10 month old afraid of black plastic heads???????

[rbmilliner]

Hi
this is going to sound a very strange thread but I'm a 1st time mum who is every day finding something that makes me speechless in how unusual it is or gives me something to worry about.
Right I'll set the scene -I work from home using black plastic heads that have very long necks. Last night I had one of these on the floor and DD was crawling around whilst I was working and crawled up to me to play. I put the head to one side to put her on my lap but she started to shy away from the head and wanted to be cuddled - very unlike her, normally a very independant little bunny who has to be tickled into an inch of her life to get a cuddle out of.
Seeing her fear I tried to tell her there was nothing to worry about and the head would not hurt her but when i bought it closer and encouraged her to touch it but she actually started to tremble and pulled away.
It wasn't nice to see as she's normally fearless and happy with me constantly having my heart in my mouth as she dives off sofas, wants to swim unaided in the swimming pool and tries to hug random dogs (none of which I let her do by the way).
Does anyone have any experience of irrational fears in babies and how can I help her not to be frightened?

[qwertyuiopy]

I don't understand what you are asking. If she is scared of the things you work with, don't work while your baby is there and keep the things that scare her away from her. What is difficult about that?

[GandTforme]

It's very normal for small children to have irrational fears, they'll grow out of it. My daughters have been scared of black bin bags, moustaches and shop mannequins at various times in the past! You just need to be calm and reassuring, one day you'll suddenly find they don't bother her anymore.

[jaimelannistersgoldenhand]

My son was terrified of shop mannequins until he was 3 or 4. My other son found the Dr Who villains autons (shop mannequins that come to life) the scariest of the Dr Who baddies. What I'm trying to say is that I think that it's a common phobia for kids. Can they be stored under some tarps or something?

[rbmilliner]

Thanks GandTforme and jaimelannistersgoldenhand, I was just a bit worried as she's never been afraid of anything before and it just seemed so irrational to be afraid of a plastic head!

qwertyuiopy of course I wouldn't intentionally scare my child and had I known she was afraid of the heads I would not have had them near her!
I hope you made yourself feel clever trying to make someone else feel small.

[FartnissEverbeans]

My son is afraid of aeroplanes. We've recently overcome his two biggest fears: sand, and the hoover.

Maybe she saw the black plastic heads and, like most likely everyone who has read this thread, thought 'wtf is that?!'