Can you love your child too much?!

[Sunnylands27]

Do any other Mums or Dads feel this way?
I honestly love my baby girl soooo much it hurts, I miss her so intensely if I’m not with her & often have upsetting thoughts about something awful happening to her like illness or accident or considering how she would cope if sometuawful happened to me.. I feel like these are really intrusive thoughts & I try to push them to the side but honestly sometimes it just makes me cry my eyes out & want to go grab her from her peaceful sleep in her cot & hold her all night long!
Does this feeling ever get easier? I just feel so blessed I can’t believe she’s ours & that this is all too good to be true.

What you are describing isn't love. It seems like intrusive and irrational thoughts. I take it you're a new mum? Hopefully this will subside and allow you to enjoy being a parent.

When my eldest was little I’d even planned the song I would play at their funeral! Fucked up I know. They are 26 soon and very much alive. Living their life.
I think a lot of parents feel they way you do.
when mine went out with a relative or had a sleepover at a friends I couldn’t wait for them to be home and be safe with me. Not that they ever came to any harm.

Instead of trying to push away the thoughts, as it often just increases them try checking out how you are feeling.

It could be worry, whatever it is becurious about it and this may just take some of that energy being put into unhelpful thoughts.

It's ok to be worried (or whatever it is) acknowledge it, feel it, be OK with it. The worry will likely not last very long if you really feel it. Then it won't control your thoughts so much.

It's pretty common so don't worry. There's no love like the love you have for your child so it's bound to bring up lots of feelings including fear of loss. Just acknowledge it and be thankful it's not something you're facing and let the worry go. x

This is how I feel sometimes but its definitely not healthy. Please research post-natal anxiety and don't be afraid to ask for help if the intrusive thoughts become hard to deal with x

I feel the same, I thought it was normal...

The love is overwhelming and rightly so.

It does ease bit but bit as they get older!

The overwhelming love yes totally normal. The intrusive thoughts that take over sound like you could have post natal anxiety. I was very similar with my first and I knew I wasn't depressed, I wish I'd known then post natal anxiety exists and that I'd sought support.

That's not love, that's a mental health issues. Can you speak to your HV?

There's a phrase I've heard to describe this - it was called "foreboding joy", worth looking it up.

I think your feelings are pretty normal when you have a new baby. With both of mine, I was bordering on obsessive for the first few weeks or months, and I totally recognise what you've described. I think we have a tendency to pathologise perfectly normal behaviours by new mothers, and I don't think hypervigilance and alterness around your new baby is unhealthy or unusual. But if it feels like it's becoming difficult to cope with, then speak to your GP or health visitor.

The odd thought about what if I fell down the stairs right now yes .. but infrequent after the first flush of the hormonal fourth trimester I'd say. Definitely a year in totally obsessed and do cry about missing her sometimes or how I'll cope not seeing her every day when she's grown up!

this is love. enjoy. teenage years ahead. x

Yes I had this with my first born. Until number 2 came along.

I would say I was obsessed and anxious and totally overwhelmed with the 'love'.

It still comes back in little waves now. I still look at DC1 and get a pain in my stomach from how much I adore and worry.

I think it depends on how old they are. When mine were tiny babies I’d feel like this, a totally overwhelming feeling of enormity.

Apparently some level of intrusive thoughts are normal because it’s your brain’s way of judging danger. They should go away after a few months though so if it’s all consuming at (for example) 6 months that you’re really running through dangerous situations in your head and imagining them happening (particularly if you’re harming the baby in these thoughts) then please do seek help, this could be PP depression

Overwhelming love is normal. Intrusive and distressing thoughts that affect your quality of life sound more like an anxiety disorder. Might be worth a chat with your GP/HV.

The love, yes. The intrusive thoughts, not so much. I get them occasionally but not often enough to feel it's worth getting help with. Mine are more about safety concerns which I could kind of justify too. But if you get them often, it would be worth speaking to your Dr about.

I'm assuming you've fairly recently had this baby (last 3 or 4 months?). If so, it's your hormones.

Don't worry, the terrible twos help you get over it 😉

The missing them so intensely does ease over time. I feel the love is deeper, but less intense as they grow. Mine are primary age. Over the years they naturally and slowly develop independence from you and by the time you've gone through things like terrible 2s/3s or ducking 4s, as unimaginable as it sounds right now, you get to a point where you want and need some time to yourself. The baby love is just as intense if you have another but from the start you're sharing you attention between 2 children so the dynamic is different.

With intrusive thoughts if they're effecting your ability to enjoy your life, or you're getting stuck in them, or they stop you sleeping then you need to seek help for them. The fact that you call them intrusive seems like they're effecting you negativity.

Should be effecting you negativity a lot.

@KissThaRain

”When my eldest was little I’d even planned the song I would play at their funeral!”

You’re not the only one, and mine are young adults now, and I still fear the worse.

Yes, it’s normal to fear the worse and worry. However, it’s how you cope with these feelings that matter. The fact that you recognise your intense feelings is good.

Can you put in strategies to help. Ie. When you feel this overwhelming emotion, just go and look at her, count to ten, reassure yourself she’s okay, then resume what you were doing previously.

When these feelings control your life, then it’s time to get help.

Yep. Waited years for DS1 and after a hemmorhage during pregnancy I never quite believed that he would be born until I had him in my arms. Then I was literally obsessed, he fed every 45 minutes, slept on me all the time, I couldn't leave him even for a minute to nip to the toilet, didn't leave him with anyone, coslept for far too long. Never really complained about the lack of sleep because I felt I wanted to be everything for him.

Then DS2 arrived (again after some scares during pregnancy so had the same surprise thst he was actually born healthy). I didn't feel the overwhelming obsession, I loved him and he was an amazing baby but I was much more reasonable about things and wasn't the only person in the universe who could do anything for him. I didn't wear him 24/7 and he was put in his cot for all sleeps.

Ds2 is now a toddler and we spend most days just us two and I'm just as obsessed with him as DS1 and find him hilarious. I hate being away from them but recognise when it's healthy to spend some time without them. Im a lot kinder to myself than i was the first time and ive definitely enjoyed DS2 baby days a lot more. I kind of assumed that the obsession was probably some scars from infertility.

I experience the same, OP. I have always suffered from upsetting intrusive thoughts about my kids and still do. I feel concerned about how much I love them and literally terrified at the thought of something happening to them.

I had these feelings with my first and so did some of my friends. Your body is a hormone factory and you're adjusting to the extreme vulnerability and responsibility of parenthood. Give yourself time and talk to your GP if it begins to interfere with how you go about your everyday life.

Intrusive thoughts are normal and vary in severity
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