Okay, I love Megan. At present, she is the center of my universe and you cannot tell me differently. But, occasionally, I'd like a little break. A small break. Maybe 15 minutes to myself in the bath while Daddy holds/plays with her. And Daddy does want to hold her and spend time with her...but he quickly becomes discouraged when I hand her over to him and all she does is squeal and hold her arm out towards me.
If I attempt to leave the room, she steps it up to those ear piercing wails that make it completely impossible to relax.
It's not the same as her hungry cry. It's not the same as her fussy-tired cry. It's not the dirty-diaper-cry. It's not the oh-my-GOD!-where-did-my-doll-go?! cry. It's the remember-that-time-daddy-accidentially-pinched-my-thigh-in-the-carseat-
pain sort of cry. And it stops as soon as I come back into the room and take her back.
It's
not just her holding a grudge against daddy about that whole car seat incident either. It's anybody that tries to hold her for more than 2 minutes. (The first two minutes can be okay, but shortly there after the arm goes back out in my general direction and if she doesn't get me, the world is going to hear about it!)
When it first started - about three months ago - everyone told me it was a phase and I thought it was cute. It's still very endearing, but it's not getting my legs shaved! A part of me had also hoped to venture out into the world
without baby attached since she has started eating solid foods and can survive a few hours without a freezer full of milk being required. That's starting to feel like a distant dream though...
Did your children go through this extremely attached phase? How long did it last??
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Comments (14)
My daughter is in that phase, no one can really hold her without her flipping out. Even her daddy, except for when I work my two days a week her daddy watches her and she does fine, it takes a few minutes but i'm sure she just has to learn that mommy isn't always going ot hold her and sometimes daddy can and it won't kill her. The more times you sneak away the easier it'll be for her and her dad. Good luck!
Still in that phase with my 13 month old. I know just how you are feeling! We have been dealing with this for at least 5 months now. I'm thinking of getting a job soon and I'm so nervous about possibly having to leave her. I think she just might scream the entire time. I would love to know how long this phase will last as well.
I'm with the comment above. You must stop coming back in the room and "rescuing" her. Better yet, leave the house and stay gone for a couple of hours. And continue to do it until she realizes that dad can be fun too, and mommy will always return. She must also begin to understand that the world does not revolve around her. This is a good first step, but she won't learn that if you don't leave her with her father and other trusted people. She will learn just the opposite. The world not only revolves around me but if I scream long enough and loud enough I will always get my way...not something you really want her learning.
it sounds like you might just have to go the tough love rout. Sounds like she is a little spoiled.
I went through this with our f-son, and my mom told me to go out for coffee and let him work it out with her. I think the more you come back and rescue her, the harder it will get. Daddy might just have to find something that they can do together.
We also had a bath accident (at 20 months he slipped and went under the water, not his head tho, and scared himself silly) and our f-son would scream every time anyone other then mommy did his bath. As much as I wanted to take over and do it, I knew it was something the two of them had to work out. It took about a month but now they are fine, and he loves the tub again.
Although I sort-of agree with the above comments about not rescuing her so much, I know just how hard that can be. It doesn't make anyone happy if you're in one room listening to a screaming child in another. If you can actually leave the house, it'll be a lot easier for you.
My daughter was like this from about 13 months to 17 or 18 months. She still is sometimes, but not near as bad. What helped was that we left her at my in-laws for a few days and nights at a time. I actually just started work again (today) and left my daughter at daycare. She had a lot of fun but I'm nervous for the day she just screams for me again.
Good luck, and honestly, I think the phase will pass. But "phases" can last a long time! :)
You will miss it in a few years time. Just enjoy while it lasts.
my son was that way until i put him in a play little class. he was 3. now he's so independent he doesn't care if i'm not around. nobody in my family can believe how much he has changed. they thought it was going to be a nightmare his first day of kindergarten.
My children are 4, 3, and 1, and are all still in that phase! Ok, well, the older 2 are getting better, but still prefer me most of the time, and won't go with anyone they don't know REALLY well. The best thing to do to get a break, is (if your husband can handle it) leave the house. She probably won't scream for too long, but when she knows you are in the other room, and she screams, and you'll come back out (I do the same thing, though, it's too hard to listen to that scream), she'll just continue.
We went through the phase a little bit after our move. We chalked it up to a little transition phase but man it was hard. I couldn't use the bathroom without him attached. Sometimes though I do miss it. Now he only screams "uppy" when he wants something off the kitchen counter.
I can't really say what to do. We just told our son not right now or in a little bit and everytime he cried we would try to "ignore" the situation so he didn't think crying was how he got what he wanted.
This phase will pass then you will go into the "no" or "why" phase...good luck
i agree with the commenters who say you need to leave. make sure you always say goodbye though or baby might be anxious that anytime you leave a room you are going away.
it is comfort issue. your daughter is more comfortable with you because you take care of her more than daddy does. my suggestion would be that daddy take her out for a walk while you get to shower and shave. they need to start bonding together. this is going to be hard on daddy but i really think it needs to be done. for your sanity... :)
My son went through the I need Mommy and only Mommy phase, too. He is almost 2 and is quickly outgrowing it. The thing that has helped us so much is me saying, "Mommy is going to take a shower, stay with Daddy and I'll be right back." Then he says, "Okay," and he understands that I'm coming back. I always give an explanation and even if he cried at first I would stay away for a little while to teach him that when Mommy goes away, she comes back. It helped us to play peek-a-boo around a door, too. I would walk out and if he would panic, I would jump back into view and shout peek-a-boo! I would do that a few times and he would calm down then be more comfortable playing with whoever was in the room with him.
I think it's really important to be there for your daughter. This phase WILL NOT last forever. Soon you'll have a teenager who doesn't want to look at you so try to be strong and find joy in these moments. I don't think that you have to abandon her with daddy to move her out of this phase. Love on her and let her know that you'll be back and practice it when you aren't about to go crazy!
@Traci_Ladd@xanga - Thanks for that! :) I do feel badly "abandoning" her with daddy (or other relatives) and I don't think a lot of people realize quite how hard she can cry or for how long...or how young she is (7 1/2 months...I should have put that in my original post, but took for granted that the majority of people that visit me already know that. D'oh! LOL). I was reading the other day that she's just now starting to understand "object permanance"; that just because something has gone out of sight, doesn't mean that it's gone for good. Perhaps that has played into as well.
@chosenandblessed@xanga - Aside from what Traci said, we've started sitting together on the couch with Megan in the middle. Then I'll get up and go to the kitchen for a snack or glass of water; something quick, while she stays sitting with daddy. It seems like it's helping. It's still a fairly new concept in our household so who knows, but she's freaking out less and less.
The 'walk away and let them cry it out' thing seems to work for a lot of people...just not me. :)
I remember watching one of those nanny shows on tv where the woman had the exact same problem. Every time she left the house or the dad tried to give the kids a bath or read a book with them, or the mom tried to get some alone time, they would SCREAM until she came to rescue them. In her case, it turned out that the problem was that she was coming to "rescue" them. Kids shouldn't need "rescuing" from their own father. Yet she was unknowingly conveying the attitude that daddy was something they needed to be rescued from. She was doing this by rolling her eyes or making comments to the father like "they're crying because you're getting soap in their eyes. If you just washed their hair like THIS they would be fine. Now move over." Then she'd take over the bath or the book or whatever it was so she could do it "right" and end all the screaming. The kids were mistakenly getting the message that daddy didn't do things right and mommy did and so they'd start screaming the minute daddy tried to do things for them. It also turned out the mom, even though she hated it, fed off of it, i.e. was secretly flattered by it. So she would say things like "oh, my poor baby, did you miss your mommy?" thus reinforcing their screaming behavior. I'm not saying this is the precise problem in your house or anything, but maybe it's the case that every time you come into the room and take her back, you're only reinforcing that behavior, in essence, reassuring her that she did need her mommy all along. She should learn to be just as content with daddy! As hard as it is, I would definitely let her cry it out, wait to come back into the room until she stops thinking about you and starts calming down around her daddy. Kids may scream for hours on end, but they won't scream forever. Then come back in when she is happy or content. Every time you do this she will probably cry for shorter and shorter periods.Â