why's it so hard when I have it supposedly so easy

[cardygirl]

I'm new to Mums net but needed to talk without feeling judged by folk who know me.

I seem to be finding being a mum a lot harder than all the other new mum's I mix with. Yet they are all supposely envious of my situation.

I have 6 month son, my husband is home a lot of the time and like sto help. My lovely mum is local and takes son every saturday night till sunday morning. I have good local friends, get out a lot to baby cubs and have met nice people.... so why do I feel so crap most of the time? I don't seem to have the symptoms of PND the books say but I can't openly say I'm thrilled at beng a Mother. While I get a lot of 'breaks' from him, my heart always sinks when I have to look after him again.

Am I the worst mother in the world? I was so looking forward to this time but no I just don't think I'm cut out for it, but I still want him to love me as his favourite carer and run to me with cut knees, etc

I'd like to talk to my HV but so far I've not got on with her. She's very icey and mainly quotes the Birth to Five book at me.
Don't get me wrong, I love my DS loads, just not looking after him. :-/

How bad am I? Do all mother's have these thoughts often?

hark. he wakes

have to dash now but please look after yourself and dont feel judged...
maybe you will 'grow into' enjoying him more ..everyone is different. sorry i am not much help but mumsnets the right place to come someone will be able to help ! good luck

Hi,
you've tried it for 6 months and the lifestyle doesn't make you happy. That doesn't mean you're a bad mother or weird or that you don't love your son.

I have two friends who felt pretty much like you do but they enjoy spending time with their kids more now that they are older and can have a conversation, laugh and joke together.

Maybe you'd be happier if you could find a good carer for ds and were back doing what did you before?

It's very easy to feel under pressure to do all the right things, play enough and in the right way, entertain enough, wean in the right way, etc. etc. Might this be at least part of it? I find that, while I love ds (he's 1 year old now) passionately and adore being with him, the (inner) pressure to do things 'right' can sometimes make it all seem like a chore. I also have dh around him a lot (I work, largely from home, and dh is studying) and I do sometimes envy his lovely, easy way of interacting with him - he's always the first to make him laugh, for example. Can you recognise any of this in your situation? Then there's the sheer 'shell shock' of becoming a mother - not everyone adapts easily. Also, it's hard in the daily grind to feel that gorgeous privileged glow we're told we will/should feel.
It might be the case that all the other mothers only seem to be coping better than you - believe me, doubts and anxieties about one's mothering are not what one wants to talk about to other new mothers.
Final point - This isn't true for me but I do know there are also some mothers who just aren't that keen on the baby stage. It doesn't mean you don't love your ds or are 'unnatural'.
HTH :)

I recognise a lot of what you say, and my oldest SIL has a saying "if only they could be delivered to you aged 1" as my ds is just under one - a few weeks younger than baby FIT, and congrats to him! - I can't really expand on this theory!

I do find taking care of ds very tiring - and also quite frankly very boring! But I love him with all my heart. I also feel very resentful towards my friends who have had babies in the last six months or so and have apparently taken effortlessly to parenthood - if I had not had Mumsnet for a reality check I would honestly feel like the worst parent alive. As it is I know I am doing a pretty okay job. Hopefully being here will have the same effect on you - I long to know how it is my friends can apparently do it all better than me, but suspect it just that they are better at faking! (Plus have babies who sleep more).

Thanks everyone for you words,

Yes, I definately put a lot of pressure on myself to do the right thing in all ways. I always like to follow instructions to the letter so do find I'm lost without a baby manual. I've been looking into PND symptoms a bit more since talking to you guys and DH, I've decided to ring my HV tomorrow, face her frostiness, and see what she thinks about the permanent guilt I have and fear DS rejects me. Perhaps it is just a symptom.

I've given DH the health visitor's number to make sure the chat does happen, in case I talk myself out of calling.

Sal

cardygirl, I felt like this too. I know you have to live through now, but believe me - it really does get better. For me a big change came when ds1 learnt to crawl. Suddenly he was able to entertain himself a lot more, and we managed to live together and I started to like him - as well as love him! With ds2 I dashed back to work at 3 months because I didn't want to feel the same again (and by that time I'd also been diagnosed with depression - at last!). I was finally happy - so happy in fact that I have now decided to stop work for a while to be a stay at home mum. If I had my time again I would rush back to work when both were tiny babies, and then have my maternity leave when they are bigger!

In answer to your last question, I can't speak for all mothers, but I certainly had those thoughts. It was DP who started using the phrase "I love him but I can't say I like him" and I think he's right.

Loads of sympathy, cardygirl. I was always wondering why the other mums from my group seemed to have it easier, but some were trying to make out it was all perfect because they wanted to live up to expectations (usually their own or their mum's, or Gina Ford's). Others just had easy babies. A couple of these 'perfect mothers' had a shock when number 2 came along and was difficult (or: 'normal' ). It sounds as if you have lots of support from your mum and DH, so that's great. I found HVs useless, on the whole, and avoided them unless I needed a weigh-in.

Toadstool, I harbour vengeful thoughts about my friends who have had it easy, just waiting for number 2 to come along and rock their world, heh heh heh.

I talked to my lovely GP rather than the HV. The GP said most new Mums are like swans - cool and serene on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. I wonder if you have PND - you sound a lot like me before my DH took my hand and led me to the GP. I only regret leaving it for so long before getting the help i needed as my first 8 mnths with DD were spoilt by it.

cardygirl, 6 months is about the time when I had truly had enough of it all - I wasknackered, hadn't really recovered physically from the exhaustion of the first few weeks, and ds - though I loved him and he was lovely - was, I realise now, not as interesting as he has become.

It does get loads better. There are a lot of things to look forward to, developmentally-speaking. Nobody says it has to be really fun all the time and there will be times when you are physically/spiritually incapable of enjoying whatever it is they say we should be enjoying. But they change so much so quickly that the enjoyment of them sort of creeps up on you. HTH

cardygirl, really feel for you. I felt exactly the same way about my son for a long time (he's 2.5 now), thought oh no, time to look after him again. I'm now pregnant with another and I'm actually dreading dealing with a baby again because they're (gasp) boring and hard work and you feel like you've lost your identity just taking care of one all day even with help (and I was/am in same position as you with mum and dp). Other people have said that it gets easier when they're one or when they start crawling etc. Certainly have loved him more, felt more bonded with him since he 'did' more. I was desperate for time off from him for the first year, and now I'm desperate for time with him!
If you were a bad mother, you wouldn't want him to run to you with cut knees. If you were a bad mother, you wouldn't be posting on here or ringing the health visitor. There are as many kinds of mothers as there are babies. And if your HV is icy again, ask your gp if there's someone you can talk to attached to the clinic. Some sort of mother-baby team liaison person came to see me for a while, that helped, just listening to me non-judgementally. Surestart might be able to advise? Or just post on mumsnet a lot, that's what the rest of us seem to do when we're struggling. Bringing up kids is not easy, even if some people make it look that way (I'm not one of them)