To think babies/children can see ghosts?!

[HemmieH]

Baby DD is always smiling and giggling looking into the corner of my lounge. Sometimes she swings round to look at whatever is over there that I can't see! I don't actually believe in ghosts but this has got me questioning it especially as dear and lovely nanny died when I was 7 months pregnant? Anyone else have a baby who is a bit woo?

@Mumisrunningamarathon

I am not sure I believe it.

It's always 'on the stairs' or 'in a corner'

Where would it have to be for you to believe? In the kitchen? In the shed?

I have also seen little kiddies reacting oddly to things that they appear to be able to see (that adults can't,) and pointing etc. And I was freaked out by that story on the previous page by @sleepthief84 about young kids and babies getting disturbed (in a nursing home/hospice,) because (she believed,) they could sense death coming, and people waiting on the other side.

I think it's sad to not believe, but that is JMO.

And yes I DO believe that young children/toddlers/babies see things adults don't.

Beebee7 - like I said I am a sceptic. Generally I don't believe in any sort of hocus pocus but it is a bit odd. The home is very nice, like a big sitting room really. It could be that they just don't like it but neither of the girls have that reaction anywhere else, they go to restaurants/busier places all the time. It's like a switch is flicked, we go in, they kick off, roar crying and cling to us for dear life. As I said we've stopped taking them for now, they get too distressed and it's not fair.

They do regularly have deaths in there as you'd expect most of the residents are very very elderly and aside from their mental illnesses (lots of Alzheimer's, dementia) are quite unwell. It's not like they are yelling or being 'scary' though, most of them are just chattering away in their own little worlds. It's a shame though as DGM has Louis-body dementia and is often not very lucid but when she sees the girls it's like she comes out of it and is herself again for a while. Breaks my heart that we've had to stop taking them.

I made friends with the girl "in my wardrobe" when I was a kid. She'd come out of the wardrobe, beckon to me to follow her downstairs and I'd follow her. Freaked my parents out the first day I sleepwalked and fell down the stairs, following the girl - "I was trying to float down like she was" being the reason I fell. She was trying to take me to the kitchen to show me something (still don't know what as I always fell down the stairs and woke up) Turns out a little girl of that age was killed in a fire in the kitchen (Victorian house).

i remember a Viz top top that said 'Parents: for a bit of fun when visiting friends, teach your two year old to point into empty rooms and say 'who is that sad little boy'.'

I'm not really a believer, but my youngest daughter (who has always been a sunny little fairy) was four when my dad died. (He was a fairly unpleasant man who had very limited contact with my kids as we lived in the other side of the planet.) She used to chat away to him for about a year after he died. I put it down to her processing his death, until she said "Oh it's okay Mum. He's nice to me now, and he said sorry for yelling at me when I was two...."

I think it's just people putting meaning into normal childlike behaviour. Children say all sorts of random stuff (I'm an astronaut/the giant bogey wants to eat me/I ate ten pies last night) but you don't remember those ones as much because they don't fit the profile of creepy and woo. You just remember the times they hit close to being spooky.

My son is like this. Sometimes he'll just stare into one space and scream and cry. If I try to move closer to it, he goes mad and starts punching me. I have to ask DP to leave a light on because it genuinely has a very "I see dead people" feel about it.

This reminds me of being in hospital waiting for dd2 to be born. My mum had died a couple of days before. Dh and toddler dd1 were visiting me. Dd was eating a biscuit. She offered it to me then to Dh and then turned round and offered it to empty space. I like to think it was to my mum.
Peter Fenwick has very interesting things to say about death bed visits, Sleepthief, that they are more often seen by children than by carers. Are there grounds around the home that your DGM could be taken to for visitors?

A friend of mine believes in the afterlife etc. I'm on the fence but one thing she said stuck with me. When you die where does the love for your children go. It can't just disappear with your body. It is a powerful intense love

When I was nearly two and living in an old house in Ireland, apparently I wouldn't go into the hallway - would start crying and became very distressed. It transpired that a man had hung himself there. I was the only person it had this effect on.

well I do believe in ghosts OP so I would just reassure your DC. FWIW my DGF died when I was 9. We had photos of him in the house but they were stored away (this is relevant, I promise). DD used to giggle and talk to 'Taidie' in her bedroom. Naturally we thought it was either my DF or DFIL (carrying on from earlier in the day) until we were looking at old photos for a 'family' thing for school when she was 5. She grabbed the one of my GF and said 'Taidie! it's taidie'. We asked how she knew and she did a very good 'whatever ' move and said 'he comes to talk to me and reads me stories'. I like to think he'd come to meet his great granddaughter.

DD4 used to smile and chuckle up at a certain point in me and DHs room while we were changing her. Everday. It was near a corner - but not quite. It was a specific point mid air, IYSWIM. As she got older she would hold her arms up at to spot, as if asking to be picked up, or offer up a toy to it and smile. Only that spot upstairs.

Downstairs she would do the same looking at one particular spot in the living room. Aimed at adult head height about 6 or 7 feet in from the main door as you walk in past the back of a sofa. Always the same spot.

We never initiate the conversation but now she can talk (she's 3) she asks about the man who lives in the wall. He wears a blue shirt she says. He comes out, but sometimes he's on the ceiling. He goes oooooooooohhhhhh across from there to here. He's happy. He looks at me. He's here/not here now.

Me and DH just look at each other like .... ooookay. Lovely. We don't encourage it!!

When my ds was a baby he always used to look up in the corner of the living room. His eyes would be fixated on it.

A few weird things have happened in our house. Most recently, I fell asleep on the sofa in the same living room and before that I opened the small window because it was roasting. When I woke up that morning I thought I'd better close the window. It was closed, handle down and everything. I assumed dh came down during the night and closed it.
I asked what time he came down to close the window and he looked at me confused, "Eh? I didn't" So I was very confused at that point. None of the kids can reach the small window and I certainly didn't wake up to close it.
I checked my messages on my phone and they were from dh in the early hours of the morning asking what I was doing and why was I banging. He must have dozed back off after that. I wasn't banging at all because I was asleep. I was asleep all night and never sleep walk or anything like that.

So, who closed the window and what was causing the banging that Dh could hear? It can't have been someone from outside who closed it because like I said the handle was pushed back down.

I believe there's potentially a lot more going on in the world than we can process or understand. Possibly small children are more open to this kind of activity, if it exists.

I haven't any personal evidence of it, though.

Oh oh i meant to add occasionally our two cats sometimes watch something i can't see go in a big wide arc slowly across the ceiling and down again in the that spot in the living room.

My ds (15 monyhs) always looks at the door way in our living room and reacts as though there is someone stood there to the point where I always look to see who's come in but I've never seen anyone.

Saying that pre ds stood in our kitchen I have sensed someone stood behind me and turned round to talk to dp but he's never there. Weird. Old Victorian house so not unbelievable that someone died here or visits here. Doesn't feel threatening so I just leave it (him?) Be.

I stayed at a relative's with DD when she was 18-months ish and she woke me up in the night to show me the "man" in the doorway. "Mummy! Mummy is MAN! Funny man! Hello man! Hello!" while waving and grinning. I just told myself she'd not fully woken up from a dream, but it did take a while to get back to sleep after.

We moved into an old house. We got a dog. Dog frequently growled at a particular point (where the was a bricked in external door). My mum came to stay kept stopping and saying she saw something out of the corner of her eye, same spot as growling dog. Had baby, he always crawled "around" something at the same spot. We moved out. Renovated. Moved back in, dog reverted to growling at the same point. Now toddler says beep beep and swerves an invisible something. Odd.

My DH died when my DS was 3. The night of the funeral I put DS to bed as usual and said "night night". He then said "Say night night to Daddy" while looking straight past me. I said "Daddy isn't here darling". He said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world...."he's behind Mummy. Now he's gone in wall. Night Night Daddy." I've never wanted to believe but I've seen it with my own eyes. DS is now 14 and I've never told him. And he never "saw" his dad again.

FedUp That is the most heartbreaking post on this thread. So sorry for your loss and I hope it gave you some comfort that day in some way.

My sister moved into a new house. They had what can only be descrilibed as poltergeist moments, with ornaments being moved, things coming off shelves, a heavy mirror firmly bedded on its picture hooks coming off the wall with the hooks intact, so it had come up and then off.

One day she was having lunch with her two boys, she had her back to the room. Her youngest looked up and said Go away man. Sis said she could feel the hairs on her arms stand up. She asked "what man" and he said "the one with the funny nose. He's normally in the window but today he's at the sink" She turned round very slowly to nothing, whilst her DS started saying "Go away Man" She couldn't see anyone.

Shortly afterwards, she was upstairs and heard the dog barking at something. As she came round the quarter landing she said the dog was looking up at the landing and barking. As she started down the last flight she felt something brush past her. Next thing she's at the bottom of the stairs, the dogs going nuts and she couldn't get up. She had to crawl to get the phone to phone for help. She broke let arm pretty badly and tore a ligament in her knee.

They had a spiritualist come and perform a spirit cleansing, and though she said things calmed down, there was still a presence. They were always ill as well with various things do they sold up eventually.

It's acceptable for your infant children to take these notions, but if you as adults start to entertain these delusions then you might as well don nappies and start crawling around the floor with them.

I'd be pretty impressed if my crawling, nappy-aged children could develop and express concepts of the supernatural specific to late 20th/21st secular Western culture, tbh.

My son was like this, used to laugh and giggle like someone was in front of him as well as waving etc... He's a teenager now but he was quite woo for a number of years. He used to dream alot too. Definitely believe that little ones sense things we no longer can.

Children, and animals, are more open to this kind of thing. Adult minds are very narrow, we are taught things are black and white when in fact there is a lot of grey: unless something has been scientifically proved beyond all doubt it cannot be said to not exist. Even science constantly proves and disproves itself as newer evidence comes to light. My DD hasnt displayed that behaviour (yet, who knows) but I've had animals who have. I had two cats who started watching something invisible to me: both sat next to each other on the dining table their heads moving in synchronisity watching the invisible thing as it seemed to weave upwards slowly towards the ceiling and after a minute or so disappear through the ceiling (I assume). At this point they were both looking with heads tilted back up at the same spot on the ceiling, then suddenly stopped and were their normal selves again. I'd never seen anything like it: the hypnotic swaying of their heads as they tracked whatever they could see that I couldn't. It wasn't light reflection or they'd have gone into mad hunting mode, and it wasnt a bright day. I have no explanation for their behaviour other than it seemed they were watching something invisible to me. My toy poodle also sees things that aren't there. I used to live next to a huge cemetery and he had a few unexplained experiences in that flat. He would growl at corners of rooms and run in and out of the room seeming agitated. I found it fascinating. The most compelling experience was one day I was sat on the sofa in the lounge. He started growling at the lounge doorway behaving in that odd way: nervous, agitated, defensive. He was growling looking up towards the top of the doorway as if what he was looking at was tall or high up. Then he seemed confused and went carefully towards the doorway as if someone had beckoned him: his body language was as if he was sniffing a proffered hand. Then he jumped back a bit and started growling again, as if he didn't like what he had experienced. He cowered backwards as if someone was walking towards him, growling. He then quickly sat right in front of me with his back to me as if guarding me. I was completely fascinated, this behaviour was totally out of character. He's had a few experiences where he seems to be able to see an invisible thing that frightens him, always at home when nothing is happening; no other noise etc. The idea of ghosts doesn't scare me at all I'm just curious. I've had a couple of experiences myself that I can't explain, things that didn't seem possible. But the experiences I've seen my pets have are the most compelling, probably as I get to watch as a bystander. I think we take for granted that we know everything, but existence is more mysterious than we can understand and until something is definitively scientifically proven, I choose to keep an open mind. I think it's entirely possible.