Do you think the pandemic has had a negative impact on babies and their parents ?

[babiesandmummies2020]

Do you think that babies born in 2020 and especially first time parents have had a harder time of it ?

How do you think what's happened will affect babies born in 2020, if at all ?

My observation is that babies don't seem to be clingier than previously, but the parents think they are. I've had several conversations with mums of babies where they have said their baby is so clingy because of covid however the baby is interacting with me exactly as I would expect and far less clingy than dd2 who would at best glare anyone into retreat at that age

However mums are finding it harder, I suspect not helped by worrying their baby will have problems related to lockdown. That's adding to all the normal worries that especially ftm have for their babies, and they haven't had the interactions that are really valuable-where you talk your worry through with the others and find rather than it being your baby, they all do it!

It must have been bloody hard for new mums dealing with antenatal care and birth largely on their own, and lack of HV/ family support afterwards.

Maternal mental health and SALT issues have increased.

New babies would have noticed little difference other than maternal stress, but toddlers do need more than their primary care giver to develop their social skills.it's easy to be patronising about baby groups but in the absence of every other social opportunity, it does matter.

Short term yes. My daughter had her first baby in 2020. She's a teacher and didn't work from March onwards. Antenatal care was minimal and since giving birth post natal care had been non existent. HV support was shocking. She suffers from anxiety and if it wasn't for her peri natal team and me I dread to think what could have happened. No clinics, no chance to meet other new mums ( which were a lifeline to me when I had mine) no baby groups, nowhere open. Just walk walk and walk again. My granddaughter is nervous of new people. Her bubble had been her mummy, daddy and me. She has just started going to Jo Jingles and is fascinated by other babies as she hasn't seen any! Daughter goes back to work soon and son in law, myself and childminder are sharing childcare. They are happy that she is going to childminder so she can socialise more. I think long term she will be fine, but my daughter has had a very warped and sometimes unhappy maternity leave which is such a shame. Mine was such a happy time.

I agree with the PP who said it's been worse on the babies' mums/parent. My 2nd was born a few weeks before the first lockdown and partner is a Key worker. They worked much longer hours than ' normal' times and lockdown was AWFUL. With the older one (4) and the baby at home, and practically zero support I lost my mind; it was an incredibly difficult time trying to keep it altogether and have it not affect the kids. Ugh.

I'm a FTM to a baby born via section in Feb 20. It was bloody hard going recovering on my own with a newborn. Partner wasn't furloughed & didn't WFH either so for 9+ hours every day it was just me & DD from March-June.

I never, ever want to repeat it. I coped badly. I was put back on Citalopram & Diazapam as my MH took a huge hit. My relationship suffered tremendously & I found myself crying all the time, usually in front of my baby.

The whole thing ruined what was supposed to be an exciting time in my life. I was/still am resentful & my HV has said that I am likely to need more counselling when the pandemic eases as I am very much still living this & I haven't come to terms with it. They told me that many of their families are struggling, babies under socialised & they feel that in a few years, many women who had babies during this time may have some form of PTSD.

I know I had never felt fear as intense as I did as a new mum in March last year. I was convinced that I was going to die & not see my DD grow up. I begged my OH to quit his job & looking back, it all seems so crazy!

Thankfully DD is doing fine. She goes to nursery & spends time with people other than myself which she needs. She has been late hitting all of her milestones though & I do sometimes wonder if that is down to lockdowns.

baggies ds (5 months) is LOVING seeing other babies!

@InpatientGardener

DD 9 months isn't overly clingy, she warms up to people after ten mins or so. We saw my mum throughout in our bubble and always went out for walks with a friend when allowed. I wouldn't have wanted to go to groups and stuff anyway. I think one thing that I've found hard is not having any outlets to have a break from baby, so no evenings round at mates houses, cinema, and so on, nothing to look forward to. We haven't gone anywhere without DD at all yet because there hasn't been anything worth doing.

Not going out is pretty normal though. We don't have any childcare unless it's paid during the day so we haven't been out alone for six years as whenever a do have childcare we are working.

I think a lot of these answers take the impact very much at face value. I don’t mean that rudely, either. But here are some things that may have happened because of the pandemic.

I think fathers have been very much sidelined with not being allowed to attend scans and only permitted in when in active labour and not permitted to visit much.

I think medicalised births and complications arising from birth (mental and physical) will have increased. Doulas not allowed in, partners only in active labour.

I think breastfeeding rates may have gone down as no support.

These are just some. I know having my baby and then lockdown was not easy.

@tentosix

It's been shit for everyone at every level. Babies and parents are not a special case.

Yes, we’ve been frequently reminded of this.

Why is everyone else permitted to talk about their experience but not mothers of small babies?

@tentosix

It's been shit for everyone at every level. Babies and parents are not a special case.

We aren't saying otherwise are we ? Why can we not discuss this without you literally trolling us ? That's all you are doing.

YES of course it has. How could it not?

@Everdreamer1990

I'm a FTM to a baby born via section in Feb 20. It was bloody hard going recovering on my own with a newborn. Partner wasn't furloughed & didn't WFH either so for 9+ hours every day it was just me & DD from March-June.

I never, ever want to repeat it. I coped badly. I was put back on Citalopram & Diazapam as my MH took a huge hit. My relationship suffered tremendously & I found myself crying all the time, usually in front of my baby.

The whole thing ruined what was supposed to be an exciting time in my life. I was/still am resentful & my HV has said that I am likely to need more counselling when the pandemic eases as I am very much still living this & I haven't come to terms with it. They told me that many of their families are struggling, babies under socialised & they feel that in a few years, many women who had babies during this time may have some form of PTSD.

I know I had never felt fear as intense as I did as a new mum in March last year. I was convinced that I was going to die & not see my DD grow up. I begged my OH to quit his job & looking back, it all seems so crazy!

Thankfully DD is doing fine. She goes to nursery & spends time with people other than myself which she needs. She has been late hitting all of her milestones though & I do sometimes wonder if that is down to lockdowns.

I'm so sorry you went through this.

Plenty of parents never bothered with baby groups and baby classes! It makes 0 difference on the baby.

Babies don't need or care about "socialising". Normal parents still take them out, and there's plenty of stimulation for a child.

Same for toddlers. It might have made a difference for some, but not for most of them.

It's just harder on the parents who had to have sole charge instead of being able to leave them and have some peace - when the gyms are closed so you can't exercise while leaving your child in the creche, it sucks.

Let's be honest, many parents just "bubbled up" and didn't really have a strict lockdown. There was a thread on here where a poster was proudly explaining that a group of 6 (or 7?) of them created a "bubble" during the lockdown.

Some people always assume that all new mothers have a strong family support group and plenty of help. It's simply not true. You never hear about the so-called negative impact on their babies do you.

There was the study that showed that language delays in toddlers had increased. This was believed to be because if you’re doing less there is less incidental language being used, from things like ‘put your coat on’ to ‘look at that cow’. There are fewer reasons to communicate in lockdown.

I expect this will have impacted on babies too as language learning starts before the child can actually speak.

@Angelica789

There was the study that showed that language delays in toddlers had increased. This was believed to be because if you’re doing less there is less incidental language being used, from things like ‘put your coat on’ to ‘look at that cow’. There are fewer reasons to communicate in lockdown.

I expect this will have impacted on babies too as language learning starts before the child can actually speak.

This makes sense. Look at the fridge ! Look at the tree ! Look at the table and chairs in the same room we spend all our time in... not much variety. My DD has literally pretty much spent most of her life in one room.

I think it’s the parents,particularly single parents who have had it worse. Not being able to socialise and see their friends has been hard and it has made it difficult for the parent to share any first experiences and for their friends and family to bond with their baby/ toddlers.

My DD has literally pretty much spent most of her life in one room.

why?!?

Sometimes it honestly looks like people had a completely different lockdown. Are you in the UK?!

@Angelica789..agree about language development! There is only so much vocabulary that a baby will come across in the company of only one or two adults particularly if an only child .

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I imagine babies born in 2020 will be exactly like babies that arrived in generations before them. Music with mummy and Yoga Tots and extended maternity leaves are a relatively new thing. Babies just need their mums essentially so I doubt they will have psychological damage from spending the majority of the year with their parents (obviously the exception being those who have fallen under the radar for abuse from parents)

This. Babies have been born in adversity for millennia without suffering psychological damage.

It depends on the parents and their circumstances. My daughter has a 6 month old and he's not been affected at all. But she's not really been affected. She was in a bubble with us, we've had a great social time together as a family and she's a relaxed mum who's gone out and about as allowed by the Covid regs. On the other hand I know a child of 4 who has been isolated for over a year by his parents and still not allowed to socialise in the park or go to playgroup etc.

I think some babies will have been more negatively affected than others and I suspect it will have been especially hard for first time parents. I have a lockdown baby (born Jan 2020). I had a rough pregnancy and felt very fragile emotionally and we were just starting to venture out a bit more when Covid hit. I’d been really looking forward to maternity leave and getting to know other people in our area (we didn’t live here when DC1 was born) and doing all the groups again.

But I’m lucky because he’s my second and so I had had a “normal” maternity leave. And we did get to do some groups and things, some of the time.

I don’t think he has been badly affected - because he has an older brother so we were naturally out and about every day to keep DC1 active, then doing school runs and so on. So he was used to having encounters with people and ironically he settled much more quickly with our CM than DC1 did at the same age.

The main thing that makes me sad is that his grandparents, who aren’t local to us, missed out on that whole first year. That’s not something we’ll ever get back, although we’re lucky that we’re able to help them get to know each other now.

See patty there’s that dismissive attitude.

Some people might as well say who cares, they won’t remember.

Why is everyone else permitted to talk about their experience but not mothers of small babies?

I’ve noticed this too - for a site called MUMSnet it can be weirdly anti-mums of small babies I’ve found, and pretty much every thread that tries to talk about the impact of lockdown on pregnant women/new mums/ babies gets at least a few posters determined to insist that it’s no harder than it was for anyone else and probably better. It’s really weird.

I don’t know if it’s had a huge impact on DD - she’s super clingy at the moment but I’ve no others to compare it to so it could just be normal levels of separation anxiety.

Impact on me - zero support when I wasn’t able to breastfeed so DD ended up formula fed which I really really struggled with and hugely contributed to pnd.

DH getting sent home when I was actually in active labour but they were too busy/short staffed to check me so I laboured alone for hours before a lovely student midwife took pity on me and made a fuss on my behalf.

No visitors apart from DH in set hours for a week whilst I was in hospital - I was ok with this though as ward was crazy busy so I was glad I didn’t have to deal with other people’s visitors too.

No visitors once home from hospital. Did have midwife visits and HV in person though so I was really lucky there.

DH working from home but his hours, workload and stress levels massively increased due to the pandemic - probably saw less of him that we would have done prior. Really really hard watching him basically going under with stress but not having the energy to support him due to new baby. It was awful for a while but we’re doing much better now.

10 months on I still find it quite hard to get out and about with DD - I feel like I’ve not had much practice, and it still makes me really anxious. I still can’t quite get my head round things like going to the supermarket with her. We’re very good at going for walks though

know a child of 4 who has been isolated for over a year by his parents and still not allowed to socialise in the park or go to playgroup etc

that is so sad... Imagine the shock of starting school for the poor little mite!