Are mums more attached to their babies than dads?

[Animallover87]

Do mums love/get more attached to their babies than dads do?

The reason I ask is because my DH and I are expecting our first baby in August. A few weeks ago I posted asking if mumsnet thought it would be OK for me to leave baby with my mum for 2 nights and take DH to Paris for his 40th. The response was unanimously no. They said I wouldn't feel ready, it was too young etc, fair enough. Then there was the thread yesterday where the poster wanted to go on her hen do to a lodge 5 mins away from her house. Again, the response was largely - don't go, you won't feel ready.

Which got me wondering... my DH has to go back to work for long days 2 weeks after our baby is born. It may involve some overnight stays sometimes. No-one will bat an eyelid at this and obviously DH will miss us but it's not a big deal. My friends partner had to work away for 3 weeks at a time when their baby was born and again, that's just his job.

Why is it so much harder for mums to leave the babies? My baby won't be breastfed and when DH is here he will do more than his fair share. He is ecstatic about becoming a dad and I know he will love our baby more than anything.

But why am I told that I won't be ready and desperately won't want to leave them for a night or 2? Hope the question makes sense, I wonder what the difference seems to be between mums and dads and the attachment to their babies.

A woman’s body and brain undergo physiological changes after having a baby. Hormones are dking all kinds of things. A dad is physiologically the same pre and post baby. Why is that difficult or controversial?

I’m sorry but you are taking general statements regarding nature vs nurture and taking them way too personally. You might want to step away from the thread as it’s obviously upsetting you way more than it should.

The only thing I would say OP, if you want your baby to bond equally wih=th your DH is that your DH does as much as equal caring for them as possible. It is harder when they go back to work, but they have to compensate when home. My DH went back to work and I did almost all of the caring because I felt sorry for him having to work after sleepless nights etc. It was in retrospect a mistake as it did have a big impact on bonding. As a pp said, all he saw was a small noisy stranger. That was just my experience- DH is not a natural father I would say although he did come into his own eventually- but if I had that time again knowing what I know now we would have done things differently.

It's also biologically "normal" for this not to be the case too.

The majority yes, but not every Mother feels the same, BF or not.

Because some people are so hellbent on equality in all things that they have to pretend biology isn't real.

Thanks everyone for the responses. It's going to be such an overwhelming life change when baby arrives, I'm equally looking forward to it and terrified! I don't know if it's because I'm an older mum and I've had so much independence up till now I'm really aware of the magnitude of what is about to happen and afraid but also excited about the unknown!

I think it’s you Onnabugeisha that needs to step away from the thread

you are the one that seems very angry with the patriarchy and the role it has apparently had with forcing us to believe with have a bind with our babies that isn’t actually there 🙄

You won’t want to leave your baby at all for months. And then you will leave them and they’ll be fine and you’ll be over it.

I left my first baby for the first time at around 6mo to pick up my husband from the airport. It was around 90 miles (180 round trip) and we stopped for lunch on the way back so it was a full day of around 6 hours. As the miles fell away behind me, I kept thinking of how I hadn’t been this far from her since she was conceived. I can still remember now, a single tear rolling down my cheek as I sped along the M6 while I pictured her as a blastocyst. It’s utterly bizarre.

You may not believe this but, I am a very practically minded person. I’m not silly about my kids and I’m not a helicopter parent. Just prepare yourself to be obsessed with your baby.

Your husband will love baby as much as you and is just as capable, of course! But, he probably won’t experience the same churning feeling in his stomach the first time he leaves the baby.

However, like I say, you get over it.

My first baby now only leaves her room for food and 45 minute showers. I almost never think of her fondly as a blastocyst anymore.

*bond

A dad isn’t actually the same physiologically pre and post birth. They have hormone changes as well.

Plus none of this matters to baby. Baby bonds with whoever is caring for him/her. If it’s always mum, then that’s the only bond that will form. If it’s equally both mum and dad, then baby bonds with both equally.

This is all well studied. Going by your observations in a society where it is usually the mum due to gender roles and expectations doesn’t mean it is predetermined by biology or any other reason.

Plenty of couples the mum goes back to work early and the dad stays to be a SAHD.

I think my partner was just as attached as I was. He took 5 weeks off and then avoided any overnight stays for work where possible.

Obviously when they were newborn, they needed/wanted me more but my partner still wanted to be around as much as possible. Even as they got older, we haven’t been away from them very much at all in terms of overnight.

I know some people that left their babies overnight at only a few months old, neither of us could have done that. You just have to wait and see how you feel.

@ComeTheSpringLobelia Oh definitely I will make sure that he does and he also really wants to. I think formula feeding will hopefully make that easier too.

I would say wait and see how you are before you book if you can.
It's hard to predict how you will feel after the birth, how settled you will feel, how everything goes afterwards. It took me a long time to leave my first overnight. My experience is that motherhood profoundly changes some people when others take everything in their stride.
I'm all for life going on but still would advocate that each person should be prepared to find their new role challenging in unexpected ways.
You may get to April and want to go somewhere a bit nearer over night having established some nights away in an earlier pattern.

@Allshallbewell2021 I'm not going to book as I've taken people's advice on board. I'll wait and see 😀 this thread was more that I was curious about how it seems easier for men to leave their babies!

Definitely this. It's animal instinct and feels very strange. My DH is the best father but it doesn't physically affect him when the baby is screaming in the car in the same way, we co-sleep and it's me that has the natural curl round the baby etc. I don't think everything can be written off as the patriarchy- with very small babies they are on mission survival and mothers are on mission protection.

Once my older kids were 6months to a year, they were much more bonded to DH but it wasn't the same before.

How do you know OP won't want to leave her baby for months?🤔

Sorry but this is the old patriarchal trope of mothers place is with her baby recycled & rebranded for the modern age as a “fourth trimester”.

I disagree completely.
It's biological. In my case DD was EBF, so I didn't feel comfortable leaving her for more than a couple of hours.

It was also hard wired in me that I would wake up during the night when she started stirring and getting ready to yell for a feed, whereas DH would still be asleep.

This has absolutely nothing to do with feminism or anti feminism.

This is all so interesting, I'm such a logical person and can't imagine being taken over by hormones and instinct! I bet I'll have a right laugh at myself in a year when I think back to these posts🤣

This
My baby seems to have bonded similarly to both me and OH, who was very involved from day 1.

I can’t speak about parenthood without including the fact that I made that person inside of me, which makes me think what we feel can’t be the same (I’m still flabbergasted I get to make my own people) but they can bond and love deeply and just as much, and are equally capable of caring (BF aside) for their babies

I was an absolute animal, full of raw emotions for a few weeks!! Couldn’t stop crying with pure wonder and had a klaxon going on in my head KEEP ALIVE KEEP ALIVE AT ALL COSTS. By comparison I was very ambivalent throughout my pregnancy

I’m not angry in the slightest. After all I’m not the one swearing at posters making wild accusations.

There is no mystic mother baby bond. All bonds are created after birth…so yes they exist but only after you make them. Baby isn’t born bonded to you. Many parents with babies that spend months after birth in the NICU know this first hand. They have to go and visit and talk and touch their baby to develop the bond. Adopted babies have no bond with their birth mum, that’s why older adoptees miss the bond…

But old patriarchal beliefs die hard imho. We complain about the gender pay gap and then act like maternity leave of at least a year is inevitable. It’s not. It’s how society has set things up, based on the belief that a woman’s place is at home with the baby.

If you want to be home with baby, that’s ok. But it’s incorrect to tell women that it is biology and instinct and all this stuff that makes women think they are unnatural if that isn’t what they want to do. Then adding in the mum guilt by saying baby biologically is wired to need mum…that’s also not correct….baby doesn’t really care who is the primary caregiver so long as they have one.

I’m not angry, I’m pointing out that what you call biology and instinct and so on is really societal expectations and beliefs that prop up gender roles.

Have to be honest and say I thought DH and I would be equal. We very much weren’t. He’s a lot better now that DS is two, but he was no real help when he was a baby. Sometimes, what you think will happen and what does happen are very different.

There is a difference between what is observed on average and any 1 individual situation - all babies vary and are individuals - even at birth. Some babies don’t sleep well, others sleep right through (even siblings with the same parents and environment). There is also a difference between the age of the baby, breastfeeding vs bottle, and how long each caregiver spends with baby. Leaving baby with grandparent is different from leaving baby with other parent - though might be less different if the grandparent lives full time with the family.

right after birth I would guess most babies are likely to feel more bonded and familiar to mother - due to 9 months in womb and hormone changes at birth. After birth - over time baby will bond more with others dependent on who looks after them - and I’d expect the bond to grow stronger over time. See how you feel after baby comes.

I am also very rational and logical, and not a victim of my hormones @Animallover87, but having a baby does have a bigger impact than you can anticipate.

Usually when I read on MN that a poster says she is feeling "hormonal" I tend to sigh at the way women are stereotyping themselves, but yes, a baby does change things.

I am one of the least maternal people I know but once DD had arrived I became a fiercely protective tiger mum.