Attempting some of that early bonding
I have wanted to write this post for so long but I have really struggled with the content. I know there is something important here to talk about but I have been frightened to put it all down. I’m mostly frightened because I don’t want for my son to one day read this and think that for one moment in his beautiful little life that I didn’t love him because that is not true at all.
I loved that kid from the moment he was an idea in my mind. The day his father and I decided to have a baby together I saw a little boy in my mind who looked exactly like Monkey does now (yes creepy I know) and from that moment I knew that was who was coming to me. And from that moment, I was in love.
So yes, I had some trouble bonding with my baby. But I had no trouble loving my baby.
I feel it is important to make this distinction as I came across this article called When love takes time by Pinky McKay while doing some research on the topic. I was trying to find the right kind of inspiration for this post so thank you Pinky, you gave it to me. Pinky is a very famous attachment parenting proponent and I’m sure she truly had the best intentions when writing this article but I was quite offended. Her premise is that if you aren’t bonding with your baby it is because it is taking time to love your baby. This wasn’t the case for me and I was bothered as I didn’t like the idea of someone with so much reach getting out there and publicly saying: problems bonding = you do not love. It’s pretty harsh.
I think the fact of the matter is this: our babies are just tiny little people. And some people you click with right away and some people it takes time to get to know. And it just turns out that sometimes one of those people you need to get to know is your baby. And that’s OK. Getting to know isn’t necessarily learning to love.
But then I thought about it and I thought well maybe this is true for some people. Maybe that IS how they feel. And then I thought how wonderful it would be to be able to write a piece with comments from many different mothers who struggled to bond with their baby(ies). I can put all those pieces together and publish it and maybe one mum out there will read it and say “YES that one there is EXACTLY how I feel“.
Wouldn’t that be just delightful? To help a new mum feel normal when she is feeling anything but. It warms my heart to think I might be able to do something that can help during those super tough times.
Obviously there is a bit more of a story from me. How I realised I wasn’t bonding and how and when it all changed but I’ll save that for the post with the stories. Mine can be in there alongside the others.
Now, for this, I need some help from you, my wonderful followers.
If this happened to you and you are willing to contribute your experience then please, I’d love to hear it. Everyone will remain anonymous (unless they don’t want to be) so please don’t be concerned about that. All you need to do is email me at [email protected] or you can use my online Contact Form and briefly tell me about your experience. Once I have a decent amount of submissions I’ll publish them on this blog.
Please, share this post around your mummy friends too so they can share their stories and help other new mummies out there.
Thank you for sharing your stories with me.
Rachael aka mummyflyingsolo x
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