To think it's ok for a 9 month old to be 'clingy'

[Throughautomaticdoors]

My dd is 9 months old (7.5 months corrected if it makes any difference!) and she is very much all me at the moment. If she is tired or a bit under the weather in particular she will only really settle for me.

Mil came over this afternoon and Dd had been fine for most of it but was getting a bit tired by late afternoon and a couple of times cried or crawled after me when I went out the room. Mil kept saying 'you'll have to sort this out Automatic, she'll never cope at school will she.' She's 9 months old! I'm pretty sure by the time she's 4 she won't be crawling after me crying.
I think some of this is because mil would like Dd herself (has said before she likes to pretend the baby is hers) and there have been a number of occasions where dd has been crying and calling me or reaching her arms out when mil has been holding her and mil has walked her away from me saying she needs to learn she can't always have what she wants and get used to not always being with mummy.

I probably have been more protective with her than I was ds because she was prem and poorly and because I've had pnd but she's 9 months! Surely it's ok to want your mum when you're tired / hungry / fed up and you're only 9 months old?

First totally normal for child to want mother when upset. Also around 8/9 months babies specially keen to have mother close as when babies are born they have a very hazy idea of where they end and mother begìns, ie mother and baby are perceived by baby as "one". Around 8/9 months baby realises they are SEPARATE from mother so therefore it might be possible to "lose" mother. ..hence desire to keep mother close. At various stages of life we repeat this process gradually becoming confident self sufficient adults. So totally normal as so many others have said.
Re MIL 's. Mine had many ways to annoy me but when my son was about 5 months old and I went back to work three days a week she cared for him but never ever in any sense interfered between us. For this sensitivity I thank her to this day. I am now a MIL. That son lives close by and we babysit regularly including one day each week when his nursery doesn't have a place. Both children seem to like us, specially their Gramps who does loads with them. But reading these posts makes me realise we are doing OK as we encourage their parents and compliment them on what a good job they are doing. We would never dream of holding a crying child away from their parent. That is nasty behaviour and not to be tolerated. Ideally dh should speak firmly to her..do it again and you will lose cuddle rights all together...and that ìncludes undermining comments too.
Have to say I think my dil and my son would eat us alive if we tried such nonsense... and quite right too.

Really interesting post dodgy. I have two sons - I hope I'm as lovely to them as you are to your DS!

My MIL can't cope with DH being a grown up. She pulls rank all the time: 'I'm still your mother'. It's embarrassing, he's 44

I said my MIL carries a lot of emotional baggage. Which she does. It's caused all sorts of problems in the family with her negative and toxic attitude and we basically NC with her now much to DHs upset and distress. Not sure why you find that concept funny...?

You seem determined to read everything as an attack. Posters keep trying to say that they are concerned for you That having unrealistic expectations about babies needs, is a risk factor for developing PND.

Baring a very naturally chilled out baby (which is the temperament they are born with) then all securely attached babies will exhibit separation anxiety behaviours to a greater or lesser degree. To purposely set out to do this:

my honest feeling is that clinginess of this nature is usually avoidable, so I don't intend to let it get to that stage

Means you are saying that you are purposely setting out to create an insecure attachment style whereby your baby doesn't cry for you when distressed? That is why people are puzzled and think you a little niave.

'Your' priorities change when you have a baby. Having a long relaxing bath is not important when your baby is distressed. When they are upset, you are upset. Their pain is your pain and it is physically as well as emotionally painful to listen to your baby crying in someone else's arms, especially if you know they are crying for you.... You are unlikely to think "ah well MILs got her I'm off for a nice soak"

You sound very lucky to have a large supportive family and I hope you take full advantage and get lots of rest and recovery. Good luck with everything

Oh for God's sake are people still arguing with trifle . Just let it rest! trifle I thought your initial post was pretty respectful and the following posters overreacted a little. I get that people feel affronted that someone has seemed to suggest that clinginess is avoidable, and I understand why, but this is turning into bullying now, time to smile sweetly and move on.
Trifle I have three children so hopefully will be allowed an opinion. I don't think clinginess is avoidable, HOWEVER I do agree with you that there is some merit in having a group of people who support the baby, rather than just the mother. Factors outside my control means I must take a short maternity leave, so I feel it's better for my children to get used to being comforted by dad and the GPS as well as me, as they won't have any choice in the matter when I'm back at work. That's the sort of thing you mean I think isn't it? I usually leave the room though as I think being held away from your mum when you can see her is too harsh, which is what happened to the OP. And I do have relatives who will comfort my child and be supportive of my relationship with them, and this is where I think the OP has been let down.

On a lighter note, thank you Mumsnet for allowing me the legitimate use of the phrase ' are people still arguing with trifle '

I am certainly not trying to bully! Just explain myself. Sorry if it comes across that way. I never meant to upset anyone.

My own experience was that I had a traumatic delivery and then a baby with colic, reflux and cmpa who screamed and never slept, plus a naturally very clingy, highly sensitive and insecure personality.

My MIL and DM struck their ore in in those first precious few months and completely confused me about following my instincts and what I knew my baby was telling me she needed.

After about 7 weeks I got the strength to shut them out of my head and gave myself over to my baby's needs (followed my instincts) and everything got better. I honestly and truly think I would have sunk into PND otherwise and had bonding issues with DD. I still feel angry when I think back to those early days. My DD was more clingy not less when I wasn't meeting her emotional needs.

Of course I agree that having a group of supportive people around the core mother-child bond is lovely, I often feel sad that I can't offer my DD that.

Anyway, leaving the thread now so as not to cause further offense.

OP you sound like you're doing a grand job. Trust yourself in what your baby needs

Yes, Niggle, similar situation here re. shorter maternity leave. Thank you for your post and understanding.

Abso: I don't really know what to say to you at this stage. I couldn't have made it clearer that I don't want your advice and I don't feel obliged to satisfy your curiosity. If you are still reading this, I think the comment that you are engaging in bullying behaviour is fair. I'm sure you don't mean to, but please do give some thought to the fact that I have not any point asked for your input to my parenting. Please keep your thoughts on it to yourself.

I'm sure you'll sort it out before school....lol. Never limit love. It doesn't make a child more clingy, but actually does the opposite. My ultra clingy small person grew up to be a don't look back four year old and is now an independent 10 year old. She still loves a good hug though. My MIL has the same attitude as yours. It took me a little time to ignore it but you know your kid better than anyone and you'll save a fortune in therapy!

Your MIL is being unreasonable. It's so natural for your 9 month old to want your reassurance so politely take DD back from MIL and give her everything she needs. You know her best.

Abso- for you. Nothing you've said has seemed remotely bullying to me. I think this thread has been hugely respectful.

OP enjoy your precious baby and ignore mil.

Thank you for finding the words that I couldn't find. Carshare. I totally agree Abso said nothing wrong and most eloquently explained that Trifle is going to parenting with a naive approach. There is no reasoning with her.

I understand your feelings on this matter OP, even without having had a baby born premature. My second child was an 'Apron strings' child. I loved her company and she loved mine. She was 16 days overdue. Around the 2 year mark, she would often take off. But this settled down. We are still close and always will be. She is now a young adult and has done brilliantly in her studies, getting a first. No matter where she goes, the connection will always be there. When we argue though, which is rare, people leave the room! Do not let your mil take this closeness away from you.

I agree with carshare and littlemummy I see no bullying on this thread.

I have particularly re-read asbos posts and there isn't even anything impolite in there. Her posts were perfectly fine.

This thread is largely about emotionally supporting and reassuring the OP that she is doing a good job.

A few posters, myself included, have debated, largely quite politely, with the one poster who disagreed with ThroughAutomatic

There's been the occasional pissed off/slightly PA comment here or there but nothing even remotely report worthy, even setting aside the fact that this is AIBU.

Everyone disagreeing with one poster is not bullying. It's discourse.

Disagreement does not equal "attack".

This isn't a "pile up" people were attempting to give that poster the benefit of their collective, empirical experience, as she as yet has none of her own.

I actually think niggle's suggestion that posters stop should engaging in debate is fairly condescending on its own. We generally only stop engaging with the famed "Goady Fuckers", which doesn't appear to be relevant here.

Calling Asbo a bully is, to my view, as unpleasant as it is unwarranted.

I think it's so unfair that I'm going to report my own post to MN and ask them to look at this. I feel very strongly about the term "bully" being used.

I saw no bullying. Am I being accused too?

Sadly I don't think it's unwarranted at all. I said numerous times that Abso's questioning and advice was unwanted. It didn't stop. No, I am not levelling that accusation more generally, but I do feel that people need to learn to take their own advice a bit here: as a new mum, I intend to do things my own way, which is my prerogative. Certain people seem unwilling to accept this, which, in the context of a thread all about someone trying to dictate to a mum how she should approach parenting her own child, I have found very odd indeed. Ho hum. I will live, I'm sure.

I hadn't come back to comment on this thread again because I didn't want to upset anyone which clearly I had, that was not my intention. But since this seems to be rolling on, might I be permitted to defend myself a little...?

I just want to say that as soon as you said you felt my questioning was intrusive I did stop asking you. I explained why I had asked, but I did not actually ask you to explain directly again and only asked you to first time because I thought from your previous posts that you were open and willing to engage in debate. Obviously I got that wrong so I stopped asking.

I continued to share my experiences (especially my lasts post) not to 'hound' you Trifle but to help the OP and anyone else lurking on the thread with an interest - nothing to do with you in fact - but I didn't feel like I could come back and explain that after you commented that I wouldn't stop and that it felt like bullying. I thought it was more productive to just stop posting.

I think the reason why people continued to engage with you directly is because it felt a bit like you were arguing that the world was flat and that the evidence to support it being round was just 'opinion' which is probably why you got a bit more attention. Plus coming into a thread about clinginess and implying in your first post that posters are caused their baby's clinginess is like going into a sleep thread and telling people that their baby's don't sleep because of something they've done/not done.

You will not reveive a warm response and I wouldn't recommend it!

As I have said all along. I wish you no ill. I hope you have a very easy chilled out baby and happy experience

Peace and love to all

I think the wealth of response above gives you your reassurance. Your responses are normal and so are your baby's. My sister drives me nuts telling me I "mother coddle" my 4 year old son because I cuddle him when he cries. I'm not sure what irritates me more - her unsolicited advice or the fact that the phrase is "mollycoddle" lol! Your MiL is just responding the way she was taught. Advice is different now. Maybe show her a modern parenting book or show her this thread Lol xx

I also just wanted to thank everyone for your very kind comments, they mean a lot

Right, because not blindly accepting every aspect of current theories about child development is clearly, here on MN, the equivalent of being a flat earther

I am not going to bother pointing out in detail how offensive your previous comments about purposely setting out to create an insecure environment for my baby were, or how they clearly were an example of you continuing along your previous intrusive lines, Abso. Maybe you can see it now. Either way, I am sure it's not deliberate. Perhaps just give some more thought to what you are saying, then no accusations of bullying will be made.

I wonder if you will extend me the same courtesy and reflect on your aggressive posting style

What, to match the courtesy you have repeatedly refused to extend me over 9 pages? Nope.

OP I'm very sorry for the thread detail, I hope it's been helpful for you to read anyway

*derail

Dear me. Abso having read your posts again you absolutely have not bullied anyone. Your insights have been helpful to me (and I'm sure others). It's unfortunate that the thread has been derailed in this way but I do feel strongly that bullying accusations are totally unwarranted here. You're clearly passionate and well informed on the subject and I think it might have knocked the confidence of a mum to be who thought she had it down. No shame in holding your hands up and admitting when you might have got it wrong but chucking bullying accusations around isn't on.