Bonding with second baby

[Lndnmummy]

Posting for traffic. Please help! My du and I waited 6 years to have another child as the newborn stage and birth were so hard first time around. My ds is here now he is 6 weeks and again we are going through reflux hell and I suspect I have pnd again too.
Will I bond with my baby? Please tell me I will? I care for him, don’t want him any harm. Keep holding him and kissing him and nursing him as if I love him. But I don’t. I feel numb. I remember that it took a while for me to love my eldest as well it came around 10 weeks but somehow I doubt that I can’t love this new baby as much as I love my oldest. I love my oldest so intensely and I look at the baby and feel really empty.
Has anyone else felt like this? I confided in my Hv who kept smiling and saying of course you love him, look at you. You have an amazing bond with him. You are wonderful with him look at you. And I felt like I have tricked her somehow (I didn’t I was very open about my fears).

Can anyone help?

You sound like the textbook on PND, you poor thing. Lots of good advice here, but if it helps at all, your posts already read as if you love him to bits. You’re just not perhaps able to feel it yourself because of hormones and everything else

At some point, a whole other vat of love will open up for child #2.
Like you eat to the point of fullness but you have a separate stomach for pudding? (I know you don't really) - you will find that extra 'space' = love capacity, it does not take anything away from what you have for child#1.
Hope that bonkersness makes sense!
You are behaving 'as if' you have the love. That is good. It will turn up at some point and baby is being looked after well anyway.
Take the meds, you will all get through this hard newborn stage at some point. One day at a time.

I will take the sertraline, tmrw. Thanks everyone. Real life support is limited but I have been ref for cbt. My family is overseas and useless and my husband isn’t great with this sort of thing. I feel ashamed to talk to friends in real life hence reaching out on here.

You sound very like me with DD, who I really didn't like at all for several months. So I just went through the motions of looking after her, whilst googling 'putting baby up for adoption'! I didn't. She's now a very lovely 2.5 year old.

I had sertraline too for PND and it really helped (although it was 2-3 weeks before it did anything and the side effects were rough to start with). Your HV sounds about as useful as mine (I told mine I'd been diagnosed with PND and she said they didn't have the resources to offer any support!). Take the drugs and the CBT if you're offered it as they'll help.

We also had no family support to help us and it was absolutely awful when DH went back to work. I regret now not seeking help from Home Start but I didn't know about them then - worth contacting?

The bond will come. Did you feel like this with your first? With my son I felt incredibly disconnected for at least the first 8-10 weeks or so. I was outwardly doing all the things I should but felt quite numb after a horrible birth. He’s 14 months now and we are incredibly well bonded, he’s my world. I’m now expecting my second and am preparing myself to feel this way again and to know it’s ok to not instantly fall in love with them. Fake it till you make it and it will come.

Oh my goodness I too have been googling adoption. I did feel like this with my first as well but we are so close now the love is so intense. I miss him and feel so sad that this summer his mum is just not there for him the way he is used to. He said “mummy it feels like the whole world has changed”. And it broke my heart. Rather than add something to his life I feel like I have ripped apart the only world he has ever known.

I’m so grateful for your comments. I’m clinging onto them. Please keep them coming. I’m so grateful.
I was on sertraline With my first so I don’t know why I’m hesitating this time around.

You will bond, It will come it is always easy. It's still early days. My 2nd DS had reflux, then colic he wanted to be held constantly, he was nearly 1 year old when I fell in love with him, I still feel guilty but he is a very demanding child still at nearly 4 so I give myself a break.

NOT always easy.

Op I had/have so much guilt. My 3yo has to become so independent when her twin sisters arrived. They were prem, one had life saving care so I was in scbu with the initially and dd1 tried to drag me home as she sobbed. My heart broke for her.

She's now 10 and twins are almost 7. I'm laying on my bed listening to the three of them playing, loving each other's company. Yes her world was torn apart but dd1 has these 2 little girls who adore her. It does get better. Soooo much better. Be kind to yourself xxx

Oh lovely. You poor thing. I had PND with my first and all the things you're thinking, I thought too. I googled adoption, I considered running away, I went to bed every night and hoped that one of us died in our sleep. It was awful. But fluoxetine saved my life and things are really different now.

Through the whole thing I was convinced I would be the one person who didn't get over PND and didn't love my child, no matter what everyone promised me about how I would feel better and feel that bond. But I did and you will too, I promise.

Your son is too little to appreciate having a brother just yet (and newborns aren't much fun!) but he will, in time, and that blessing will by far outweigh the temporary discomfort he's experiencing from losing your full and undivided attention.

Take your sertraline, remind yourself that you got through this once before and you will again, and take things an hour at a time. You've got this, I promise.

Other practical advice: ask your HV or GP to refer you to HomeStart - they're a wonderful organisation and they will help. Get your DH to take your DS2 for a couple of hours at the weekend so you can have special time with DS1. Focus on DS2 when DS1 is at school but allow him to just fit into your routine with DS1 when he's at home as much as possible - this will get easier as he gets a bit bigger. Let DS1 "help" you with DS2 as much as possible - praise him for being such a wonderful big brother etc etc. Find something special you can do with DS2 that's just yours and just for fun - I did massage with DD and it was a really good bonding exercise. And ask for help. Ask everyone you know. If you were one of my friends I would be there in an instant. You'll be surprised at how many of your friends will have experienced what you're going through and want to help.

PM me any time, lovely.

I had my second child early this year, first one (age 4) did not react well despite us trying to prepare her for it. Started acting out and telling lies about serious stuff. She too felt like I had ruined her life which I can understand), for four years it was me and her (and her dad) she had all
The time and attention she wanted and then just like that mummy had to look after the baby. Mummy was too busy. Mummy was too ill (post natal recovery was awful).
She starting to come round now but it’s been a hard six months

To those of you on sertraline did you take it in the morning or at night? Did it lead to weight gain? And did it help with anxiety?

I regretted having my second son bitterly at times for the first 8 weeks of his life. I cared for him, kissed him, told him I loved him. But I resented him, his colic, the fact he screamed all the time.

He’s two now and I adore him. Exactly the same as his equally as perfect and beautiful night brother.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. Keep kissing him, cuddling him, smelling him. You’ll get there. Not everyone is instantly in love - I wasn’t with either of mine and I honestly am so in love with them now it consumes me xx

I had a tough time bonding with my second child at first too. Like you I cared for him and cuddled him but it felt like the whole dynamic had changed with my first. As a baby and toddler I never had the same fierce bond I had with my first child. (Which, thinking about it, started from a few weeks, but not immediately).

She was also pretty devastated when he was born, and before he was 1 my marriage collapsed too. Then he started having phenomenal tantrums at about 18 months and I remember thinking my life would have been easier with 1 . It was a tough time.

Now it's a few years later and I love them both differently but both equally fiercely. So my experience is that even if the bond isn't there in the beginning, once your life settles down it can come and be just as incredible.

I'm a few weeks ahead of you OP and can relate to a lot of what you say. Especially the bit about ruining everyone's lives, and then being better off without me. In my saner moments I know that's the PND talking, but it's all encompassing at times.

Take the Sertraline. Also there's an amazing documentary on Netflix called "When the bough breaks" where women discuss their experiences of PND. It's very powerful and insightful. There's a Facebook page of the same name that has lots of stories on it, I find it helpful in understanding that I'm not alone.

You're not alone, you're doing a great job, and it will get better

This was me 8 months ago..... my eldest had reflux and cmpa so bad and screamed all day every day, I didn't have another child for 4 years I was absolutely terrified of going back to those dark days, end of last year I had my second baby and felt on edge every day waiting for the screaming to start, the midwife knew, was sympathetic and kept me upbeat, luckily for me the screaming never started but like eldest, baby does have reflux and cmpa but totally different symptoms (eczema and sick but more happy spitter than acid burn with my eldest) have you been given any meds for the reflux? We tried ranitidine first for eldest which didn't work then omeprazole was an absolute lifesaver along with neocate and a thickener in the milk to stop it coming back up.
I had similar thoughts when baby was newborn I cried because I missed spending time with my eldest I felt I didn't have a minute spare I watched my eldest sit watching me and my heart broke, but now, after about 6 months it all changed, baby has took such an interest in eldest and will happily laugh at everything eldest does. They absolutely love each other and now I don't regret a thing, i promise u will bond, I promise the screaming will stop, and your boys will have each other. I remember how bloody hard the screaming days were, I remember sitting at my mums begging her to make eldest stop crying, and when second came along, begging my mum to tell me I'd done the right thing having a second child, but I absolutely have. Be kind to yourself it's such early days xxx

Sorry just read your posts again and see you already on omeprazole have they given u a thickener like carobel for his neocate milk? Neocate is so so watery compared to normal formula it's much easier to come back up, thickener stopped all this and results in less acid burn too. U can buy it in chemist if they won't prescribe it, few pounds for a box x

Thank you so much all of you. This is my life line. Would carobel do the same as gaviscone? He is on gaviscone with every bottle. Should I have carobel instead of or as well? He has silent reflux same as his brother so throwing up isn’t an issue but pain and screaming is

0-10 weeks old are simply THE HARDEST. You’re in the thick of it right now. In survival mode. Who even has TIME for love in that context?! :-) ... except that you DO already love your son. Maybe you don’t feel the endorphin rush of it, but who cares? The fact that you’ve posted this, the fact that you’re concerned about how he’ll grow up and how you’ll bond... that is an act of love, whether you feel it (yet) or not. You’ve got this.

Gaviscon was given to us firstly but it just made my eldest constipated, have you found that at all? I'm on a cmpa Facebook group and everyone seems to say the same, people find a thickener much better than gaviscon, I wouldn't add gaviscon and carobel unless a doctor advised it to be honest, who gave you the omeprazole? A doctor or paediatrician? Don't be scared to go back and get the dose raised If after a few weeks you see no change. we started on 5mg a day, then It was increased two times until we saw a happy baby!

I initially took the sertraline in the evening but was having really bad side effects (it made me throw up and I was so anxious I wasn't sleeping at all even when DD was asleep!). I'd previously taken fluoxetine for depression and knew that worked for me but was told I couldn't have that if I was BFing.

It was frightening starting to take the sertraline as I knew it may not work and it would be several weeks of feeling awful before I'd know whether it had or not. A friend who was a nurse suggested dividing the dose (I was taking one sertraline tablet a day) so I chopped each one in half and had half in morning and half at night - side effects promptly vanished which improved things! GP later congratulated me on doing that although probably best not to start dividing doses without medical advice...

I also introduced some structure into my week to get me out of house once DH was back at work - this really helped me as staying at home made me feel really low. I found an amazing toddler group in a local church hall where various other women had had similar experiences and they were all so lovely and friendly and helpful, it made such a difference. That was on a Wednesday and I always viewed it as 'I've survived another half week of being a mum' and I'd only got another two days to go then before DH would be at home over the weekend.

The sertraline didn't lead to weight gain for me, but I'd lost a lot of weight when pregnant (gestational diabetes) and struggled to maintain weight at all because depression makes me lose my appetite.

It did eventually help with my anxiety but the side effects initially made me more anxious.

Totally normal! Although many will tell you otherwise. I have spoken to so many mums who felt like this and I did too with my second.

You’ve had years to bond with your first, build a relationship, get past the tough bits. How can you suddenly love a child you don’t know exactly the same? It happens for some but not everyone.

The simple act of caring for your newborn builds bonds. It’s shitty to begin with. They don’t smile, laugh, act like they know you or care. But eventually they do, their little personality emerges, you start getting more sleep, they smile, you chat to each other and before you know it.....

You’re doing great mumma just hang in there.

The older one’s life may have been torn apart. But when it gets put back together, it will be better because he will have a brother to love and to play with him

The paediatrician gave us gaviscone and omeprazole. Started on 5mg but I have upped to 10 straight away but no improvement. Scared to up dose again before seeing paediatrician as baby is still so young. Seeing him tuesday. It has made no difference really yet though and with my older son it made a difference pretty much straight away.

Yes def an issue with constipation but for the last week he has had very lose explosive stools. GP thought it was a virus and said it should clear in 72 hours. It hasn’t.

Will speak to them on Tuesday.