When will I start enjoying my baby?

[majidmania]

My baby is 10 1/2 weeks old.

He isn’t a generally fussy baby. He falls asleep easy, has a routine to some sort of degree, has a 3 hour nap in the afternoon etc

But I am not enjoying it at all.

I don’t care for his smiles or his cooing... I do love him to bits and wouldn’t want anything to happen to him but I just find this whole new life relentless.

I am continuously strolling the internet reading forums wanting to know when it got better for people or when they started to enjoy it to make myself feel better...but I feel better for like 5 minutes.

I’m bored. I miss my old life. I miss my old routine.

I’m sick of him waking himself up during the night because he farts a lot or has done a poo. It’s not his fault but I just want him to sleep. I just want to sleep. I love my sleep and miss being able to sleep uninterrupted.

I don’t think I have PND because I don’t know how anti depressants will make me start enjoying being sleep deprived or my day to day routine?

The annoying thing is I’ve been staying with my parents since he was born and I’m moving out at the weekend due to house renovations so I’ve had so much help so why do I still hate it?

I feel so lonely even though I have my parents around me, my brothers and my husband.

My husband even gives me a day off a week where I sleep in the spare room.

But why do I not enjoy it? Why doesn’t my babies smile and cooing make my heart melt? Why do I feel like doing nothing with him and just counting down the time when he next naps?

Why does it apparently get better at 12 weeks? What changes at 12 weeks?

I want to be a good parent but I also don’t want to be be a parent to baby? But I love him so much. It’s so hard to explain

For me, i started to enjoy around 4 months. The baby was more active, could entertain self a bit longer, would interact with me more beyond just smiles. They start getting more physical testing their bodies limits which is amazing to watch and their personality shows more.

One day it will just click and you'll wonder at how much more fulfilled and rewarding your life is with them. At your stage I was frantically googling 'when did you start to enjoy motherhood' wondering if there was something wrong with me...there wasn't. newborn stage isn't for everyone . x

You probably have sleep deprivation. It makes some people very grumpy and in a depressive mood.

You talk about your old life. I still did pretty much everything the same as prebaby after mine arrived. There were a couple of minor changes but not much. Would it help to do some the same stuff you did before?

It took me a while to realise I wasn't getting my "old life" back, I was a new version of me. It takes time to find your people (for me the ones that don't hashtag everything #soblessed and freely admit babies can be arseholes at times). DD1 didn't sleep properly day or night til she was 15mo and no one helped me at night plus i stupidly refused to have her in my bed so I was running on nothing. I never got a.lie in as dh slept through her crying.
I started enjoying time with her about 2ish? But I never was a baby person and fully expected to come into my own later.

Get out and do stuff, at that age just take baby along. Find friends also on mat leave who will save your sanity.

Fwiw despite hating the whole 1st year I now have dd2 and am weirdly enjoying her babyhood, most likely cos I cosleep when necessary so am not hallucinating with tiredness this time.

Honestly, it was about 9 months with my first. I missed everything about my old life and hated the relentless grind of it all. She was a dreadful sleeper, my husband worked away during the week and none of my friends had kids yet. So I was in a horrible place.
I forced myself out to groups, I made myself new friends, and it was hard but I had to do it. We did baby signing and something just clicked, I could communicate with this crazy little bundle! By the time I went back to work when she was 14 months old, I realised that I enjoyed work but I did enjoy her too.
With ds, it was immediate and I’m sure that was because I already had my ‘mum’ structures in place. I knew who I was and what I was doing.

Give yourself time. Not everyone loves babies, I certainly prefer them once they can talk! But now they’re 8 and 5, you would never know how different the starts were.

I feel your pain OP. I desperately, desperately miss my old life and I feel I am grieving for it.

Because my exDP left is it was best for me to move back to my parents which is 3 hours from where I have lived for the last ten years. I miss my friends and my career.

I’m lucky because my sister has a young daughter so only works part time and I have reconnected with several friends from high school and have been on a night out with my best friend.

I literally can’t do anything from my own life but am making a conscious effort to build a new one. Sorry no advice OP but just wanted to say you aren’t alone.

I feel you OP. Mine is 10mo and I just want my life back. I’m constantly tired and bored and miserable. I want to sleep and watch tv. And then when I’m no longer exhausted I want to exercise, cook, drink wine, have hobbies, spend time with DH, even just gaze out the window and think uninterrupted... basically everything I used to love that had been taken away from me by this constant burden.

It isn’t depression. It’s the simple fact that everything I enjoyed is now off limits because I have a baby to look after. Anti depressants won’t make me less exhausted or bored. My baby is a lovely little chap but he’s taken absolutely everything away from me. I didn’t expect it to be this relentless and I’ve come to the unhappy realisation that there’s no escape: I’ve made my bed so I must lie in it. Sorry I’m not more help but you’re not alone.

I felt like this for probably about the first 4 months.

It's my daughters second birthday today and there are still the occasional day where I'd love to just lie in bed and watch something I want to watch or take my time getting ready. But this life is my 'normal life' now and I can't really remember what it was like before.

It does get easier. I'm 5 months pregnant with DD2 and I'm absolutely dreading the first few months because they are so tough, and not only that there's the body changes too! And the hormones!

Keep looking ahead OP

I’ve got four DC and found the newborn stage incredibly difficult. DH loves ‘helpless little babies’ though
I love toddlers, when they start to put bits of language together and can share their views (sometimes furiously but still love it)

Now our eldest is a teenager and the house is full of young, bright, lovely, funny, people

Nothing would persuade me to have another baby.
Being a mum is a long game. There will be a stage you’ll excel at. All you have to do in the meantime is love them, keep them safe and suck up the exhausting bits.
It gets a lot better.

Thank you for your honest replies. I was hoping that I would be told that it will get better at 3/4 months

It doesn’t help that he starterd doing 6 hour stints of sleeping two weeks ago to waking up 2/3 hourly again two days ago. Is there a 11 week (or 12 week since he was one week overdue) growth spurt? Leap 3 or he’s recovering from his bout of Diarrhea and cough? Or has he just decided to let me get too happy that he may be close to sleeping longer

*not let me

Being a parent is a thankless task, I love my grandkids more than I did my own kids

I found the baby stage really hard and ppl kept saying it will be better by 6 weeks...then 3 months...then it will be better when he's crawling/walking/talking/leaving for university etc!! I'm currently pregnant with 2nd and trying to take the weight of expectation away from 'enjoying it'. Sleep deprivation is torturous who would enjoy torture? Ppl find different stages more enjoyable than others. It will come. Pls be kind and remove pressure to enjoy things just keep putting one foot in front of the next and it will come. When you get more sleep there will be more opportunity to savour the lovely bits and that will grow. All best wishes

It's hard isn't it, I started to enjoy mine at I months. He never slept and was so grumpy all the time. He's now 1 and has bronchiolitis and isn't sleeping - he's been up for 3 hours now. I'm so tired and and I'm struggling even though it's not his fault :(

8 months*

If you're with your parents, can they not help with the night wakings? Can DH not help?

I really struggled after my first and I'd say the first four months of his life were pretty dark. He was a very grumpy baby and there were some issues that didn't help. I was also recovering from a c-section and I did find it really hard to adjust to my new life as a parent. I mourned my old life terribly. I went onto have another and enjoyed that more but then my eldest was two by then. Toddlers are definitely more fun.

It does take a while to get "match fit". Honestly, when I had DD1, the idea of waking up every single day between 6-7am to face Groundhog Day felt insurmountable. But, like everyone says, it does get easier. And as depressing as it sounds, you get used to it. If I sleep until 7.30am now I feel awesome!

DD1 is now 2 and DD2 is 6 months. I don't notice the early starts and long days so much now with the baby as the toddler keeps me busy. And the days when DD1 is at nursery feel like a breeze!

DD2 is no easier than DD1 was as a baby, but my mindset has changed. I obsess less now and focus more on just getting them both to bedtime, rather than the longterm slog to come (potty training for the first one and weaning for the second). I definitely take each day as it comes - I wish I'd done that more the first time around. With the baby, we pop to the shops after her first nap, and go for a walk after her second, and poof! The day is gone. Six months has definitely been a turning point for me both times, too.

I haven't slept for 6 years (2 DC). I recognise this is quite extreme.

The whole transition to being a parent was/is the biggest transition I've ever made in my life. Who am I as a mother, as a stay at home mum, as a working mother. Getting that balance. Not resenting my children for compromising who I am, not resenting other activities for keeping me away from my children. It was worse with the first, and has waxed and waned since.

As for loving my children, I often didn't immediately (except in a hormonal response way). I have grown to love all of them "properly", as people, as they have got older and displayed their personality more.

Nothing has changed me, touching every aspect of my life and self, than being a parent. I am never at a point of loving every minute, though I would say I have found my way of doing it and come to an acceptance of it now.

You sound like you have all the right ingredients in place and just have to go through it. What you are feeling is totally normal. You have to keep going anyway, but trust your process, you will enjoy it in the end.

Being a mother isn't all it's made out to be, when my family visited me in hospital and said oh baby is beautiful , I thought it's bloody ugly , have you got shit in your eyes? It looks like E.T. I didn't bond for ages . 30 years on we are best friends.

Unfortunately OP this is now your life. You won't get your old one back. You have to make a new on with your DS. Get out to groups and meet some mums who are in the same boat as you - my NCT group all helped each other along.I found the baby stage hard. DS is now nearly 4 and he's fab to spend time with. He's funny, cuddly and clever. He began sleeping thrugh the night at about 1 and a half years old. He still wakes up now sometimes but not often.. It does get better.

Another message to say that I don't have much advice but you're not alone.

I have two DSs - four and one. When DS1 arrived I really struggled to adjust to the lack of sleep and the lack of me time. I loved him but I wanted my old life back. I still struggle now.

There wasn't a specific age when I started enjoying it more. I recommend trying to accept that you can't get your old life back but trying to find time for yourself. Work out what is most important to you (apart from your baby) and try to squeeze in the time. You can't do everything you want to but you can do something. I go to work three days a week and try to have a read on my lunch break or after work. I do an exercise class once a week or so. I am writing a book and it has taken me literally years of dedicating 20 minutes or so to it where I can - but slow progress is still progress but it is nearly finished. I meet up with friends with kids when I can. Every few weeks I have a night at the pub with my friends and every few months I meet up with a friend for a day. I have got a cleaner and accepted that the house is probably going to be a mess for quite a few years. If I just have DS2, I take him around the house with me (I have toys in every room) and try to get things done.

I still don't enjoy every minute. I find a lot of it boring and, now that I have a stubborn, argumentative toddler, extremely frustrating. I feel intense anger much more than I ever used to. It is rewarding too though. DS1 is clever and chats away to me all day. It's lovely seeing DS1 and DS2 interacting.

The sleep will get better for you, although I can't tell you when as every child is different.

Look after yourself x

I felt better kind of a year in 😳 babies are relentless, I missed my old life. Hate being tired, hated not having any time to myself and really resented being a mum sometimes. He's two now and is a joy generally (when he's not being an arse hole ). I much prefer toddlers, at least you can talk to them and reason worn them to a degree, and they're hilarious. We had a chat the other day in the car about when we will start trying for another and I cried because I felt so panicked about it