Am I being a shit mum? Do you do this?

[Geopopw]

I don’t interact much with my two month old. I do talk to them a bit but in an adult tone I suppose and not baby speak. I sing to them once a day. Cuddle them every few hours for a few minutes. I do tummy time literally for a few minutes every few days. I feed them and put them down for a nap.

I don’t know… I just feel like I don’t do much? I could do more but I am a bit lazy I suppose. I will talk when feeding them
But when others hold them they are so much more interactive

am I not doing enough?

also while I am asking questions I sometimes leave a nappy four hours if they’re sleeping or I’m doing a wash or cooking etc. Is this wrong? Obviously I try to do it ASAP but often it is a few hours. I am worried I am not doing enough I suppose!!

OP I agree it is worth considering if you might have PND. You clearly care to be posting on here, so don’t beat yourself up.

I have hesitated over posting what follows, but also looking at the situation from a slightly different perspective, does your LO interact with you when you do engage with him or her? a PP mentioned how even very young babies will copy caregivers by sticking out their tongues, and there is often an interactive reciprocal turn-taking with coo-ing, making faces and suchlike?

The reason I ask is I also found it hard to engage with my youngest, which at the time I put down to having an older toddler demanding attention, but I later realised my youngest was not engaging in any reciprocal interaction. I realised this when I held his younger cousin and immediately found that I naturally wanted to engage with her and noticed that she was engaging with me in a 2 way process in a way that my youngest never did. My youngest was later evaluated for autism. He wasn’t able to copy facial expressions or sounds till age 4 and had no interest in people as a baby or toddler.

I hesitated over posting this as I don’t want to cause you concern. I should emphasise that babies develop at different rates and all has turned out well now for us. Children develop at different rates and my son did later develop a sociable side but not till he was 3.5. He is a very happy loving child. However I felt you should have the information so that you can consider whether your lack of interest is all down to how you feel or whether you are not getting the cues that other babies give. I would have liked to have realised earlier what was going on. There is lots you can do to encourage a baby’s interest in interaction but it requires more work and perhaps different approaches.

Baby talk/voices make me feel like a twat, so don’t do that. I tend to keep a running commentary when I am around the baby of what I’m doing, like ‘so shall we out the shopping away now then? So where does this go’ but I’m like this anyway 🤣 you’re doing fine OP.

Ignore above I posted in the wrong place

Nah you're fine - nobody really tells you how incredibly dull it is looking after a baby 😂 but there isn't really much you can do

I disagree, and I find it alarming that anyone would be so clueless about an infant's needs. You need to learn about child development.

Very weird post. I think just stick to your own family's needs.

Would you consider a sling ? An Ergo or similar means your DC is with you a lot more and you may come to find it easier to engage with them if they're literally attached to you, staring up at you.

Also, I don't think you're a shit mum at all!

It really doesn’t sound like you are giving your baby enough. You sound completely disconnected. It’s not normal and you need to speak to a medical professional. Poor baby.

I was lazy too, still am. My baby is now 18 months and thriving. I think it did him good to have some independence (although I still feel a bit guilty about then and now), I actually think he was too young to notice anyway. As long as you arr actually cuddling and talking, but it definitely doesn't need to be constant

Posted too soon. Do you BF? If you're doing that, then they'll be getting lots of cuddles by default. Even changing nappies if you talk to baby. You don't need to be constantly with baby, but obviously it's important to interact and connect

Cannot agree more with this. Please see your GP. Is this your first baby? You don’t need to talk to the baby in a cutesy way but you should be talking to the baby as much as possible - that is how they learn to speak??

Cuddling every few hours for a few minutes is not enough. That amounts to less than an hour of physical contact a day.

Are you for real? Newborn babies do not need independence 😂

just because we can’t see the damage of a baby being ignored it doesn’t mean it isn’t there!

I assume your baby is quite chilled and sleeps a lot? With both of mine I held them as much as they wanted me to, if they were content I put them down. With my eldest this meant only really putting him down for a few minutes at a time during the day, my youngest however was quite happy to nap on his own and just lay there looking at his surroundings until about this age so there isn't really a set amount of time you should be holding them for. As long they seem content and you enjoy the interactions you do have then try not to worry!

The nappy thing is fine, unless it's a poo or they are on the verge of leaking they can be left.

This tbh.