To find these comments from new mum friend intensely irritating

[HopalongHorace]

A friend has recently had a baby and I’m getting “first person in the world to ever have a baby” vibes and starting to find it irritating. For context I have a 8 month old and a few other girls in our friendship group also have had babies in the past year or so. Naturally everyone was thrilled when friend got pregnant as it’s something she’s wanted for a while, but was waiting to meet the right partner (which she now has).

I’ll give some examples of comments she has made -

Is it normal to not let the baby out of your sight and just want to look at them all the time, I don’t know how other mums get anything done as I just can’t stop staring at Kevin (not his real name)

I know everyone says it’s amazing when you have a baby but for me it’s just something more, this incredible bond like nothing else, a very unique thing between me and Kevin

Gosh I don’t know how you can bear to leave your baby (I recently left mine with my sister for 4 hours for the first time), I don’t think I could leave Kevin as our bond is too strong and he needs me

Maybe I’m being sensitive but it feels like she thinks she loves Kevin more than the rest of us love our kids (which I don’t think is true), has anyone else experienced this or AIBU?

She’s saying how she is, not how you are not.

But nobody wants to hear it. It's pretty uninteresting.

Personally I don't see she's implying anything, or a "subtext", which someone else has dramatised this into 🙄.
All she's expressed is that she's thrilled, but because she expresses it more than you express stuff about yours, she's a threat?
This sounds like hard work for you, maybe you are imposing your own fears on this. It is possible to have the mind set that anyone who talks about what they have and love is putting you down for not having the same. Maybe you have this level of intolerance about people who talk about themselves.
Although of course you are free to like and dislike who you choose.

This reminds me of an old saying. There's only one perfect baby and every mothers got it! She sounds a bit OTT but it will wear off.

I have never yet met a person who hasn't occasionally said something that is 'uninteresting'. Every one of my friends, every colleague, everyone I have known at all.

Seriously, don't worry about it.

I can guarantee that not a single person has given any thought whatsoever to how much you love your baby!

Mine are both adults now, so these days are far behind me, but I remember just the feelings of conplete awe that I had made this human inside my body and look at everything they could do! When, in reality, they were doing exactly what every other baby does and has ever done. I was also a bit amazed by how much I loved them. But I didn't go on about it

I have a fb friend, an old colleague, who had her first 2 years ago. She bombards the Internet with daily updates and photos of just how amazing her daughter is.

I can see how, if mine were a similar age, I'd would definitely have found it irksome because she definitely talks about her daughter like she's the first baby/toddler tp have ever walked the earth and she's the first women to have truly loved her child, but a quarter of a century on from having my first, I actually just think it's lovely and a reminder of the sheer wonder of that time.

My second was my (ex) husband's first. She was born early and in SCBU for a couple of weeks when her feeding, weight and poo was carefully monitored. My husband would phone me every day for the update from work. He laughed once and said he had no idea he'd ever feel this invested in someone else's bowel movements. But that's just it isn't it? Everyone's baby is a miracle to then.

Be silently irritated by it.
Silently smile to yourself when she starts complaining.
But it's not important.

My answer would probably be 'yes I think we all felt like that in the early days. As they get older it's actually quite nice to leave them for a few hours and then come back and give them a big cuddle! Probably just as well or they'd have 30 mums sitting there in Reception!'

This sounds to me like insecurity.

You sound a bit defensive. You’re allowed to not be brimming with the joys of motherhood, you know.

IBlimey, so talking about what you love is now deemed uninteresting?
Well I'm suddenly worried about attending social gatherings and would love some hints about stuff to discuss which won't bore. Stamp collecting? Choosing paint? Describing the floor? The shipping news?

It reminds me of the episode in Motherland when Amanda says to Julia, that she doesn't understand how Julia can work full time, as there's no way she could do it because she just loves her kids "too much"!

I do remember wondering if anyone else could love their baby, or find their baby as fascinating as I found my PFB, though I never said it out loud.

Oh I absolutely am brimming with the joys of motherhood, to be honest I’ve found the vast majority of it utterly wonderful with just a few harder bits. Perhaps that’s why I’m extra conscious not to go on about it myself as I don’t want to make people who are having a harder time than me feel bad.

I don't think I said she couldn't.

Of course its irritating but it won't be forever either.

I'd have found it irritating too. But the OP's posts suggest this is more than just her being irritated by it.

But she doesn’t have to hang around with her. She says she’s a ‘new friend’, she can’t just throw her back, as either any acquaintance we are irritated by.

Thanks, yes my other friends don’t do this it’s more “isn’t it lovely the first smile, so heartwarming”, whereas with this particular friend feels as if it’s trying to be superior and competitive.

I get why it’s annoying OP. When my little one was a week or two old and breastfeeding what felt like 20 hours a day I joking messaged my friend about running out of box sets and she replied “oh, I don’t think I ever watched TV with mine, I was too busy staring at her beautiful face in wonder.” She probably didn’t mean anything by it but I really felt upset at the time, that she was saying I wasn’t loving or appreciating my baby properly by watching Line of Duty over his shoulder with the subtitles on 😂

Your friend sounds similarly oblivious, I’d just avoid telling her much about your life during this time when she is a bit mad.

She’s got a serious case of PFB syndrome. Just remind her of it later, so you can all have a laugh about it TOGETHER. Tbf, most of us felt that way about our newborn, we just didn’t voice it as much. Use humour to deflect - “can’t imagine ever leaving Kevin, I love him too much”…..”Thank fuck for that, you won’t be asking me to babysit” kind of thing.

Yeah she's being annoying but she's just articulating the strength of the effect that all those lovely oxytocin molecules are having on her brain. Of course the unique bond between her and her baby is the strongest bond of love that has ever existed in the universe (so is yours, so is everyone elses). Also, when her baby goes on sleep-strike and won't be put down for more than 20 minutes over a period of months,she will discover a new level of tiredness that no one has ever experienced before. But you can bet anything that if she was actually destitute without access to food and shelter for her and her baby unless she works, that bond of love would 100% drive her to finding a way to leave the baby with someone trustworthy so she could go out and work. It's great that she doesn't have to.

She's irritatingly un self-aware but I would forgive her naivete and either change the subject or make a joke of it if a bit of gentle ribbing about being the most loving mum the universe has ever created isn't something that might misfire.

Because that's what OP is annoyed by, and she doesn't sound defensive or any of the other snarky attempts to undermine her - she just sounds a bit irritated by an irritating woman who thinks and has hinted broadly that she loves her baby more than the other mums

Does it matter though?

Yes, it's irritating but it has no actual impact on anyone else.

Nature makes mums this way so that we protect our babies.
In this case seems like nature went on a splurge. 😂