Please don't worry. This is absolutely normal.
About a third of mothers don't instantly bond with their babies [1]. Babies are hard work, especially at first, and if you don't happen to get the ‘fall in love’ hormone cocktail it can feel a bit upsetting at the beginning.
Allow yourself some time. As long as you are doing the right things for your baby, looking after him properly and giving him lots of cuddles, the love will come.
Something that can help bonding is plenty of skin-to-skin contact. Strip the baby down to his nappy, take your top and bra off, and lay the baby down between your breasts and over your belly. Put a blanket over the two of you if it's cold. When you have the baby there, experience him with all of your senses. Smell his head, touch his tiny fingers and toes, look into his eyes.
Do this as often as you can, for as long as you can, and encourage the father to do it too.
Another thing that can help is to start making the baby part of your normal life. Take him out shopping with you, go for walks and show him the world, introduce him to people who will be part of his life. Do this to the extent that it helps - I don't want you to feel overwhelmed and that you have to be out all the time, but if you're usually an active, gregarious person it may help you to know that you can be active and gregarious with your baby in tow.
I would be happy for you to message me if you'd like to discuss this further. If that would be helpful for you, let me know and I will change my message settings to accommodate.
Edit: Much to my surprise, I've been asked to back up the statement about skin to skin contact. This is so well known in my country, and indeed so intuitive, that it didn't occur to me that some people might find the suggestion outlandish. Here are some links:
The Importance of Skin to Skin Contact
The Baby Friendly Initiative | Research | Skin-to-skin contact
Footnotes
[1] One third of new mothers struggle to bond with their baby, research shows
Read other related questions on Quora:
- I feel very little love for my newborn baby, and it makes me feel like an awful person. Is this common, and will it change?
- What is it like to cuddle a newborn baby in the first week of life?
- How does it feel to hold a two-minute-old newborn baby?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2ddpnxF
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