As much as I love my little girl, I don’t think I was meant to be a mom. As far back as 5 years old I remember wanting to be a mom when I grew up. After several years of infertility my husband and I finally have a baby girl. I was always around babies and little kids growing up, so I thought I knew a thing or two about the patience necessary to have children. I was wrong. I have very little patience apparently.

My child listens to her dad without question. She pretends I don’t exist. When it’s time for bed if her dad rocks her, she’s out in minutes. If I try the same things he does, she still isn’t asleep 5 hours later. I try so hard to remember that she’s “just a baby” and now, “just a toddler”. She’s been like this since birth, I swear. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t get to bond with her after birth (literally no skin to skin. Wanted to breastfeed and made it known, the nurse kept giving her bottles) because I had a CSection.

I’m not trying to whine, but I feel like I’m at my wits end. My husband barely has time for us so I have little to no help most of the time. And because of Covid I can’t send her back to her sitter’s. I’m trying hard to be a good mom who is present for her child. I try to include her in as much as possible so that she feels included and like a big girl.

What makes it worse for me is when I’m around other people with her and my husband, I don’t feel like her mother at all. If she does something she’s not supposed to and I discipline her, I get 50 opinions about how that isn’t how I should raise my child. And of course my husband always somehow comes out looking like a perfect parent compared to me. I don’t spank her, I try not to raise my voice to her. I try to explain her actions to her in a way she’ll understand and why they were wrong. I’m also trying time outs now that she seems to understand them. I guess that’s wrong too. It’s not just discipline, it’s pretty much anything I do around other people. At the end of it, I don’t feel like her mother at all, I feel like the person who is being told how to raise someone else’s child.

Sometimes I do lose my cool and yell. Then I always feel like the shittiest person ever. I do apologize for my behavior, but she probably doesn’t understand.

Most of the time I’m miserable. Maybe from the lack of help. Or maybe this is postpartum depression? I know I’d never hurt her. Sometimes I try to imagine my life without her, like if I were to give her up for adoption, and I know I could never do that. The thought of her not being in my life is unbearable to me. I just don’t feel like I was meant to be a mom. My husband wants her to have a sibling and so do I, but I don’t know how I would even handle it. Tell me I’m not alone in this.