Not sure if I've bonded with Six Week Old DS

[BondJamesBond]

Hello! Can anyone give me their experiences about bonding with their baby? My DS is six weeks old now, I also have a DD who is 2 and a bit. Things are going absolutely fine BUT I'm not sure if I've bonded with my DS - whatever that means. I have been trying to remember how I felt about my DD at the same time, and all I can remember was that it was very intense.

Although I feel protective towards my DS, I would struggle honestly to say that I feel strong feelings of love for him. I find it really hard to describe, but there's a certain level of detachment I suppose. I take care of him just as I did my DD, but in a slightly more 'going through the motions' way. Another way of putting it is that I know I feel love for him in an abstract way but I can't feel it. I hope that makes sense.

I have been trying to analyse why I feel like this, and one thing I have come up with is that DD is being particularly sweet at the moment and DS is just a tiny baby right now, so of course I don't know 'who' he is yet. The final thing I'm scared to admit, but here goes. When I found out he was a boy I was slightly disappointed. I come from a family of girls and had always imagined myself as a mother of daughters. Whilst I was pregnant I totally talked myself out of that and told myself that I would meet him and fall in love straight away. Which is what everybody said would happen. But that didn't happen exactly and now I'm torturing myself with the thought that I don't feel as connected to him as I do to DD because he's a boy and that I'm a heartless something as a result.

Anyway, I guess the main thing is that I am sort of waiting for that real rush of love to come I guess. Will it? How long did it take for you?

PS: I am absolutely not depressed and I am also not that tired! So I don't think it's that.

I wouldnt worry about it. I had the same thing but the other way round (took a while to bond with DD (now 3) but it was instant with DS partly I think because the birth was nicer, feeding easier, I knew what I was doing etc...

I was certainly much much happier by 3 months ish and by the time DD was 6 months plus everything was fine. We seem to havea pretty good bond now.

I worked on the basis that I would go through the motions and that it would all be okay - we'd fall in love eventually. We did. Good luck.

I don't think I ever had a rush of love with my DS. It just built gradually over time and now he's 2 I know it's there and I'd do anything for him.

With him, I do think that the early weeks were more about going through the motions and getting the basics done than thinking about whether I loved him and I'm pretty certain that bonding was very gradual with him rather than immediate. I'm trying to remind myself of this as I'm expecting Dc2 in sept and it will probably take time again and in comparison to how I feel about DS now I may start to worry like you. You saying it's because you don't know who he is yet but know your DD really strikes a chord with me.

Is it possible that in reality you actually felt the same with your DD but can't remember that now as all you know now is your intense love for her?

Don't worry about it. I remember looking at my ds aged about 8 weeks and realising that I felt nothing for him beyond a need to protect him. There was never a moment at which a specifically bonded with him and "rush of love". However, it crept up on me gradually over many months.

I think I realised that I loved him overwhelmingly when I first identified him as a person rather than just a baby which I think would have been when he was nearly a year old. Like you, if asked before then I could have rationalised my feelings about him into some form of love, but there was no all powerful emotion. There is now.

You are not at all unusual in this and it will come.

Hey Bondjamesbond, if i were you, i would just mention it to your GP or HV, i did have this also, but with my first, a ds, had a horrific birth, and afterwards i just thought aww houw cute he is, and yes i loved him, but there was no rush of love, if other people wanted to take him for the day id happily let them and not be too particularly bothered when he came back, i suppose because he was my first i had nothing to compare with, and i thought this was normal, but as he grew older and older and i had a second son, and eventually a dd i realised there was an instant rush of love with ds2 and dd, and i couldnt bare to be apart from them, and this then made apparent my lack of 'bond' with ds1, and the troubles he and i had until he was 7/8yo!!! He is 10 now, and i love him more then life, but i must shamefully admit, that although i feel there is a bond there, its not a very strong one and i wish i had done something about it when he was young. Its not nice, but its certainly nothing to feel ashamed of! Just have a word with someone you trust, what have you got to loose?

Thanks so much everybody for those fast responses. Just to know that other people haven't had that mad rush of love is great, I won't expect it and will hope/believe that instead it will grow over time.

I have just remembered about three weeks in with DD, bursting into tears and saying through sobs to my DH how much I loved her. So I think it WAS different. Having said that, I THINK that DS smiled at me this morning, which did lead to a slight flutter somewhere in my cold cold heart!

I don't think I could contemplate mentioning it to my GP/HV for fear I get put on some sort of awful register or something! Things seem to be exagerated somewhat with Health Visitors - I mentioned to my last HV that my DH had mild dyslexia and she put 'father - learning difficulties' in my DD's red book! And I think my current HV already thinks I'm not sufficiently earth mother-ish - she asked the other day in concerned tones whether I was disappointed to have had a CS with DS and I said cheerfully that I was delighted. She looked thoroughly shocked (to put into context I had dreadful first birth with DD so Emergency CS with DS felt like a breeze in comparison)!

BJB I don't feel I bonded with my ds1 until he was about 5 months, and ds2 until he was over a year old! (They are now 3 and 18 months)
I was far too busy actually looking after them to actually recognise feelings of love or anything else!
After ds1 was born, I think he must have been about 9/10 weeks old a friend was holding him and said "God, do you just love him loads?" and I said
"Oh. I hadn't really thought about it. I suppose" and was very

i wouldn't worry too much about it. IMO care is very closely linked with care iyswim
You'll get there in time when things settle down and you all get used to new routines etc

Hi BondJamesBond

Others have already given really good advice but I couldn't not post as I could have written exactly the same thing as you shortly after the birth of my son - like you I had always seen myself as a mother of girls, and with my dd her newborn days had been such a golden, wonderful time and I had fallen blissfully in love with her the moment I saw her.

With ds it all seemed much harder - not least because I was looking after a toddler too - and I seemed to be missing that instinctive sort of understanding that I had instantly with my dd. However, like azazello said, I kept going through the motions, and almost treated it like he was this person that I had to grow to know and understand.

And do you know what, he is now 2 and a half and quite literally the love of my life! I look at this funny, naughty, happy little boy and can't believe I am the lucky person who gets to spend all my time with him - and I also have this wonderful feeling that I didn't get with dd that I am the absolute centre of his universe. He adores me so much and we have such an amazing relationship.

I think that part of it is due to the fact that these are people we are dealing with - and your relationship with each of them is bound to be different. It is still early days and you mustn't be too hard on yourself. As he gets bigger you'll be able to do things just you and him while your dd is at nursery/school, which will help to bond (I signed up to a baby swimming class with ds which helped). It gets so much easier as they get bigger and their personalities start to develop.

And I also think I had a slight feeling of resentment towards my son in that he had 'taken me away' from my daughter (she was 2 and a bit when he was born like your dd) - but now I realise what an amazing thing it is for her to have a little brother - they are best friends and love each other so much, which is an amazing thing to see. And I make sure that she and I occasionally have 'girls' time', when we go into town together at the weekend, which she really loves - that gets so much easier to do once you are past the newborn stage.

Sorry to have written so much, and good luck with your lovely baby!

Well if your uncomfortable mentioning it too any 'professional' then even a close friend perhaps?? You need to do whatever your comfortable with, but dont put pressure on yourself, give it some more time 6 weeks isnt long

Thanks so much, such lovely posts, you are making me feel far more confident. I'm sort of excited about feeling that intensity of feeling, when it does come. It's funny because when I was pregnant people kept asking if I was looking forward to having the baby and I would think, no not really, but say yes of course! It's not that I wasn't delighted to be pregnant, just that I was that excited about the very young baby bit!

Charlotte, I have sort of mentioned it to my sister but it feels like such a taboo subject, we're close but it seems wrong to say it loud, as if by saying it to someone I'm kind of confirming it to be true - and also I feel weirdly superstituous about admitting it in real life, as if something bad will happen as a result. Which paradoxically proves that I DO love him otherwise I suppose I wouldn't worry so much!

It is definitely different from child to child. I too felt a "rush of love" for dd that was completely missing for ds. However, I would categorically state that I love him beyond words now.

OP, I too felt like you for probably the first month or so after the birth of my son. I didn't really feel much of anything towards him except, like Goosey Loosey says, a need to protect him. However, because of the brilliance of Mumsnet, I knew that this is fact was completely normal and would get better and now, at 4 months in, I love him very much indeed and he is an absolute delight. I miss him when I'm away from him and look forward to seeing him.

So yes, normal, and as long as you keep caring for him and 'going through the motions' as others say, the situation will resolve itself, I'm sure.

Yes, Mumsnet is brilliant - I do feel a lot more chilled out about it now, thanks everybody. All this stuff about going through the motions makes me think interesting thoughts (to me at least!) about nature/nurture though, ie do you love your children so passionately because they are 'yours' or simply because they have been given to you to look after, iyswim? I think far more the latter now, which I would never have anticipated before I had children. I used to think I could never adopt for example, simply because I didn't trust myself to love someone else's child, but now I feel as though that's much less relevant. Anyway, that's a whole different topic, must stop rambling and get back to work! Thanks again to everybody who replied.

This is normal wiht the 2nd I think.

I felt like this, and then one day when he was about ten weeks, I looked at him and he smiled at me and I picked him up and gave him a cuddle because I needed to, not just to stop him crying.

I didn't "bond" with DS1 until he was at least a year old. I'm not sure why! It was totally different with DS2 and DD.

DS1 is now nearly 8 and you wouldn't know that we had a bit of a "rocky" start. We have just been making flapjacks and blackcurrant jam together and really enjoying each others company. So don't worry, it will come.

Just wanted to add another post to confirm you are not heartless or anything at all like that.

I experienced the same with DS1, it wasn't until he was at least 4/5 months old before I really felt that I loved him. Yet with DS2 it was instant from the minute they laid him on me from birth.

I do think (with me anyway) it can depend on the sort of birth you have. With DS1 i had a terrible lengthy drawn out affair whereas with DS2 it was very short and textbook.

You are completely normal, and everybody else has said, it will come in time, do not worry about it at all.

about what you said about being slightly disappointed he is a boy - when I was pregnant with DD2 everyone convinced me i was having a boy, there are so many girls in our family I think all the grandparents etc wanted a boy, and even though I kept reminding myself it could be either I think I had kind of got my heart set on a boy too. When she was born, even though I obviously loved her and was happy she was healthy, for the first couple of weeks I found myself looking at her and coudn't help feeling sad that I'd never had a boy, and feeling really sad for the loss of this little boy I'd imagined in my head. I even remember feeling close to tears in the park when I saw families with a little boy! I think it was all hormonal as now she is 5 weeks and I am completely in love with her and couldn't imagine her being anything else but herself.

Don't be too hard on yourself, it will happen - I didn't even get that rush of love with DD1, it was more like falling in love, it was a gradual thing.

im not suprised to OP
bloody babies cry all the time
make thigns complicated
they are HARD to love
till they sile
then youll be ok.
honest

I agree with sparkle1977 on the birth affecting things. I was induced with my son and was stupid enough to tough it out on gas and air instead of having an epidural, had some blood loss and 2nd degree tear; it was pain beyond anything I'd ever known and it took me 3 months to stop reliving it every day.

After they brought me to the recovery suite from the labour ward, with DS beside me, I just lay there and cried, not with happiness or euphoria, but with shock. Beyond being thankful that the baby was okay, I barely noticed him, I was too traumatised. When I was home, a nerve in my back got inflamed as a result of the labour, cue more agony, THEN breastfeeding was excrutiatingly painful for at least a month (although am still doing it and it's fine now - after that labour, I could deal with the pain!).

Even now, I'm not sure I could go through it again!

I didn't bond with DS for months! I had such a traumatic pregnancy and I felt really guilty towards DD for bringing this mewly constantly vomity child home from the hospital who seemed to hate me and the world.

He's two now. It got better. He got sick one day and I realised I loved him so much and I was so scared for him.

I think you are slightly mad with love for your first and more realistic with subsequent children, you don't love them less but you know how much work it's going to be so it wipes the sheen off the top of the shiny new baby thing.

I remember a friend asking in the early days whether I felt lots of love for DS (my pfb). At best I would say I felt affection and a desire to look after him; at worst, ambivalence.

He is now 6 months and I can't imagine not being absolutely in love with him. But it was definitely a gradual thing, not a sudden rush. I found it much easier once he started to show his personality a bit.

Hello again, thanks so much for more responses. Things are still ticking along but I do feel really confident that the love will come. It's interesting isn't it because I had a much less traumatic birth with DS than with DD - DD was 30 hours, induced, forceps the lot. But I LOVED her straightaway. DS was emergency CS as he was undiagnosed breech, but actually that felt much easier overall. So I guess it works lots of different ways.

I definitely didn't have a rush of love for DS - it was something that gradually built. I did have a rush of lice for DD as soon as she was born which surprised me.

Both ways are fine

Noah I'm sure you didn't mean what you wrote there

OP i have a 3 month old baby boy and i haven't bonded with him at all! ur not alone. i can also relate to you being disappointed he was a boy as i badly wanted girls and all i got was boys!