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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Moms, advice needed
DD1 is 22 months old. I'm not sure if she's going thru early-onset terrible 2's or has a serious case of separaton anxiety. She's very needy and acts out a lot when H is around. And she throws a screaming fit when she doesn't get what she wants from H. She always wants to be picked up and cuddled and carried around by him. When it's just us, though, she's chill. She plays on her own and interacts with DD2. Also, whenever she's in a social situation where there are other kids, she acts clingy. Yesterday, we took her to the Children's Museum. She had fun but she'd only play if H was next to her, and she didn't interact with other kids. I made a comment to MH that we're raising a socially awkward child. She's not in daycare but she goes to Gymboree and swim class, so she's getting some socialization. I'm thinking probably putting her in school would somehow correct this behavior? I don't know; and H is not on board with this idea. Any advice?
Re: Moms, advice needed
I'm pretty sure I suck at parental advice, but all I can tell you is that Lily has been in daycare since she was 12 weeks old, and she has had random clingy phases all throughout. I thought one advantage of being a daycare kid was the socialization, but honestly, she can be more clingy/less outgoing than a lot of the stay at home kids she sometimes plays with. I'm thinking she's got a more reserved personality, and that's just who she is :-)
More relevant to your point, though, is that particularly when she was in the late toddlers/2s room, she went through a really hard core clingy to mom phase. More to me than with DH. She cried every single day when I dropped her off, for weeks. It was horrible and it came out of no where, like someone flipped a switch. Then one day, it was flipped back and she just stopped with the tears and waved good bye. Ages and stages, baby.
Hope it passes quickly
My silly Lily is almost 4.
To be completely honest, it sounds like very typical behavior. Most kids don't actually interact while playing until around 2-2.5. Parallel play is an okay thing. Q has been in school since 2.5 and I would say even at school he wouldn't always interact, until at least the 2nd half of the year. She'll be good.
my read shelf:
Once again, I have to wonder if my DS and your DD are somehow related and we're unaware of it. This is exactly how DS is around DH. When he is home he HAS to have all of his attention and will follow him around crying and acting dejected until he picks him up. It drives DH crazy because it makes it difficult to get ready in the mornings or accomplish things while DS is awake at night because he wants to be held the whole time.
As for not having much of an interest in playing with other kids, DS is this way too, but so are most of the toddlers I know. Our nanny gets DS together with other kids his age a few times a week for impromptu play dates, but the kids spend most of their time enjoying playing with each others toys instead of actually interacting with each other. I think that this is one of those developmental things that will go away with time.
Perhaps she is just a little bit timid. It could be a phase or she could just be a naturally more introverted person who feels most comfortable with people she knows well. I'd try not to worry about it too much. She's so young still and it sounds like you are doing all of the right things to give her opportunities to develop her social skills. You just have to keep reassuring yourself that just because she doesn't react in a situation the way other kids around her are doesn't mean that there's something wrong with her. If you want you can get down and play with her in parallel with other kids and try to involve the other kids in your play too, you can help her get started practicing group play.