Ds of 7.5 months suddenly not liking dh

[herbgarden]

What do I do. When we're all together my ds of 7.5months will get upset when my dh is holding him and I'm around - he cries, puts his arms out and wants me instead.
Obviously dh is getting upset about this - he works long hours so hardly sees him at all during the week and we can't change that situation. I've suggested he get up 20 mins earlier, gets himself sorted and then get ds dressed, bottle fed before he goes and I won't go in to him at all. He did this on Friday and ds seems not to have a problem at all if I'm not there.
He has also started to get upset when new people come in the room. I'm out and about all the time and we do get togethers with other mums and babies and he seems fine in these situations - it's just occasionally when someone new comes in and he takes an instant dislike and goes hysterical.
How do I deal with this? We are off for a weekend without him and he's with mil next weekend - then he starts nursery in 7 weeks. I'm worried about both situations.Might this get worse ??
I'm also concerned about my dh getting upset - does anyone else have experience of a baby disliking it's dad - he's a lovely gentle man my dh as well !

Help!

[Ceebee74]

I have no experience of this but perhaps it is the start of 'seperation anxiety'?? Particularly with you because you are the main carer?

My DS is 7.5 month old (their birthdays must be similar - mine was born 14 July) but not going through this yet but I have read that it happens to all babies.

Hopefully someone will come along with proper advice soon.

[LIZS]

Sounds like separation anxiety, whcih is upsetting but natural at this age, and I'm afraid it may well get worse before it gets better. For the timebeing try to keep your absences short and give him lots of fuss when you return. Talk when you leave the room so he knows you are still around and when others are holding him. Continue to let dh have exclusive time with him. It may take a while ,particularly with the changes you have lined up, so bear with it and forewarn them. Good luck

[NAB3]

It is quite normal, esp if your husband doesn't get to spend much time with the baby. Try and get them to spend time alone while you do something else. Just build up their time together and the bond will grow. When my son was about 9 months old my husband went away for 4 nights and the baby wouldn't look at him when he came home.

[herbgarden]

Do you think that me leaving him for long stretches might be detrimental at this stage - I don't want to add to the problem? We're away from Thursday night to Monday night and MIL is coming to get him on Thursday night so I won't have to drop him anywhere - I'll basically buckle him into his car seat and off he'll go so hopefully as mil will get him out the other end, it he might not realise. It seems that whoever gets him out in the morning is fine (apparently I was like this as a child too - whoever got me out of bed was flavour of the day) so I'm hoping that for that weekend we might be ok. I'll then have to just roll with it and try to keep exclusive time with dh as you say. This is hard. He's been such a gorgeous dream to date.....

[herbgarden]

Thanks for that FIS that's really helpful. I almost needed to post this to find that other fathers or father figures have experienced the same to reassure DH. DH has a work colleague who has a small baby and he asked her about it only to be told that her dd was anxious with lots of people save for her and her dh - that didn't go down well !...It's understandable when the only person that ds really sees all week is me and we are together for the whole 12 hours he's awake. I do usually have a "day off" every other week and he goes to my mum or mil and I generally find he's ok with that but he sees my mum quite a lot too and I suppose we have a similar tone of voice so it probably sounds familiar to him.

[herbgarden]

Wanted to just say that we had a big family gathering today (some people ds never sees much) and apart from a few moments, he seemed a lot better with people and also with dh. I suppose they also have good and bad days.....

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[pinkdolly]

hiya,

I'm another mum with a velcro baby. DD3 was born 13th July so is about the same age as your lo. When i'm around she will not usually have anyone. But if i'm not in the room she can be ok.

Itr seems to be a case that if she sees me she wants me and no one else will do.

Yes it can be a pain, especially when you cant get things done because she wont be put down. But I also love the closeness we have. Both DD1 and DD2 are definate daddies girls so its quite nice to have one for myself.

It doesn't upset dh as he knows that this will pass and she'll be fine with him in the end.

I do, however, like to go out every now and then and leave dd3 with daddy just so they can get some bonding time together. And she is fine without me there. (actually, thinking about it, she usually spends most of the time asleep. Probably thinks there's nothing worth staying awake for, lol!)

HTH