If you didn't fall in love with your baby immediately, please tell me your story

[MorrisZapp]

My gorgeous, wanted DS is 3 weeks old and although I love him dearly, I'm not 'in love' with him yet. I haven't felt that rush of maternal love yet and I'm hoping/ assuming it will grow in time.

Did anybody else go this long without being madly in love, and do you love your DC madly now?

This is an amazing thread - thanks for starting it Morris. Why does nobody talk about this before you give birth? It's one of the great unmentionables (like expressing a preference for a boy or girl). Thanks for letting us all admit it and enjoy your baby boy!

Hey Morris, do NOT worry.

I had DS 2.8 years ago. Emotionally complex pregnancy and early babyhood - exDP and I split up when DS was 6mo. I kind of knew this was coming, throughout the pregnancy, and when DS was born I felt a deep sense of fondness and responsibility, even warmth, but absolutely no rush of love. I remember saying to exDP, when DS was about 2 weeks old 'do you love him?', and him saying 'erm ... yes, but I'm not IN love with him.' And I felt the same.

Fast forward two-and-a-bit years. exDP and I are (if I say so myself ) great co-parents of DS. He's now a walking, talking, thoughtful, crazy, wonderful, odd, beautiful, frustrating, infuriating little bundle of nonsense . And I love him so much it brings tears to my eyes . It'll happen, and you'll look back on this moment, and smile. You'll be fine. You're already there.

I never got the 'rush' I love my DS so so so much now (he's almost 2). Like others have said it will come so try not to worry, it just grows a little every day. I think sleep depravation in the early days makes it all feel that much harder too. Good work posting here though, it is a subject not much talked about which is why we all feel like something is wrong if you don't get the rush.

I was recommended this book
www.amazon.co.uk/Torn-Two-Ambivalence-Rozsika-Parker/dp/1844081710

Found it very helpful although I didn't read the whole thing.

Morris, it's totally, totally normal.

I also had really wanted a girl, and for some reason expected a girl, because mostly women in my family had girls. ( I now have four boys so kind of bucked that trend a bit!

Also, ds1 was breech. In the run-up to his birth I had to see the "breech doctor" who helpfully told me that a lot of breech babies have health problems such as deafness and cleft palate. To this day, I don't really know why he felt he had to say that as although the risks are a bit higher with breech babies, you are still far more likely to have a healthy baby than not and as ds1 looked perfectly healthy on his scans, and is a healthy lad generally, I can't see why he thought he was being helpful.

So ds1 was born, he was a boy, which shocked me, he didn't look like I thought he would although tbh, I doubt if any babies look like their parents think they will, and I was constantly watching out for his alleged health problems. I even hurt the roof of his little mouth with my nail accidentally while looking for the cleft palate

When I took him home, I was exhausted. My sister came to help and I remember crying when she left as I didn't think I could cope. My mum came up later but didn't really get that I had had a CS and that I needed more time to recover than with a natural delivery so wasn't as helpful as she could have been.

My wound was sore, I now think infected, I could barely walk and I remember my Mum sending me out for a walk with my sister because she thought I could do with it and having to stop to rest several times along the way.

And ds1! I was overwhelmed by the fact that he needed me and only me and needed me so much and so relentlessly and I felt so resentful that he wouldn't let me be for a few minutes. I also felt so guilty that I would have to go back to work and felt I was cheating him becuase he thought I was going to be around forever.

On maternity leave, I used to bring him for walks to the local pharmacy and buy dummies he didn't need just to talk to someone.

It was only 6-8 weeks in that I began to slowly feel that things wouldn't be so bad I brought him in to show him to the girls in work and when they coo-ed over him and said he was so gorgeous and clever and advanced that I felt this love and pride I thought I would feel from the beginning.

He is 14 now and I have to say, I look at him and he's taller than me and so good with his little brothers, he brings me cups of tea when I am MNing and I absolutely adore him!

jeez, that was long, sorry about that!

With DS1 I had a strong feeling after 3 or so days of goodnesss you are mine, really quite sweet and life will never be the same again.

With DS2 it was much more of an instant sense of euphoria BUT I want to point out that with DS2 although the love was instant the reality kicked in fairly soon and he suffered dreadfully with reflux, failed to gain weight well, screamed contsantly and hardly slept. He is 3 now and when I look back I can honestly say although I loved him I did not like him nor enjoy the first 9 months one bit. After 6 months I finally conceeded that I was depressed and exhausted and got some help. I wished away the days and long, long nights with him as they were awful so just because the love is there does not always mean you will have an easier time of it. It can be a confusing and overwhelming journey for many of us!
Great thread by the way.

This is a fab thread, thank you.

I did get the big rush of instant love for DSbut then found it hard to live up to, IYSWIM. I kept thinking, "I can't really love you as much as I think I do, or this would be so much easier". It's so true as well that you don't know them when they're born: they're little strangers, really.

I kept repeating to myself "This isn't personal, he just doesn't even know or care that I'm tired/in pain from infected stitches or cracked nipples". And we referred to him crying as his hungry/nappy alarm going off, which helped as it made us think of the reasons why he was crying, rather than him just being unreasonable and pitiless. DH was loads better at being calm and rational about the lack of sleep at first, but I'm better with toddler DS. Swings and roundabouts.

Congratulations! It'll get better. It will.

Me neither, first DS was 5 weeks early and arrived in 5 hours and it was all a bit of a shock tbh. I think my love for him just grew and grew, I did not get a fast full on rush. I remember at about five weeks I has taken him for a walk and these two old ladies stopped me to coo over him and told me how lucky I was and how gorgeous he was, I remember feeling exactly right then then I was so in love with him and proud of myself that I could not stop smiling.

With DS2 I was so worried that I would not love him as much as I love DS1. I found out the sex at the 20 week scan. But hey presto I did love him as much, I think of it as love being like dold in a mine, until you look for it and feel it, you don't know there is a whole new seem of love you never knew anything about.

i felt a huge unexplainable rush to need to protect ds when he was born, but love as i had always known it wasn't recognisable straight away. i suppose it was just a different kind of love i had never experienced that just takes a while to recognise and grow. im sure i did love ds from the start and that's what the protection was about, but i would be lying if i said i felt love for ds from the moment i saw him.

its something that grew with time.

ds is 5 now and he is my universe

Thank you for the question and honest replies - I am just pregnant with my first :) and somehow being a bad/unloving mother is top of my list of fears. Motherhood now has so many heady expectations attached, its good to hear real stories without the rose-tinted gooey-ness.

Still wish I never picked up "We have to talk about Kevin" although something about that book never rang very true. I suppose I believe mothers and babies are totally programmed to love each other in a profound way (if not always a feel-good, TV-ad sort of a way) and only extreme circumstances de-rail that natural response but even after much trauma it is still there. Fingers crossed anyway

i didn't like ds1 until he was about 10 months to 12months old. i loved him sure, he was mine and thats what you are supposed to do, so my personal gauge was like.

fell madly inlove with my kids when they were between the ages of 6 - 12. those primary school years were golden.

lequeen, I have none of those markers for PND. On the Edinburgh test I'm inconclusive. I don't feel despair etc, nor do I think my baby would be better off with somebody else.

What i do feel is anxiety. Anxiety thinking about the decision I made to have him, and how irreversible it is, and the implications for the rest of my life.

Today we took him for a walk in his sling and it was great, but it's going to take many weeks of these small steps of progress before I can imagine truly, truly enjoying him and meaning it deeply.

I'm not cut out to mother a newborn, I need interaction. I'm already dreaming of 6 months time, when he'll be off the boob and I'll be back at work, with smiles and hugs to lok forward to at the end of the day instead of screaming, snorting, feeding and sleeping which is of course all he does at 3 weeks.

I wish there was a fast forward button, no matter how many people say 'enjoy these precious moments', they just don't feel precious right now.

Can't believe there are so many others who share similar experiences: everyone but everyone told me that they fell in love with their babies immediately, no matter how traumatic their labour. I had such a rosy picture in my head of what it was going to be like when he arrived, but when he was put on my chest, I just thought, 'Who are YOU?'.

I looked after him just as well as if I had loved him, though, and I did like him, and though he was a nice baby... he just didn't feel like he was mine. I felt sorry for him having me as his mum, as I thought someone else might be able to love him properly like he deserved.

I gradually fell in love with him over time, and now he is 9 months old he is the centre of my universe. I just can't stop kissing him!

Thank you, everyone who has posted on this thread. It takes guts to admit you didn't love your baby straight away. I only wish I had read this thread a year ago.

bluebellpaws - if it's not too presumptuous of me to give you a word of advice... don't put too much pressure on yourself to be a brilliant mum straight away. All you have to do for the first few months is keep the baby warm, clean, fed and safe. That is ALL. Worry about the rest later.

MorrisZapp - I felt exactly the same as you nine months ago. I have always loved babies, and thought I'd really enjoy the cuddly, scrunchy newborn stage and feel sad when the baby started becoming more independent. I couldn't have been more wrong. They are frankly quite dull when all they do is cry, eat and poo. Hang in there, and ignore people who tell you to enjoy your baby - they don't know how you're feeling.

(By the way, I scored well on the Edinburgh test at 3 months, but was later diagnosed with PND and am now on anti-d's which have really helped. It wasn't until I started feeling better that I realised how ill I'd been. Maybe a visit to your GP would be a good idea even if you think you are OK - just to be sure)

OMG, just remembered this shit bit of motherhood - i didn't call him by his name for months. He was always refered to as 'the baby' like it could have been anyones child

By Custardo- 'Ifell madly inlove with my kids when they were between the ages of 6 - 12. those primary school years were golden.'

That's very much been my experience of motherhood. I'm in the middle of those golden years right now, DS1 is 10, and I'm loving every moment of it.

Preschool years, they were cute but generally rather tedious, I always felt like a needed a break from them, now I can't get enough of them.

With DD I was head over heels but with DS - well it had been a pig of a pregnancy and I really resented him for coming along and spoiling the special times I had with DD. (This is how I felt at the time).

When he was seven or so months old he had a fit and was severely ill - five nights in hospital with me by his side and everything changed. I wanted to kill every person who was trying to help him because they had to do painful tests and I just wanted to hold him and make him better.

And then he got better and developed this amazing laugh which still makes me melt inside.

It did take a long time, but it came.

Morris I could have written your last post when my DS1 was a few weeks old - it was how I felt most of those first weeks. I considered in a dark moment to have him adpoted because I thought I had made totally the wrong decision. At 3 weeks I got in a taxi whilst DH was out, went to the airport and flew south to my mother's house as I could not cope - imagine his face when he came home . I basically slept at her house for several days whilst she looked after DS1 and just brought him to me to be fed.

I remember all I had wanted to do was run away but also having this overwhelming instinct to look after DS1 as well. It was such a huge responsibility and the task of it seemed never ending and overwhelming. Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing - remember its used as a form of torture for a reason!!

Things settled down after that and the whole shock/mistake/wishing it all away disappeared... Like you I hated people saying 'don't wish it away, it passes so fast' - it just felt like forever. All I could think about was how little sleep I was getting and when could I get more beacuse I got so little. Reading this back it sounds so silly but at the time when I was in there, it seemed awful. It does get better.

I believe its such a total shock to your system that your reaction is entirely normal. Your body has been through hell There was also a bit of grief in there for me, for the life I had before - it faded with time and now I have no idea what I would do without DS1 and 2.

Morris , use MN - it has helped me so much and there is always someone with advice and an listening ear - you will repay the favour to others in time, you will be full of words of wisdom from your experience for others

Good luck and big hugs

I've never had that rush and DS is almost 4 and a half!

Yes I love him and no I would'nt want anything to happen to him, but I'm not sure it's anymore so than I would'nt want harm to come to any other child IYKWIM.

I knwo I need to sort this but I love him enough I think, I've just never had that all consuming feeling that people go on about.

My mum admitted to me a long time ago that she didn't feel that maternal rush of love until the first time I smiled at her (I guess after about 6 weeks or so). She also told me she fell in love with my younger sister straight away.

It's kind of a hard thing to hear from your mum, but I understood then as I understand now that she loves me every bit as powerfully as she does my sister. I'm pleased I won her over, eventually!!

My MIL said it took her a few months to bond with her DD - she'd fallen in love with her DS immediately. Like another poster on the thread, her DD was very sickly and MIL was frightened of bonding because of the possibility she would lose her.

As for me, I met DD for a few seconds, then didn't see her for another ten hours (EmCS - although both DD and me were fine, she didn't need any special care, it's just the way they do things here in Spain). I lay awake all night - not feeling bereft or anything, just IMPATIENT to meet my DD properly and start to get to know her.

When I was finally given DD the next morning I stared at her, picked her up from her hospital bed and held her to my skin. It may have been a rush of love, but I would describe it as simply feeling right, somehow.

Be assured, you will love your child more strongly than anything ever...in time. And that love will be worth no less because it took a while for you to really feel it.

Congratulations!! It's an amazing journey you've started.

PS Sleep deprivation sucks, but 9 months down the line, my body has become used to around 5 hours of broken sleep per night. You'd be amazed what you learn not only to live with, but live with fairly happily (!)

Immaculada - you are so right - before children I would never imagine that i could go to work after 3 or 4 hours sleep and manage but it is amaing what you get used to in time!!

I had my DS a week and a half ago. The birth was very tough and ending in an EMCS and we were in hospital for 5 days afterwards. I am finding it really tough - I want to do what's right for him and am very protective of him but there has been no huge rush of love yet. People in my NCT group keep banging on about how magical it all is but I am pretty much at home sobbing wondering what the fck I've done.

Struggling to bf too. Tried skin to skin this morning and we both ended up crying. I am hoping things improve!

Agree it's quite taboo to talk about not feeling some kind of amazing unconditional love . . .

"What i do feel is anxiety. Anxiety thinking about the decision I made to have him, and how irreversible it is, and the implications for the rest of my life. "

seconded. I fell pregnant much quicker than anticipated but spent my whole (very easy) pregnancy so lookin forward to having my baby, even had a relatively easy labour I think because I stayedd focused and excited.

My first words when DS (now 2) was born were "it's a baby"...I went into shock which it not only took a good 4-6months to recover from but revisited again for the 1t half of this year...your word quoted above were me exactly.

I'm not sure when I started to really love my son, but I know that I pretty much just survived the first 4-6months. The first 3 months were the longest in my entire life, yes everyone banged on about enjoying it but he didn't sleep, i didn't sleep, i was a total stresshead which I think was what made him quite a stressed and crying baby

I do love him so utterly now though an like everyone says would be without everyone else in my life before I lost my son now.