The young mother leaned over her plate and said conspiratorially, "I wasn't one of those mothers who instantly fell in love with my daughter. It took a good couple of weeks before I felt connected to her. Did you feel that way?"

I was, admittedly, a little taken aback. Not so much by what this new mom was saying, but by the fact she was saying it to me – after all, we'd just met minutes before having been seated at the same table at a wedding reception. But her confession is one with which many new mothers struggle. Most assume that a bond with their newborn will be forged instantly, but it doesn't always happen that way. Why is it that some new moms don't bond right away? And how can they traverse this difficult emotional territory?

Difficulty bonding is more common than people think, says Dr. Sharon Fried Buchalter, a clinical psychologist, family and marriage therapist and author of New Parents Are People Too: 8 Secrets to Surviving Parenthood as Individuals and as a Couple (Greenleaf Book Group, 2007). "It may not be all wine and roses, as is sometimes portrayed on television," she says. "This difficulty bonding can cause the new mother to get anxious and feel like she's a bad mother, which can make the situation even worse."

"Bonding isn't instantaneous," says Dr. Laurie Zelinger, a child psychologist in Long Island, N.Y., and an adjunct clinical supervisor at Pace and St. John's Universities. "Like glue takes time to dry in order to hold things together, the parent/infant relationship takes time as well."

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