I’m scared I’ve pushed my first child away without realising it

My son is in Primary 2 now, and I realised that I don’t really know how to have a proper heart-to-heart conversation with him. We talk, obviously. He tells me things. But I don’t feel like I’m the person he naturally comes to when he’s upset, confused, or just needs someone to listen. And I think… maybe I played a big part in that When I had my first child, I really wanted to be the “perfect mother”. Especially now, when information is literally everywhere. You can Google everything. There are parenting books, Instagram accounts, experts, podcasts, TikTok… for every little thing there’s always someone telling you what you’re supposed to do. And I consumed SO much of it. I always felt like I knew what I was supposed to do. If he did this, I knew how to respond. If he behaved that way, I knew what the “right” parenting approach was. I had routines, expectations, milestones, activities… everything. I thought I was being a very intentional mother. But looking back, I think I was also a very anxious mother 😭 Everything had to be done properly... I had this picture in my head of how my child should behave, how he should learn, how he should grow up. And whenever reality didn’t match that picture, I felt like I needed to fix it. I was always correcting. Guiding. Reminding. Managing. And somewhere along the way, I think I stopped listening to my own instincts. I became so dependent on all this information about what a “good parent” should do that I forgot to ask myself, What does my child actually need from me right now? Sometimes I feel like I was parenting from a manual. Like a robot who knew all the right things to say and do, but didn’t always know how to simply be there with her own child. And maybe my son felt that too. Our relationship sometimes feels like I have expectations of him, rather than truly knowing who he is. Now I’m pregnant with my second baby, due this December, although at this point, there’s a chance I might end up with a New Year baby 😂 And this pregnancy has made me think about all of this so much. I really don’t want to make the same mistakes with my second child. But I hope it’s not too late to change the way I relate to my first born, and I wish not to make the same mistake with my second...