Hello all… I haven’t posted for a long time. In fact I think it was before I went back to work, while I was still on maternity leave. I posted while my son was still a wriggly little baby. He’s now a big, bull-in-a-China-shop toddler, running around, chatting away and always on the beg for food.

When he was tiny he even refused to look at me. But he’d meet the gaze of his dad or grandparents just fine. Even his uncles. Just not me. He’d be perfectly happy cooing away and babbling when they held him or gave him kisses. If I tried he’d start crying and struggling to get away unless I had a bottle of milk for him. I tried and tried, despite feeling unwanted - I still kept trying to cuddle him and kiss him, do tummy-time with him including having him lay on me, playing with him and his toys, interacting with him and so on… was always more interested in anyone else being around him than me, struggling to get away and not even wanting to look at me.

Well he’s not quite that bad now but I still definitely feel like if I were to up and leave he wouldn’t even notice. I did have PP depression but I was aware of it, I was given medication and I was trying to make the extra effort to play and stuff so he wouldn’t pick up on it.

He will look at me now but obviously as he’s gotten older he’s become more self aware and you tend to look in the direction you hear a noise or your name, or if someone’s talking directly to you. But he won’t interact back and once he realises it’s me, unless I’m holding something he wants, he’ll look away again or go back to what he was doing.

He’ll constantly ask for “daddy?” all day long. Only if I have something he wants and I’m doing something or won’t give it to him I might be lucky enough to get a “muuuum?” but it’s few and far between. He just knows who I am but doesn’t run to me and ask to be picked up or cuddled or kissed like his dad, uncles and grandparents. He’ll run away from me in fact if I hold my arms out to him when I go to collect him after work for example.

My husband and I both work full time. When we are both working our son stays with his grandparents. When one of both of us are off, he stays at home with us … like today, I’m off so I have him here with me.

My husband works between 08:00-17:00 5 days a week. The days can change and include weekends but the time is always 08:00-17:00. So he always gets to either pick our son up and bring him home or come home in the evening and spend time with him before he goes to bed.

I have no fixed days, no fixed shift hours etc. One day I might have to go and open my place at 6am and not leave till 15:00, the next I might have to close it and do 15:00-23:30 and then another manager might have gone sick and I’ll have to come home for like 3 hours to go out the door again and go back for 5/6am again. If I run the morning shift and finish at 15:00 I will pick up my son and bring him home. If I run mid I tend to meet my husband at his parents house and we both bring our son home, but if I run the closing shift I won’t get home until 01:30am at the earliest.

So my son definitely sees his dad more as well as his grandparents and uncles who both finish work in the early afternoon and both still live at home. I’ve been back at work for 9 months now so I don’t think it’s just that - because I was with him 24/7 when I was on mat leave up until he was 10 months old and it’s the same, he’s just bigger.

I love this little boy. I’m always telling him “mummy loves you” and trying to cuddle him, asking him for cuddles, giving him kisses, asking him for kisses, sharing my food with him and getting him treats i know he likes if I take him out, I try to play with him and use his toys to try and interact with him, run around with him and talking to him, tickling him and stuff… He just really really doesn’t seem interested when it’s me doing it and seems to get cross after a while. I feel like giving up.

I guarantee when my husband gets home later, our son will smile, shout “Daaaddy!!!” and run to him with open arms wanting to be picked up and will cry if my husband puts him down for even 10 seconds to take off his coat. If it were me, all I get is a “oh it’s you, is it?” 😒 look.

😞