Hey!

I saw your post on my mobile yesterday and it struck a chord. I saved the link so I could go home and type on my laptop and give my reply the time it deserves. I know I’m replying quite late, but I hope my perspective helps anyway.

First off, everything you’re feeling is understandable. I don’t know if I’d say it’s “normal”, but I empathize with everything you’ve written. I have a 2-year old daughter, and it’s not been easy. But my most important takeaway from your post is that you’re trying. You’re doing everything you can to support your wife and kid, and that alone puts you in the “good dad” category.

Look, it’s not going to be easy. Your 3-week old is essentially a lump in human form. All he knows to do at the moment is drink, sleep, and poop/pee. He doesn’t recognize you, he doesn’t love you, he doesn’t reciprocate anything you do, and he doesn’t acknowledge you except when you’re feeing him. He can barely even see you (kids that age have eyes that haven’t learnt to focus yet). And that’s how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Having a kid this age is mostly a chore (or a job, like you described). Try to think of it as an investment for the future. All the hard work you’re doing now pays off in the future when you have a healthy, happy child who loves you and knows how to show it.

But for now, it’s going to suck. Your wife is probably going to go through post-partum depression, she’s going to have mental crises about being a terrible mother about something or the other. I don’t know if it’s because of hormone imbalance, stress, lack of sleep, and/or a combination of all these. You’re the one who’s going to have to be there for her at those times. Your baby will (hopefully not) develop colic, or there will come a day when he cries for no reason and nothing you do will stop him and you’ll start thinking about taking him to the doctor/ER and in your desperation, you’ll hold him in a new hold and he’ll suddenly quieten down because he loves being held like that. Some days are going to be a rollercoaster of activity, frustration, joy, etc.

And as for love … in the last 2 years, there hasn’t been a single moment that’s hit me like “I NOW LOVE MY KID AND WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HER.” I mean, I would die/kill for her, but that’s just family.

BUT – there have been moments. Like one time she half-woke from a nap, saw my face, broke into a smile, and went back to sleep. One other time when she was very young and she ran into my arms. One time she absolutely insisted that only dad would help her put her shoes on and not mom. These are small wins that build. The more interactive they get, the more your relationship with them grows, the more in love you’ll be. It’ll take time. I’m not there yet, even with my 2-year-old, but I know I’ll get there. I know I love her, even if I don’t “feel” it yet.

In the meantime, sorry … tough it out.

The only other advice I can give you is to ask for help. If your mom or some other family member can come help you and your wife out, it gets a little easier. Even if it’s only for a weekend or a week at a time. Just having someone else at home who can change a diaper, or even just watch the kid while you take a nap or play a videogame for some time, will help.

All the best, you got this, don’t sell yourself short.

EDITED TO ADD:

Newborns fall asleep very quickly, even in the middle of a feeding session. We used to tickle the bottom of our baby’s feet to keep her awake during feeding times, both at the breast and with the bottle.

Also, try to find someone you can talk to about the stress you’re feeling (if you can’t do it with your wife). Your mom or a best friend, or just internet strangers. Hopefully it’ll help you through the toughest times.

Within the first three weeks, I ended up in the hospital from neglecting myself. The stress was insane. I didn’t sleep more than a few hours.

So I learned two things. First, it does get better. Second, take care of yourself or you can’t take care of the kid.

Also, stop doing chores. If it isn’t necessary to live, it isn’t necessary to do.

Dad to dad, you’ll feel the bond when the kid becomes more interactive and rational. Moms can connect that little blob with no problem. It’s tougher for dads, at first. It all balances out though. What you are feeling is normal. Just stick with it and don’t cheat on your wife.

Not necessarily at 3 weeks, it is so intensely stressful at the start. Crying is designed to make you feel upset, that is what it evolved for, so that you would check on the baby.

I did feel love for the newborns, but they aren’t fun or anything, they are just babies. You were the same at the start of your life.

Can your wife visit a lactation consultant? I remember my kids falling asleep nursing, is that not normal? They nurse, fall asleep, wake up and are happy for awhile, then cry, nurse, and fall asleep, that’s the whole newborn cycle. I don’t think that means they aren’t getting enough, of the baby was that hungry he’d stay awake long enough to eat enough and remember, the milk in the first few moments has the most fat & calories.

Basically - I would not trust your feelings right now, while sleep deprived and stressed. You may enjoy the baby when it is more enjoyable. Like 2-3 years old is blistering cute, and then they are learning so much you can see it happening, and teenagers are fun and keep you aware of pop culture.

I don’t remember my mom being, well, mom-ish, not very nice when we were little, we weren’t neglected at all she was just never close with us. I asked her about it when I was grown and she said “I don’t like kids.” And I was like “WTF, you had so many kids!” And she said “Well, I like you all now, I knew you’d grow up, you don’t have kids to have kids but to raise people.”. And I guess she has a point. It’s nicer to enjoy the ride, I did, but she didn’t and we were ok.

New father here as well. Let me start by saying, please ignore any negative comments, they are shitty or non-parents. I see some terrible responses here.

Here’s what I see: a responsible kickass father is owning up to this huge lifestyle change, giving 110% to his wife and son, doing a perfect job emotionally and physically - service with everything but the smile. A mom going through post-partum depression, which is not only normal, it’s actually abnormal not to. You’re also going through something like “post-partum depression”, which is also not your fault at all and totally normal. Seek help for yourself too, and remember this will all pass. You need support from your wife as well - and sometimes giving support is the greatest way to feel acknowledged, you may be doing her a favor to dump on her (and yes, I know your time to converse is like minutes per day). You’re in the hardest phase and we all feel exactly the same way. It gets so much easier so quickly.

As for the sounds, I’m very, very sensitive to crying so I suggest ear protection like over-ear headset + earplugs or ear pods with white noise playing. Trust me, you don’t need to hear the crying to be a responsive parent. I use physical cues like vibration, facial expressions, physical movement, etc like a deaf parent, and I use and audio monitor too to physically see the sounds. This makes me 1000x more functional and responsive.

As for not feeling the “connection” (yet!), that is textbook post-partum and again, super normal. Your guilt/anger/depression at lacking that connection, feeling lonely and unsupported - these are textbook normal things. Newborn parenting is fucking hard. In pre-history infant mortality was crazy and there was 10 adults per newborn, we’re not meant to do any of this. If you exit this with 30 fingers and toes you’re smashing it. I think in time you’ll be able to enjoy it once you are sleeping, eating, and not completely overwhelmed. It could be years, but you know that. In the mean time, wish you (and I) luck to surviving…

You will bond with the kid later, not now. I think its pretty common for dads to connect much later. You didnt carry the kid so you have no connection yet.

Give it time but also stop doing all unnecessary work. You cant emotionally connect if you are always tired and you associate the kid only with screaming in the background.

First, get some help. If your mom can come and just do something, anything then you’ll have a moment to breathe.

The first three weeks are the absolute hardest. Its not that things get magically easier, just everyone involved levels up. It gets easier again at 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months and then their personality really starts to shine.

I felt something right away. Definitely peak experience. But I don’t think it helped with the difficulty of the first three weeks. What did help is the in-laws coming for a couple of weeks after the first month.

By month three, sleep was still an issue, but things were much, much easier.

Get help. Get a meal train. Prioritize and let the less important things go.

From what I read your wife suffers from depression, correct? From what I read between the lines, she already did before she got pregnant, correct?

And considering how experienced you seem with taking over and keeping everything together, that’s probably what you have been doing for years already?

That’s quite a common pattern, and it’s one that can only remain stable for a certain amount of time. She’s depending a lot on you, you pick up the slack and carry her burden. That works well without kids when the only responsibilities are to spend enough time at work, but it becomes very troublesome with a small kid, where the workload is too much even for two fully-functioning adults.

This can drive you in a kind of caregiver burnout. You go beyond your limits for too long, and after some time you just don’t have the power to continue that way and smile through it. Depression spreads and good things diminish. That’s at least what I read between your lines.

This is the point where you need to get help. Find a better distribution of work with your wife. Rope in relatives (your mom seems to be invested) and get them to help you out, especially in these crucial first few months.

Pumping milk means that the baby isn’t necessarily tethered to your wife, so you can also get your mom to watch the kid for an evening or so, so that you two can get some rest.

Considering getting therapy yourself.

Try to recover before you burn out completely.

As for the feelings towards your child, don’t force it, give it time.

One thing that I feel hasn’t been addressed enough by the comments:

**Stay. The hell. Away. From. Social. Media. **

It is toxic, and will bring nothing but misery, jealousy, and insecurity.

We had ours late in life, so had the hindsight of having our circle of friends going through parenthood before us. You mentioned ‘social’ pressure, norms, expectations, etc. All of them are amplified 10x by social media, which presents an unrealistic, curated view of parenthood. Not to mention the 50 different ‘advice’ on what you ‘should’ do as a parent. (You should breastfeed or your baby will be a serial killer. No, just start with formula, it will make your life easier. No, you should give them organic goat milk to help them grow better).

We deleted all the apps just before the baby was born. It has now been a few years since we touched any of them (except FB Marketplace, because buying anything new is ridiculous. And, I guess, Lemmy). The only pictures you’ll find of our little one is in our family chat group. The only advice we’ll take are from the midwives and nurses that keep track of the baby’s growth, and has a 24h hotline for us to ask literally anything.

People you know, including parents, will give unsolicited advice. Feel free to listen to them, but know that most of the time you can tell them off or ignore them. This is your baby. Your family.

And feel free to ignore this advice from a stranger on Lemmy 🙂

Dad of a toddler with another on the way (mostly mentioning it because my experience with a newborn is relatively recent in memory). A lot to unpack here. First of all, breathe. It’ll be okay.

While it certainly sounds like having a kid wasn’t what you wanted and it probably wasn’t the right decision, it’s the one you made, so the focus now should be on how best to help you, your wife, and your child.

The good news is the absolute hardest part of raising a kid, especially your first, is the newborn stage. It gets a little bit easier with every week that passes. Sleep deprivation is a removed and frankly, I wouldn’t put too much stock in your emotions because in all likelihood, they are probably pretty out of wack right now. I remember inexplicably sobbing at 3 in the morning (while trying to get my son back to sleep) because I was so tired. It made no sense, but I was just exhausted.

As for the crying, it may not help you, but I find it helpful to recognize a baby crying for what it actually is: a communication tool. In fact, it’s the one of the only communication tools a newborn has. When they cry, they are doing their job and telling you they have a need that needs to be met. So instead of getting irritated when they cry, you basically just run through a checklist of possible things they need, and try them out until you figure out what it is they needed. Fortunately the list of things they need at this stage are pretty simple: it’s almost always food, sleep, or possibly a diaper (my son did not care one bit about dirty diapers though, heh). Sometimes it also might be something else like overstimulation. But it’s never really inexplicable and you can learn their specific cues to more quickly narrow down what they need. You can also often prevent crying by paying attention to their non-verbal communication before they start crying: e.g, a baby will do things like rooting or sticking out their tongue when they are hungry well before they start crying for food, or get pinkness around their eyes when they are tired.

You absolutely should first and foremost try to get whatever help you can get from family and friends, if you can. It helps immensely to have a support system to lean on, even if it’s something as simple as helping with cleaning or just giving you guys a break (especially important to make time for each other, too).

As for bonding, this is going to sound a bit odd, but it’s really worth trying. Something they teach you in childbirth classes is that spending extended amounts of time doing skin to skin contact with your baby (so shirt off for you, diaper only for the baby) is really valuable for bonding (even for dads), and from personal experience I can say this is true. I did it a number of times in my son’s first few weeks and it definitely made a difference. It’s basically a chemical effect on you and your baby’s brain chemistry and it is pretty powerful. It’s also the same for mothers and babies and it’s why hospitals will have mother and baby do immediate skin contact as soon as they are born. I think it really helps you appreciate what it is that you have now.

The other thing is that your relationship with your kid is something that grows with time, especially as they get older and more interactive. It takes a few months for them to start smiling and laughing at you, and honestly once they do (and you can make them laugh), it’s a game changer. It’s so much fun, and just gets more fun as they get older.

As for your wife, you may already know this, but she’s likely experiencing post-partum depression. What she’s feeling are real feelings, but likely not based on anything rational. Human brains are just weird little things. Massive hormonal changes really fucks with brain chemistry and makes a lot of new moms have really uncharacteristic mood and behavior. Her system has been flooded with all sorts of shit for the last 9 months and giving birth is where it all comes crashing down. It’s not uncommon to prescribe anti-depressants temporarily to help new moms until things start to balance out again. Also, she should really get off TikTok/Instagram. That shit is toxic as fuck and WILL make you unhappy.

And, if it helps: there’s so much garbage information out there for new parents and it’s really fucking hard to figure out what’s good advice or not. Here’s the real deal about breastfeeding: it is by no means a requirement. Not even close. Yes, it has some benefits if you can do it, and it’s worth trying. But it is massively, and I mean MASSIVELY overblown on the internet. Pumping is perfectly fine, and many mothers do it exclusively (my sister-in-law mostly did, in fact). Formula is also perfectly fine. And a baby falling asleep while eating is REALLY FUCKING NORMAL, especially after they are just born! That being said, it can be helpful to try to start a pattern of offering food as soon as they wake up, if you aren’t already, since they’ll be most alert then and more likely to get more milk that way.

Part of being a new parent is learning to tune all that stupid shit out and make decisions for your baby based solely on what your pediatrician says and your own judgement. Even your own parents’ advice should be taken with a huge grain of salt, both because their experience is very out of date (AAP recommendations have changed a lot over the years) and they can’t remember what it was actually like very well. It’s something I wish I could go back and tell our past selves.

And props to her on the milk supply, that’s no easy feat. Guard it well and try not to waste any of it, because overproduction is typically only temporary until her body adjusts to your baby’s actual needs. Always try to restock what you use as much as possible. Oh, and keep an eye out for mastitis (clogged milk ducts that get infected). It’s super easy to get in the initial period of overproduction, because the breasts are frequently fuller than the baby actually needs, and prolonged full breasts can clog easily. Mastitis can easily burn through your supply (it can make it so the baby can’t easily get milk, and it takes time to clear up with antibiotics).

Anyway, hang in there. Newborns are the hardest and it does get a lot easier and more fun/rewarding.

You started your post by saying you didn’t want kids. That’s why you’re struggling. Your wife made you go against your values and now you have a huge responsibility.

I don’t care for people in their larval stages either. I’ve never found babies cute and the sound of crying makes me angry, not sympathetic

What is fun though, is experiencing the world fresh through their eyes as they get older and develop the ability to communicate, and shifting some goals and focus to create great experiences for them

5 kids is fucking crazy though especially in the world today, Jesus

Believe it or not, that’s not an uncommon feeling. Evolutionary wise, there’s no particular reason for the dad to bond with the baby. It’s completely dependent on mum. What we get is often a spillover for the drive to get mum to bond.

I was lucky and had that bond kick in quite quickly, but it’s ok if it doesn’t. Likely it will kick in around 6 months, as the baby becomes more “interesting”. Until then, be a good husband.

It’s also worth noting that you are entering peak “emergency mode”. Right now the baby is completely dependent on you. It hasn’t settled down into a routine, and you are running low on sleep. They combine to utterly screw with your head.

The mentality that got me through that zone was this: mum looks after the baby, I look after mum. I made sure she had regular meals. That she had time for a shower. That she could have a coherent night sleep.

Something that might help is to sniff your baby’s head. Babies put off powerful pheromones, designed to reinforce the bonds. Unfortunately, not everyone has active pheromone receptors. If you do though, that smell is like crack cocaine.

In short, you’re doing well. Baby is safe and cared for, and you’re doing your share of that work. Anything else is a bonus.

Struggling to find a connection is normal for a first-time dad. As I get bigger and they start taking on attributes you’ll find there a reflection of you and that’s really cool and it’s really rewarding to see your energy that you put into a child bloom and grow.

I’ve always felt like living with the grandparents and uncles/aunts was a key component of making child-raising bearable. Two people isn’t enough for one baby.