Dear Dr. Heather,

I’m writing to inquire about our 25-month-old grand-daughter and the attachment that she has to her mother.

Don't Take It Personally, Dad.

Her parents have been very responsive to her since her birth. Our toddler is easy with other people including her regular caregiver, grand-parents, other extended family and just about everyone else. The problem is that when her mother is around she has a strong preference for her, to the exclusion of most others. This happens about 60% of the time.

Her mother and father are gentle and kind and fun-loving. They respond to her emotions and explain the world to her. They are consistent with their house “rules” and explain the world to her so that things make as much sense as possible. She is a bright, articulate, inquisitive, active little girl and appears to be developing normally. Again, the problem is just that she clings to tenaciously to her mom. This is trying on her dad and also tiring for mom.

Any tips on how to reduce the clinging and increase her involvement with others when her mother is present?

Thanks very much.

Grandma
~~~~~~

Dear “Grandma”,

What you’re describing is the sign of a healthy attachment to her mother. Babies at this age have a hard time being in intense relationships with more than one person at a time. Strong parental preferences are COMMON. Unpleasant at times, inconvenient often, but COMMON and NORMAL, at this age. The first step is understanding it, the next step is rewarding her when she works well with her father, you, or other adults. She should be gently encouraged and praised for steps in the right direction, but never scolded if she prefers mom, since this will only work against you.

Your granddaughter is at a stage of venturing out into the world, and then coming back to her “base of comfort” as needed to “refuel”, emotionally. As she gains confidence this will naturally abate. Also, as she grows closer to age 3, she will be more curious about the different activities her father and you can share with her, and this will help too.

I can certainly relate, as I am currently on both ends of the preference spectrum with various of my own children. I’m top of the list with my 9-month-old and 4-year-old, and bottom of the totem pole with my 7 and 9-year-olds — Daddy is their current favorite. All of us need to be understanding about the temporary preferences that our children express — please don’t take it personally, nor should her father. Your time (and his) will come…I promise!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

See me on page 191

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

I haven’t been able to get much sleep over the past, say, 10 years or so (I keep having babies, what can I say) — and the pursuit of sleep, because of unwilling babies and toddlers, has become an obsession for me. Unfortunately, there’s no holy grail, but at least there’s a good explanation for it. As usual, I turn to the Fabulous Fraiberg for a little support over my sleepless children. I always get goosebumps when I reach the end of this section:

We began with a baby in the first month of life….His world was a chaos of undifferentiated sensation from which he slipped gratefully into the nothingness of sleep…

At 18 months this baby is traveling extensively and has acquired a small but useful vocabulary (just enough to get a meal and bargain with the natives). He has encountered some of the fundamental problems of the human race — the nature of reality, of subjective and objective experience, causality, the vicissitudes of love, and has made promising studies in each of these areas. We could easily forgive him if these first encounters with our world should create a desire to go back to sleep twenty hours a day. But this fellow upsets all notions about human inertia by forging ahead like a locomotive right into the densities of human activity. Sleep?…Let us try to take it away from him and put him back into the darkness. Sleep? But look, he can’t keep his eyes open! He’s drunk with fatigue. He howls with indignation at the extended hands, rouses himself with a mighty exertion from near collapse to protest these villains who take away his bright and beautiful world. From his crib, in the darkened room he denounces these monster parents, then pleads for commutation of sentence in eloquent noises. he fights valiantly, begins to fail — then succumbs to his enemy, Sleep.

Sleep -- at last

From Selma Fraiberg, The Magic Years, pages 63-64

Don’t blame the toddler for resisting sleep. But notice, Fraiberg doesn’t suggest we take him out of the crib and let him keep up his explorations — no, Fraiberg asks us to understand the toddler’s dilemmas, to empathize with him, but to put him to bed nonetheless, when he needs it. A toddler can be “pushed” to go to sleep. A 6-month-old baby shouldn’t (yet). It’s this major disparity in the developmental needs of young children — 3 months, vs. 6 months, vs. 9 months, vs. 12 and 18 and 24 months — that confuses us, as parents. But the more we understand the unique needs of the specific age of our child, the better we will be at negotiating their needs.

And now, off to get a cup of coffee — the baby needs me

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

The chief characteristic of the second year is not negativism but a powerful striving to become a person and to establish permanent

Toddlers -- messy and hilarious

bonds with the world of reality. We must remember when we speak of the “negativism” of the toddler that this is also the child who is intoxicated with the discoveries of the second year, a joyful child who is firmly bound to his parents and his newfound world through ties of love…..Under ordinary circumstances it does not become anarchy. It’s a kind of declaration of independence, but there is no intention to unseat the government….The citizen can be allowed to protest the matter of the changing of his pants (they are his pants, anyway) and the government can exercise its prerogatives in the matter of pants changing without bringing on a crisis. When the citizen is small and wriggly, is illiterate and cannot even speak his native language, it takes ingenuity and patience to accomplish this, but if we do not handle this as a conspiracy against the government, he will finally acquire the desirable attitude that changing his pants is an ordinary event, and one that will not deprive him of his human rights.

Selma Fraiberg, The Magic Years, pages 62-62

It’s a lot of work coping with (and cleaning up after) these shrimpy mess-makers, but try to remember that you’re in charge, after all. Then try to enjoy the wild abandon that is the miracle of your toddler.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Toddlers say “NO” with such glee. It’s clear that they’ve discovered a powerful tool when they start to randomly chant “no no no….” like the words to a song repeated ad nauseum, meant to irritate us parents. Here’s what the Fabulous Fraiberg had to say about the issue:

Already a politician

So the toddler, with only a few words at his command, has come upon “no” as a priceless addition to his vocabulary. He says “no” with splendid authority to almost any question addressed to him. Very often it is a “no” pronounced in the best of spirits and doesn’t even signal an intention. It may even preface an opposite intention. He loves his bath. “Tony, would you like to have your bath now?” “No!” Cheerfully. (But he has already started to climb the stairs.)…What is this? A confusion of meaning? Not at all. They know the meaning of “no” quite well. It’s a political gesture, a matter of maintaining party differences while voting with the opposition on certain issues….”I wish to state at the outset that in casting my vote for the amendment on the bath, I am not influenced by the powerful interest groups that are behind this amendment, but I am…in favor of baths.” It’s a matter of keeping the record clear.

From The Magic Years, page 60.

So for all practical purposes, it’s important to keep a sort of “Toddler Translator” running at all times, ready to analyze the true meaning of any given “NO”. I’ve found this helps take the grind out of the seeming constant negativity of this age. When you look at them that way, toddlers can actually be quite hilarious. Hang in there!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Then I realized that our kids have special plans for us — plans to humiliate, embarrass, and otherwise show us for the idiots we fear we are. And these plans don’t stop at toddlerhood, they only get more complex as they get older and wiser. Parents are morons, right? I guess I remember feeling that way about my own parents (sorry, Mom and Dad!)

It helps (a little bit) to know that toddlers act better for others because they love us so much. When they’re with the sitter, they “hold it together”, waiting for the moment when we return. They put on brave little faces and their best behavior for those temporarily in charge. And then when we return — look out! All of that stored up stress and worry and upset about our leaving is dumped at the feet of those who caused it. Here’s a reader question about the issue from the comments section, posted here in case you missed it:

Hi Dr. Heather,

But he never uses a sippy cup at home!

JD

Dear JD,

YES, it’s extremely common — predictable even — that your baby will “perform” better for a sitter. The babies save their best — and their worst — for us. They seem to “hold it together” while missing us at the sitter, and then sort of fall apart for us. Refusing things like milk or cups falls into the same category.

But what to do about the milk dilemma? Milk in particular is reminiscent of the early, close bond with mom, and so there is often a special struggle around it. Try VERY SLOWLY introducing the cow’s milk — say one tenth at a time, and wait until you’re SURE he’s used to it, then another tenth. DON’T MAKE AN ISSUE OF IT — don’t mention it, (and try not to show him both milk containers in the kitchen, maybe prepare them in advance) and just try to be matter-of-fact. Slow, steady, but no pressure.

For the cup thing, offer him a sippy of perhaps watered down juice — just a small amount, ALONG WITH whatever he’s used to, at his highchair. It’s a drag to offer both I know, but he’ll start out “playing” with the sippy and eventually get used to actually drinking out of it. And he won’t fear that you’re trying to take away his usual. You can also make a game of it by giving him juice to drink in the tub, or even in the stroller, car etc. Eventually offer the cup more and the bottle less, and offer a lot of praise when he really starts to get the hang of the cup. Also, point out kids he likes when they’re using their cups. “Look at Max and his cool Spider Man sippy cup. Max sure looks thirsty!”

Aloha!

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Check this out, another gem from Fraiberg, about the experience of a young toddler:

The missionaries have arrived

The missionaries have arrived. They come bearing culture to the joyful savage. They smuggled themselves in as infatuated parents, of course. They nurtured him, made themselves indispensable to him, lured him into the discovery of their fascinating world, and after a decent interval they come forth with salesmen’s smiles to promote higher civilization.

Somewhere between eight and fifteen months they sell him on the novelty and greater convenience of a cup over the breast or bottle. By the time he himself has come to regard the cup as a mark of good breeding and taste the missionaries have lost interest in the cup and are promoting the hygiene and etiquette of potty chairs and toilets which, he is assured, will elevate him into still higher strata of culture….They are forever on hand with a clean diaper, a pile of fresh clothes and hypocritical smiles to induce him to leave whatever it is he is doing for whatever it is they want him to be doing, and it’s certain to be a bore. They are there to interfere with the joys of emptying garbage cans and wastebaskets. And of course, they bring in proposals of naps and bedtime at the most unfortunate moments and for reasons that are clear only to them.

Now, admittedly, such interference is necessary in order to bring culture to a fellow who obviously needs it. But from the baby’s point of view most of this culture stuff makes no sense at all. He only knows that certain vital interests are being interfered with, and since his missionaries and he do not even speak the same language, the confusion will not be cleared up for some time.

The baby resists these interferences with his own investigations and creative interests. This earns him the reputation of being “negative” and permits us to speak of the second year as “a negativistic phase.” This is not entirely fair to the toddler who lacks the means for stating his case. If he had a good lawyer he could easily demonstrate that most of the negating comes from the side of the culture bearers, and his “negativism” is essentially a negation of their negation.

From Selma Fraiberg’s The Magic Years, pages 59-60.

That’s why an easy-going toddler toddler with no complaints actually worries me. It’s not developmentally appropriate. So the next time your toddler dumps out your garbage can, think of Fraiberg and try to smile. My 7-month-old and I be joining you there again in just a few months

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Dear Dr. Heather,

My 2-year-old granddaughter is stressed about her new house. Her parents moved a couple of weeks ago, and then her mother had a new baby. Emma seems to “love” her new brother, so I can’t imagine that he is upsetting her. But I am concerned that her mother is not giving Emma new routines in the new house. Emma is overtired and cranky. She is a lovely, intelligent child and I am worried about her. Doesn’t she need routines?

Sometimes it's all too much for a little kid!

Chris

Dear Chris,

It’s tough being a grandma — you can see that your kids (and grandkids) are suffering, but there’s little you can do about it, since you’re not the parent.

But yes, the changes that Emma has experienced are quite pronounced, and even a 2-year-old picks up on all the changes. The new baby is a big part of it, believe me. At times she is thrilled and entertained by the new baby, but deep down she suspects that the baby is the cause of all the problems in her life right now. That’s why we always remind parents to NEVER leave a baby alone with a toddler — no matter how much the toddler “loves” the new baby. Too many “accidents” happen to babies that way. But don’t blame Emma — she really can’t help herself. It’s her age.

And of course you are right that Emma needs routines, as close as possible to the old routines as possible. But right now, with the new baby, all bets are off. Her poor Mom is struggling with the new addition, PLUS a new house, AND being up all night, and so she gets special dispensation to be disorganized and “out of it”. The name of the game now, with your family, is to GET THROUGH IT, in any reasonable way. Let the new routines emerge naturally and support Emma’s parents as much as possible. The better they feel, and the more rest THEY get, the more their own natural instincts will kick in, and they’ll naturally start to establish new routines.

But if there aren’t many routines yet, and Emma is cranky and overtired for a few weeks — it’s OK. We assume that a few weeks’ disruption will naturally return to normal after an adjustment period. If not, talk to Emma’s parents about your concerns, but until then, I would suggest simply supporting the family and being understanding of a cranky toddler. (And after all, grandmas get special dispensation to spoil their granddaughters, especially when they’re a little stressed out, right?)

If things don’t improve in a few weeks, let me know.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

A Concerned Dad

Dear “Concerned”,

That’s an old wives tale, but one that many people still believe. Here’s the deal: if he’s not working on locomotion — in some form or another — at this age, it could be reflective of some underlying issue. But ANY of the goofy forms of locomotion exhibited by babies at this age counts as “normal locomotion” — the “Commando Crawl”, the “Tushie-Scoot”, the “One-Kneed Creep”, and of course regular cruising and walking. Apparently the Back-To-Sleep campaign has resulted in an increase in babies who skip crawling, as they don’t get as much practice on their tummies. But getting mobile is the important thing.

Look at it this way: crawling is a drag. Walking is a lot more fun –and a lot less gross — for parents (Think: less opportunity to find and eat yucky stuff off the floor!). Plus you’ll save tons on Spray ‘n Wash since his knees won’t be dragging through the dirt all the time. And for you parents of girls — rejoice! You can finally bust out the pretty dresses! (There’s nothing more frustrating to a crawling baby than having a dress get caught up underneath her over and over!)

We look for some form of mobility — attempts to crawl, scoot or walk — by about 10 months, but this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Your pediatrician can do a quick review of your baby’s developmental progress if you’re worried.

Enjoy — and double-check your baby-proofing. This phase begins the wild time of The Mobile Baby With No Self-Protection Mechanisms! You’ll be running around after him very closely for the next year or so!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Time it right: Don’t interrupt your toddler’s flow of play if you can help it. Deal with the stinky diaper until there’s a good pause in the action.

Give a warning: When the stink-bomb hits, let your toddler know that he’ll be getting cleaned up in a few minutes. Advance warnings help with transitions.

Have a special basket of Diaper Changing Only toys that are normally forbidden: We have an old remote (with the batteries removed), a broken watch of mine, a semi-functioning bright orange solar calculator, and various interesting items that normally wouldn’t be allowed (like tiny cardboard boxes that get gummed to pieces within the time of a diaper change). Of course, safety is the number one concern. But since you’re right there for those few minutes, you can monitor. The toy goes back into the basket when done (unless it’s ripped or gummed to shreds!)

As with all Toddler Power and Control Issues, parents need to assume and exude a calm sense of flexible authority. You’re in control: Don’t have to beg or plead for cooperation — quietly assume you’ll get it (and more often, you will).

Happy changing!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink