Help!

[gemplus3]

My step-daughter is coming up to 7 and has lived with us full time since she was 4. When she came to live with us I was pregnant with my 1st. She does not see her mum and thinks that i'm it. I hate to admit that I treat both kids differently but I think sometimes I do. I am now expecting another baby in about 2 weeks and worry that things are going to get worse. I do love her but it can't ever be the same as the way I feel about the others. Am I the only person to feel like this?

I don't think it matters if you don't love her in the same way, as long as she doesn't know...

i think it's natural to love your own kids more. if she ever did pick up on it do you think she'd ask you about it or grow quietly resentful? how has she been with your first DC?

mmm i have no experience of this although wonder if you know why you don't love her the same, she is still so young you sound like you could be very close, I'm sure she thinks the world of you and I imagine being her parent is rewarding. maybe you are just feeling it more now because of preggy hormones and tiredness.

Sounds like she really needs you, hope you get some advice from others.

Message withdrawn

Ok. Here we go I am doing this without my boyfriend knowing. We are to be married in 2009, My fiancee has a 11 yr old daughter. I have worked with kids so understand the link they need with their parents and am soon coming to realise that parents need to work together with children. However, I have known her for a year now and I just cannot bond with her at all. I did a degree in Childrens health and Obesity and my step daughter to be is Obese. I try to be passionette about the food she eats fruit vegetables and healthy exercise but her dad has none of it. I feel at the end of my teather. I feel to almost resent her coming. I talk to him about it and he;'ll walk out of the room or say I am resenting her been here. I feel so so strongly about her losing weight I kind of become argumentative with her which then makes her go to her Dad for comfort.
I have explained I have taken a lot on and I am trying but now my mind is telling me not bother with her as I dont get any support for me laying down my rules in my house. Am I out of order and does anyone feel the same way?

Gemplus3, just make sure you do your damnedest never to let her feel that she is a second class citizen - and make sure her dad puts serious effort in.

Vix, you cannot, and must not, bully an eleven year old to eat the way you want her to eat. If your advice is being ignored by her own father, there is nothing you can do about it, but to become argumentative with a child because you don't agree with the eating habits her parents allow and encourage is pretty despicable.

I can agree to a certain extent of how you are feeling, I have a bond with my own child that no-one can come close to, I have 2 stepkids who don't live with us, I love them dearly but the close bond is not there but when we are all together I treat them exactly the same and my stepkids know this too, we are always very honest with them and when I was pregnant with my son we said that nothing would change, they wouldn't be treated any differently (just a shame their mother thought differently and decided to get the csa onto us)

I sometimes worried that my stepkids didn't like me or I was too hard on them, but when they started sending mothers day cards to me and when my dsd said she loved me during a phonecall I knew that I was doing the right thing by them, I may feel closer to my own children but they don't know that and thats the way it will stay.

Hi gemplus
I want to reassure you that this is perfectly normal. I have been with my stepdaughters dad since she was a few months old. As far as she is concerned I am her 3rd parent. Her Mum backs this up totally and we are lucky that we all get on pretty well. She is 9 now and yes we do have problems (see my posts in behaviour forum). I do adore her she is a good kid and is more like me than either of her parents (We share a birthday rather than genes) However I have struggled in the past with not liking her very much - prob cos we're so alike. The trouble is that in life you don't like everyone you meet. When they are you're own children you have a chemical bond that make things easier. You don't have that with step children. As an adult you have to learn keep your feelings from your step child and rise above it, but do not beat yourself up about feelings you can't control. Plus, I don't always "like" my son but all mothers feel like this at some point.
To put it in perspective, I now get on with her better than her Dad who sub consciously treats her and our son differently because he can't relate to her. If you are a basically good person and mother/step mother (which you must be to care enough to post on here) then these things will even themselves out. At some point in all mothers lives they will relate to individual children in different ways. I know I am going to be slated for this but it is not realistic to pretend we all treat all our children exactly the same because they are individuals. As long as your not actively singling one out or ignoring/ bullying another it will all work out in the end.
Hope this helps.