Rachel Pfitzner loathed her toddler son so much she sometimes locked the sobbing, hungry boy outside, where he yelled: "Mummy, mummy, I am sorry".
Her callous mistreatment of Dean Shillingsworth culminated in October 2007, when she murdered the two-year-old, stuffed his little body in a suitcase, wheeled it in a pram to a Sydney pond and tossed it into the water.
On Wednesday in the NSW Supreme Court, Pfitzner nodded as Justice Robert Allan Hulme jailed her for at least 19 years and two months.
Earlier, she'd wiped away tears as he outlined the tragedy.
"Dean was entitled to love, protection and nurture but instead she took away his very life," the judge said.
The 27-year-old had pleaded guilty to murdering her son at Rosemeadow, in Sydney's southwest, before dumping his body in the pond at nearby Ambarvale.
The toddler died of asphyxiation in a manner which has not been identified.
Outside the court, Dean's paternal relatives said justice had been done and they could now move on with their lives.
His great-uncle, Paul Shillingsworth snr, told reporters: "The best thing I can say today is go home and cuddle your kids".
In the weeks before his murder, Pfitzner did anything but cuddle her son, who she resented and believed was "unreasonably wilful and disobedient".
Justice Hulme concluded Pfitzner had come to loathe Dean because he reminded her of his father, Paul Shillingsworth jnr, "towards whom she held ambivalent feelings".
After Shillingsworth was jailed when his son was 12 months old, his mother, Ann Coffey, cared for Dean for some time, but Pfitzner did not return him after an access visit in July 2007.
On the day of his death, a court order was made for the little boy to be returned to his grandmother.
The judge noted that initially Pfitzner was pleased to have Dean with her, but the situation deteriorated.
"She punished him severely and frequently," he said.
"She sometimes banished him from the house, forcing him to stay outside in the cold.
"Dean was often hungry and would forage for food but she punished him for doing so.
"He was not completely toilet trained but the offender blamed him for that."
The little boy would seek his mother's affection, but this would cause her to become angry as she thought he was "being overly clingy".
Neighbours heard him repeatedly crying out "Mummy, mummy, I am sorry", when he was locked out of the house.
Pfitzner, the eldest of seven children, grew up in Mt Druitt, in Sydney's west, had limited education and, when in year five, stabbed a girl with a pencil resulting in serious injury.
The judge accepted she had a "severe borderline personality disorder", but was not satisfied she had any mental condition that reduced her moral culpability.
The killing was not planned, but the judge concluded she gave in to her anger and deliberately set about causing Dean really serious bodily harm on October 11, 2007.
"Dumping the child's body in the duck pond was a further sign of loathing for him," he said.
"(Her) behaviour in maintaining a false account of Dean's whereabouts to friends, family and the police over the course of the following week was calculated and callous."
Since being taken into custody after her arrest, Pfitzner had been disciplined for her behavior.
In a letter she wrote to Shillingsworth from jail, she told him of her third charge for "knocking people out".
She admitted punching a girl, breaking her nose and giving her a black eye, adding: "The slut deserved it".
The judge set a maximum term of 25 years and six months.
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