Need advice from other adoptive parents on how long it takes to feel a bond

This is so tough. I hope I'm wrong.. I've come to realize that you either like them, or you don't. If you aren't just taken by him by now, you may never be. You can't make yourself like a child. I have a friend who adopted a little boy only to find out half way thru he had a sister, older. They did some visits, and liked her enough. She wasn't was they really had in mind, but felt time would help. It's been 3.5 years since they adopted. Neither her or her husband can stand the girl. She's 12 now. She says she finds herself coming up with anything to keep away from the girl. She lets the girl stay at friends just about whenever. Her and her husband find they spend a lot of time in their bedroom, hours a day, just so they don't have to be near her, hear her talk. I also was placed with a little girl, 12 months. Adorable! I just didn't like her. I tried for 2 years to convince myself she was perfect. That I would be proud someday to say she was my daughter, and I her mother. In the end, I was annoyed by everything she did. She just wasn't right for our family. You somehow just know when its right. When it's right, it's perfect.. almost love at first sight. Goodluck with everything. What a hard decision to have to make.

It takes time. Sometimes there is an instant connection and sometimes there isn't. Doesn't mean it won't ever be there. I think that in some ways boys are harder to get a connection to if your interest and his are far apart(which it sounds like). All of us have expectations about how adopting a child will feel like and what we expect for ourselves in terms of connection, feelings of love for and that maternal caring instinct. The truth is that there isn't one path for those feelings and connections, so we have to throw our ideas out the window and forge a new path. You have to bring him into your world. He sounds exactly like my step-nephew. He came to live with my sister and BIL at about the same age. He had no manners, wanted to sit and play video games 24/7 and only ate hot dogs and chips. We all disliked him.He was abrasive and would say whatever was in his head. Overtime, she taught him manners, how to engage in other things and even changed his diet so that he will eat almost anything. We saw big changes within 6 months and now after a year, he's very different. He has lost 40 lbs, joinedthe band at school, and is loveable! If your son is addicted to video games, work out a chart for video time. Limit it. Limit any TV, computer, etc, time where he is isolated. Get the two boys together to figure out things you can all do together. Instead of TV, play a board game. I know he'll roll his eyes. So what. Get the kids to help plan meals and work on making them. Have a Friday night pizza and movie night. You might not be thrilled to see Spirited Away, Tron, or Star Wars, but just by being there and interacting, you are making bonds. Any time you can get out and do something together, do it. Zoo, arboretum, pool, splash park, hiking, mall(even if it's window shopping), museums, etc. Anything you do together, will help strenghtening the bond between all of you.

So what happened with the 12 month old girl you were placed with? Was it an adoptive placement, or were you fostering? Did you disrupt the adoption?

Thanks for your reply and your advice, CaddoRose. I know the things I should do--like spending more time with him and being more affectionate, but it can be awfully hard when I find him so annoying. I realize though, that we can't even begin to bond if I don't give him a chance. And it has been getting better; we've been doing more together and I'm trying to see past the behaviors and make myself like him. He really is hungry for attention and approval, and he badly wants to fit in and be part of the family. Hopefully it will turn out like your step nephew!

It definitely takes time. 2 years in, my bond is STILL growing. :hippie:

Congrats!Yes, totally normal. Little boys can be gross. Living with someone is different than seeing a pic on a website, or however you found out about him, and whether either of you is thinking about it, is probably terrifying in some profound ways. So you're both probably hiding your true feelings *from yourselves* and from each other, at this time. It's a time for stilted behaviors on both parts. Normal normal normal.Wait a while. When he gets settled in, his behavior will probably worsen. At that point you *still* may not love him. OK, probably won't. You'll probably wonder if you were completely insane to try this. HOWEVER, if you hang in there, and are a good/ great/ adequate/ overwhelmed / upset / happy / trying hard to improve... in short, *normal* parent... he will eventually improve across the board.Normal. But harder than you'd ever have imagined, right? Way harder. I have a child in my home now who lived in my home when he was 7 for a while. Sent back to bio-parents for 5.5 more years of abuse. Now 12. I suppose I love him in a theoretical sense, but the damage and horrible habits he has: he is so passive-aggressive, it's a wonder I haven't given up already. He is also *horribly* depressed. I can be up 3 hours, working and feeling happy and contented, he gets up, 15 minutes later I feel like poking my brain out with a stick. Then I think, "Oh, contact depression." I swear to GOSH if you ask him to do *anything* that he thinks is beneath him (read, any chore etc.) he will mess it up. Just to try to get you to just do it yourself next time. Aarrgghh!! Aarrgghh!! Aarrgghh!!Annoying ain't the half of it!Yep. Feel that on regular basis here. Sigh. I know I'll live. Look! I'm still alive 4 months later! Sigh.You need to put the kibosh on those video games, as much as you can. Not *now* necessarily. He needs some retreat from this big change in his life, just to go into that mindless space. And no solution as to timing is 100%, but at least try to get him doing other things.After saying that, I realize that kids have to go cold turkey on that stuff at my home, there's no TV, kids don't get Internet, and zero video games. All that stuff puts us in our limbic or reptilian brains. Children in foster care have already spent too much time in those brains... they need to get moving, thinking, etc.I'd be wondering same thing. Only you will be able to figure that out, and only in time. I vote for continuing to try with this child. At least thru month 6, when at least where I am, they may push for adoption decision. He still hasn't really acted out yet. Get some shared experiences under your belt, like beach, water park, plays, classes, parks, camping, different things. Oh, and read "How to Talk to Children So They Will Talk, How to Talk so They Will Listen". It will help. And think about how you'd feel if you were him. At his age. Might shed some insight as to his process. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the good advice--I really needed the support! Just knowing I'm not the only one going through this sort of thing really helps. It is slowly getting better and I'm feeling more connected to him. I've read a lot of varied opinions about disrupting the birth order--I'd read both sides of the argument, but I had figured that it didn't matter whether I adopted older or younger than my birth son, he was going to lose his place as oldest, youngest and only! In retrospect, I really should have heeded the advice and preserved my birth son's place as the oldest child. I think the conflict and antipathy between the boys is a big part of my aggravation. The best advice I've had so far is to 'fake it till you make it.' Very hard to do, but it definitely helps. Now if only I can make these two boys like each other!!!

My oldest moved in almost 3 years ago. We connected pretty well as parents and child, but I'd say it was about a year before he really viewed my younger biological children as his siblings. Now they fight, play together, and support each other, just like I did with my brothers growing up.Not to say that I don't find him annoying! One of the hardest things for me was seeing past the annoying, attention getting behaviours and trying to connect to the child beneath. I love him all the time, but darn it sometimes it's hard to like him. On the plus side, a lot of the attention seeking behaviours have diminished as he's became more comfortable in our family and when they do pop up due to stress, we can identify them and redirect them quickly.

We got our oldest son at age 4. We had placement of his sisters when we found out he was still in foster care. Our bond with him was fragile at best for a long time. We did adopt him because we felt we had to adopt them at that point. He is now 16 and while he can still be annoying, we are bonded with him and proud of how hard he has worked and still works to overcome his rough start and his Aspergers.

Hi! I'll be honest: I've gone through a situation similar to what you're describing. And it's not easy. I found with my first foster/adopted daughter that the first year was incredibly hard, not only because of the routines, behaviors, rules, expectations, etc.---the visible stuff---but because of the weird emotional place we were in with each other. We didn't know each other well enough to love each other. My first daughter was old enough at the time of placement (7) to put up *huge* walls and obstacles to my getting close enough to her to take care of her (which I think speeds of those feelings of love), unlike when a newborn "moves in" and just needs you so much, practically every minute of every day. And the liking wasn't there either: we were always rubbing each other the wrong way, not knowing what the other meant by what they said, not able to read each other's nonverbal cues. And we didn't share a temperament: she's athletic, quick, social, and determined, whereas I'm very cerebral, introspective, and rather shy. Then, with my second daughter, who moved in 10 years after my first, the sibling stuff was added on top of the dyadic stuff between just her and I. And, oh boy!, on so many days, for so many months, I felt I had made just about the dumbest mistake in the world by enlarging our family. Daughter 1 thought I'd ruined her life and told me about it repeatedly, often letting Daughter 2 overhear how much she hated having her as a new sister (even though she'd been begging for a younger sister for years). And Daughter 2 couldn't stop telling everyone how mean her new/older sister was to her and how she didn't belong with us. Ugh. We're 11 months into being a family of three now, and we're starting to jell, finally. This has been helped by big chunks of time where my oldest daughter has been able to vacation or travel with friends and their families so that she can forget about the stresses of having a new (difficult) sibling, which in turn has given me what we jokingly call lots of "Motherly Daughterly" time for my newest/younger daughter and I to spend together (sometimes, honestly, pretending that my first child doesn't exist---sounds horrible, I know, but it's what my newest daughter needs). It's especially hard, I think, to pull it off as a single parent, where it's so acutely obvious that when you're spending time with one child, you're not spending it with the other. And when they're both needing your attention, well, you just have to set priorities and choose one over that other, and that just stinks! However, it's not fatal. And both of my daughters are learning how to be good sisters---something neither of them had the chance to do previously (emphasis on the "good," because they both were members of large sibling groups in their birth families, but no one had the resources to teach them how to be a good sibling). But you'll know best what works for you and your family. Honor that. My best to you!

Sorry, I'm a little late to this. The best advise I got was when I asked someone how long to bond and she told me it didn't really start until 18 months. That gave me the will to hang in there. I even had the same doubts, my daughter on the surface is adorable, I wondered if I were the right choice. I still wonder that. I wondered if there were better parents for her etc. and because I didn't like her that well. Sometimes I doubt my own feeling for her now. Just tonight she asked me if I loved her. I'm not sure she fully understands what that means. When you know you love them is when you realize how much you would miss them if they were really gone, I don't mean" I wish I had my old life back" gone, I mean really gone. So there came a point where I just said you have to have faith that God made the real decision. However, I'm not sure about the faking it idea. She did that with me, telling me she loved me right away etc. and I could tell it wasn't real. Maybe they don't want to love us right off, maybe they need time to heal and you just have to let some things come naturally in their own time. Maybe it is okay not to bond easily, albeit difficult.