To be a bit upset that my 10 month old doesn't look at me

[Lynzloopz55]

My lovely daughter is 10 months old. I'll be going back to work when she's 12 months and my mum will have her for 2 afternoons a week and she'll go to nursery for the rest.

She's already started to have her an afternoon a week for the past month or so.

When I collect her, which is usually about 4 hours later I walk in all excited to see her and she either doesn't look at me and carries on playing or she will look at me and look straight back at what she's doing.

I've seen so many babies cling to their mums, crawl up to them when they walk in to a room or light up, not my daughter. I really feel like she doesn't have an attachment to me at all! Otherwise she would surely react to me. It gets me down to be honest and makes me not even want to go back to work or it will get worse!

Sorry if this isn't the best place to post!

Aw, that sounds hard. In reality, though, it probably means that she feels happy and secure in her surroundings and is confident that you will always come back for her!

Is she generally sociable and makes eye contact with others? If so, don't worry.

My son went through the 'separation anxiety' stage at around 9 months but apart from that has always been happy to go off without me.

It is hard because it just looks like she doesn't give two shits, lol.

She has started to be funny around strangers and won't smile or like being passed to new people. She will look back at me and cry. But when I go out for hours and return later she isn't bothered to see me at all.

I think they find the actual separation harder than they do the reunion. By the time you go to collect her, she has found something more interesting to do!

Well firstly the clingy stage of attachment usually happens after being wary of strangers, so it may well be that it appears over the next 4-6 months.

And...you may never get that reaction if you're leaving her with a safe and familiar person ie your mum, children form attachments with multiple care givers, she may well not miss you particularly because she's with her granny and feels safe and loved there too.

My little girl sounds just like yours! I used to be convinced she didn't love me. She never wanted to cuddle me, never seemed to give two hoots if I was there or not, but when DH came home from work she would get so excited! It really upset me.
Suddenly after she turned 1 she shows me so much affection. She gets excited when she sees me and is always crawling up to me and clinging to my legs for cuddles. It will happen, don't worry about it! She does love you :)

DD1 is like yours - in fact she didn't even do the crying when I left, would go to anyone as long as they were offering something interesting for her to do

DD2 is delighted to see me if I've been away for 10 minutes

They are both very much attached to me! DD1 isn't the cuddliest child, prefers to be active, but when she's ill or tired or at bedtime she always wants Mummy and she tells me she loves me all the time though sometimes this is because she knows I'm a bit cross with her

When I used to pick dd up from the child minders when she was around the same age she would cry in consolibly. She would cling to the childminder and it would break my heart. She did grow out of it though . She's 11 and now and is and always has been a ver confident and independent child. We are also very close.

It doesn't mean she isn't attached to you - it could mean the opposite!

My little sister was particularly attached to my Dad when she was small - he was always her favourite parent and she would always choose to go to him. But when he went away she would punish him by completely blanking him when he came back - sometimes for a whole day!

How is she with you the rest of the time?