There are plenty of things when you become a parent that are considered taboo. There are also a lot of things that used to be taboo that are now common place in conversation. One of the biggest things I feel every dad should know before a baby is born is also one of the biggest things most dudes don’t care to admit. When it comes to bonding with baby, guess what? You may not fall in love with your baby at first sight.
Everybody tells you the fairytale. You will have this overwhelming feeling of love, affection, and all these warm and fuzzy feelings hit you like a brick to the face as soon as the doctor hands you your baby for the first time.
Sorry guys.
I am here to tell you that you may not be the one who feels all the warm and fuzzy feelings everyone says you’re going to.
Excited to meet our little girl, I listened to everyone. “You just wait until you hold that little girl for the first time.” Everything I read, everything I heard told me the same semi-truck of emotions I was going to feel. I believed this is how I was supposed to feel.
When the doctor handed me our baby for the first time I didn’t feel that way. I had built up so much pressure on myself to feel it that when I didn’t, it was almost heartbreaking. I felt like I was doing something wrong.
It wasn’t until much later, like weeks later, when I mention this to somebody else that I had an ephiphany. I was not the only one who wasn’t cross checked into the boards with warm and fuzzy emotions the first time they held their baby.
This is not to say that all the feels didn’t happen relatively quickly. And, to be honest, I don’t know that I can give you the exact moment where I absolutely fell in love with my daughter. But, any new dad’s out there who are feeling like they aren’t bonding with baby and are feeling guilty, upset, or worse like they are doing something wrong – hang in there it’ll happen.
For some of us it is not seconds after your close encounter. And that’s ok.
Some dads do feel that feeling immense feeling, and cheers to you if you do. I want you to know, you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t feel it instantly. I mean let’s be honest not all of us had the warm and fuzzies over the Cubbies winning the World Series, yet you expect everybody to respond exact same way? Probably not going to happen.