Ideas to bond with baby/bump

[Madaleinerw]

Hi all

I am currently 4 months pregnant with my second. The pregnancy wasn't planned, i wasn't 100% sure I even wanted another baby, let alone so quickly after having my first. My LG has just turned 1 and will be 18 months when this one arrives.
I am really struggling to be happy that I'm pregnant, having another etc but I'm just not. I thought I'd have accepted it by now but if anything, I'm more resentful and angry that I allowed myself to fall pregnant. I feel so much guilt for my daughter that this pregnancy has taken me away from her and that when the baby comes, she'll feel even more pushed out.

My partner is worried that I'm not bonding with this pregnancy because I am to angry and he's concerned that it'll be the same when baby is here. Does anyone have any advice?

Thank you so much xx

my advice would be to explore ways to allow yourself to accept and process those feelings, and contact the perinatal mental health team to talk through how you are feeling.

I'm not sure about the bonding as I was pretty freaked out through most of my pregnancy and wouldn't say I bonded with the bump or anything, sorry I can't be more helpful there. Once she was born all of those feelings fell away. I suspect the pregnancy hormones were messing with me.

Thank you @Cindersrellie My midwife has referred me to the perinatal mental health team and waiting for contact. I'm hoping that when baby arrives, it will all feel as if it were meant to be.

I didn't bond with my LG whilst pregnant with her either but I put that down to not knowing the gender. She was planned and the pregnancy was so wanted and such a blessing so a completely different experience this time! X

No ideas on bonding I’m afraid but my brother is 18 months younger than me and this has always been a positive. I have no memory of life before him and rather than resenting him when he arrived, I immediately adopted him as my baby. He was a screamer and I used to rock his pram for hours. When he went for his vaccinations I was left with my grandmother and was a complete pain so when mum got back my grandmother suggested that she go in and see me on her own. I ran straight past her asking “where my baby” was. I am aware I may be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to older siblings but I have always loved how close we are in age. We’ve always been close and now as adults we still are and share many of our friends. This may not help with right now but could well be one way that it all turns out for the best down the line. Thinking of you.

I haven't got any advice about bonding with the baby but I worried about taking time away from my eldest when I was pregnant with my second child (there is 17 months between them) but I just tried to focus on the fact that they won't remember what happened when they were so little. My brother and I have the same age gap and we're now nearly 40 and still best friends and share a lot of the same friends. My kids are now two and four and despite there being some jealousy when baby was born they are best friends and (mostly!) play together nicely all day long.