel love for this little thing. It's so tough. I have been on the lowest dose of anti-Ds since 6 weeks and it really helps me. PND can take so many forms. Mine is guilt mainly. We all have different ways of expressing it. See your HV and its ok.
When we love someone, we tend to get to know them first. That's impossible with a baby. I do wish people would shut up about this instant love. It doesn't happen to everyone and that's ok. Makes the rest of us beat ourselves up about it.
Also, it's fakebook really. One snapshot isn't real!!!

Even if you don't have depression and sadness you can get help with your problems bonding with the baby from your HV. So do talk to them and get advice.

You could have been describing me OP when I had PND with my first. It's over 40 years ago now but I still remember walking downstairs and seeing my 3 month old in her carrycot in the hall (where I had put her waiting to get into the car) and saying to myself "You look very sweet - I wish I could love you" with absolute detachment. I hated myself for it and no, I wasn't a bitch either and I also wanted my old life back.

PND was hardly recognised then so I did not get much helpful treatment but it did get better. Another thing I distinctly remember was the first time she said "No" to me (I was trying to stop her putting her finger in the electric socket . She stamped her little foot and I distinctly remember saying to myself "Hello, little person".

Some of us are just not very good with babies either. My DH was much better with babies than I was, though by the time I had my second I had got the hang of them!

Do talk to your doctor OP. There is so much more help - and less finger wagging now - over PND. PND does not necessarily express itself as classic depression, though it may.

I think that finding an 8 week old baby dull and in interesting is a fairly rational response. Honestly, little babies give little back in return for relentless drudgery. And without having had one before it can be hard to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel as the days and weeks can lack structure and feel like they are going on forever. Mourning the life you may feel you have lost is rational too. It is really hard to envisage what your life with a baby is like and may be getting harder to deal with as women have babies later and leave well set up lives for a period of potential isolation.

I ended up on anti-depressants after having my DD and I also had some specialist post-natal counselling which helped enormously.

What you are going through is not at all abnormal, you certainly aren't the first person to feel this way. Do see your GP/HV, as they can support you in lots of different ways.

I hated the hiding behind happy Facebook statuses that must be going on for a proportion of women. It is so unhelpful to collectively give the impression that everyone is falls instantly in love with their amazing baby. I concede that I never posted "wtf have I done, this is awful" on Facebook during those early months, and silence can't be interpreted easily. But when I speak to people now about having DD, I am fairly honest about how I found it while making it very clear that I now adore her as much as any parent could.

One of the great strengths of MN is that people can be honest about this sort of thing and you know you are not alone.

*uninteresting

I felt like you. I just found the baby stage incredibly boring and stifling. I disliked everything about it. But then I'm not a baby person. I have never been broody. Ever. I resented not being able to just go out, without taking half of my house with me.

My DS is nine now. I adore him. As he got older his personality came through and he's amazing. Kind and loving and funny and quite honestly the love of my life.

You might be depressed. Then again you might not. Definitely see your doctor to find out. But you might find that you're just not a small baby person, not everyone is. Someone told me when I was pregnant that babies don't do much when they're little and it can be quite tedious sometimes. It's ok to say that, it doesn't make you a bad person.

I had pnd. You have had some really good advice on this thread, please take note of it, and I hope you feel better soon.

tbh little babies dont do much and take up an awful lot of your time while you dont seem to get anything done, however I do think you have anxiety or something going on maybe chat to your health visitor, you are not the first woman to have feelings like that about your baby but i don't think they are rational thoughts, the thoughts you are having is how i felt at the start of PND speak to somebody

I had PND and much of what you say resonates with me. Please go and see your GP. I muddled on for 6 months, knowing from day 1 of having DD that things were not right. Please don't make the same mistake as me.

I remember pacing the hospital with her, trying to get her to stop crying, and thinking 'oh shit, what have we done, how can I go back to my old life, I have fucked up here'. And I felt that way most days for the first 6 months.

My Dr put me on ADs and I sought out counselling for myself. I felt like a version of myself again within a couple of weeks and felt like my old self again within a month. I laughed again. I fell head over heels with DD. Up until that point I thought I just was not cut out for motherhood. I then knew that was not the case, I just was not well.

Please go and get help. I LOVE being a mum now and think DD is the nest thing in the world ever!

I agree with many of the posters as above. Especially breathe slowly and the pp who said that Pnd is different to other depression.

I'm not sure I really know what Pnd is. But being at home alone with a new baby can be miserable. Sleep deprivation, mourning for old life, feeling totally constrained. Plus society Facebook says you need to feel blissed out. We call the crappy empty feeling this leaves some mothers with PND but is it a mental health problem?

Is it actually a normal adjustment reaction combined with the fact as a human race we were never designed to stay at home one mum and one baby. I know it's not this straightforward but there is much less Pnd in cultures where mum and baby live more communally (as the Brits did till 100 ish years ago).

I often think about this and am no further forward. But even if Pnd is a social construction talking, therapy, support and drugs may help.

You sound just like I did. I really didn't understand the people going on about fiercely loving their babies - I thought they must be making it up because I didn't feel like that at all!

I still wouldn't describe myself that way tbh, and they're 1.5 and 2.5 now. I have gradually got to like DS1 quite a lot and now I do love him, but it took a long time coming on. In fact it was massively helped by him starting to speak, because that's when I properly got a sense that there was somebody in there. He's brilliant now, so funny. And to think that I used to wish he were a cat or dog because they can feed themselves/clean their own arse/be rehomed without too much judgement

It does improve. Talking to someone about it honestly should help. Also, I found that I was immensely more fond of DS2 (born 13mo after DS1) simply because I knew, both emotionally and rationally, that he wouldn't be tiny and helpless forever. I'd known this rationally with DS1 but still didn't quite feel it. Some things have to be lived through in order to make sense to us.

Ok, honestly, I was posting stuff like this until around 16 weeks when I was actually getting smiles and happiness from dd. it took me ages to really deep down love her rather than the just protect her feeling I had. And even now it's not star bursts and rainbows, it's deeper, more rooted than that. It does improve. :) dd is now nine months and is fab. :)

I would also advise you to get your thyroid checked. Many case of PND are undiagnosed hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's (the latter being what I developed after DS1, when I felt like I'd been hit by a truck at nine months postpartum).

Hi OP. Yes, you sound exactly like I felt when I had my DD1. I felt detached and disinterested in her for ages - sadly compounded by the fact that she was moderately difficult in the first few months.

I wish I'd had treatment. By the time I saw my GP I was pretty much recovered, but the first 6 months of my eldest's life are now sad memories. Please, don't do that to yourself.

You may have PND, you may just be taking your time with bonding with your baby. With my first, I felt much like you, I cared for her, didn't want anything bad to happen to her, but did not feel overwhelming love and devotion and I also cried a lot for the life I'd lost. I don't think I had PND, having a baby is overwhelming and not everyone bonds straight away at all- I would say that bonding/devotion kicked in around 9/10 months for me with my first.

If you have read up on PND and do feel it fits how you feel, then please do tell your HV/doctor about it and consider medication/lifestyle treatments (exercise, healthy eating, meditation or relaxation). I did just want to point out though that not bonding immediately in that over gushy way is quite normal, and the good thing is that you do care for your little one and are meeting her needs along with your partner already- I just hope you feel better in yourself soon.

Yes, I have had four and only had the love at first sight thing with one of them, the third. With the others I reckon it took until they started to become a little person, maybe six months or so, before I felt anything much more than protective.
I don't know if it was mild PND or not. Maybe I'm just a bit of a cold fish.
Anyway, I adore the lot of them now. Number three isn't my favourite or anything.