When does being a parent start to feel normal?

You are home with your baby after months of anxious excitement and being uncomfortable from being pregnant. You are recovering from having just given birth, and you are learning all of the ins and outs of taking care of your baby now that you are home. You are still sleep deprived as you are up every few hours to feed the baby, but you are making it work. However, you do not feel like an actual parent.

Unsurprisingly, you probably feel like you’re simply surviving right now. You’re keeping yourself and your baby safe and fed, but that’s about it. You don’t have much energy for anything else and your emotions are all over the place. That’s totally normal. You’ve just been through a pretty incredible experience with pregnancy and birth, and your life has been totally flipped upside down now that you have a baby you’re responsible for.

Your emotions and feelings are going to take some time to actually settle down. Many mothers (and fathers) go through some pretty tough emotional experiences after birth. If you’re struggling to figure your emotions out and are feeling depressed, then seek professional help. While many parents can work through this on their own, there are many others that cannot - it’s absolutely okay to seek help if you need it.

The feeling that you're actually a parent will come differently to every single person. Some mothers and fathers feel this emotion pretty quickly after birth - perhaps it comes while holding your baby in the hospital, or when you’ve just gotten home and your baby falls asleep while you’re holding them. For others, it will take much longer for that feeling to come. Everyone is different in this regard.

If you’re struggling with your feelings, then keep working and participating in your baby’s life. The number one way to start feeling like a parent is to act like a parent. Just because you don’t feel like a parent doesn’t mean you should not help. While most mothers are heavily involved in their baby’s life from the start (simply due to breastfeeding and other responsibilities), fathers are more prone to not jump in.

You’re not going to feel like a parent if you don’t act like one, so get working. Your baby loves you, even if they don’t show it - they’re still a baby. Don’t act like you can’t be a parent because your baby doesn’t smile at you every minute. Those experiences and moments will come if you are putting in the time of parenting. You can’t expect that you’ll do nothing and then suddenly you’ll have all of the best parenting experiences.

There’s also a good chance that you won’t have a lightbulb moment where you suddenly recognize and feel you’re a parent. It will come to you over time, and as you look back, you’ll realize that you’ve grown into parenting. You’ll realize that all of the hours you’ve put in, the long nights and long days, the dirty diapers, and everything else, have led to you actually being a parent to your child.

Being a parent means acting like a parent. The feeling of being a parent will come as you take care of your child and perform the responsibilities which that entails. Keep working at it, and you’ll soon realize that you’ve been a parent the whole time.