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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to ask what bizarre things your baby is afraid of?

160 replies

WorriedFTM1 · 05/09/2019 17:08

Lighthearted really, although I can't stop worrying about the amount of things my 1 year old is afraid of!

The biggest day to day worry for him is ceiling lights! This started a couple of months ago and hasn't gone away yet. We show him how they switch on and off and he seems to even enjoy this sometimes but at other times he can be happily playing and then look up at the light fitting (on or off) and get really upset. When I am carrying him and he is higher up so closer to the lights he clings on to me for dear life. He has started shows signs of being afraid of light fittings when out and about too.
He is also afraid of noises when he can't detect where they are coming from (for example, the sound of the ice cream van outside or when I talk to Alexa and it talks back- I've stopped doing this).
What unfathomable things are your babies afraid of? For those who have been through it, please tell me this will pass. I can't make light fittings go away unfortunately!

OP posts:

Curious2468 · 05/09/2019 21:48

My son was always terrified of everything. Quiet noises, trees, stairs, shadows.

Turns out he is autistic and he still has really bad anxiety bless him

123feraverto · 05/09/2019 21:50

We went up the spinnaker tower in Portsmouth it has a section of glass flooring he would not stand on it or even sit on it

He has also been afraid of
balloons
Gym balls
Those parcel air pockets
When dogs are excited or arguing
If you play fight the dog

None of those seem to bother him now , haven't tried spinnaker tower again though

Curious2468 · 05/09/2019 21:50

Oh and bears, eyes, marks on the floor,

ReturnofSaturn · 05/09/2019 21:55

The hairdryer. Petrified.

UnicornPug · 05/09/2019 21:56

I couldn’t put ds down on a surface he wasn’t expecting. Grass, sand, rugs, other peoples carpet-all terrifying. He was also frightened of flowers. Someone handed him some daffodils for me on mother’s day and he took them as a reflex then broke his little heart looking at them.

He’s 10 now and paper makes him sick. The sound of pencil on paper in particular.... school is fun.

Delilah2019 · 05/09/2019 21:56

Hand dryer (why are they always positioned so close to the baby changing table in baby changes??!!), hairdryer, hoover and bald men 🤦🏼‍♀️

WaitingInTheBushesOfLove · 05/09/2019 21:57

01goodforbrian
My 16 month old boy is terrified of the noise the toilet makes when flushing smile Minimal flushing in this household lol

Wow, major flashback!I had completely forgotten this! When i was a child i was afraid of the flushing noise. Especially at night. I would sometimes get my grandmother to flash the toilet for me or press the button myself and run!
Thanks for the memory

To contribute to the thread:

10m old doesn't like it when someone sneezes loudly or the hairdryer!

OhMsBeliever · 05/09/2019 22:04

@Saisong my youngest loved INTG until that moustache flying episode! It terrified him so much I had to hide all the toys he had (it had been his favourite programme till that point!) He screamed if he ever caught sight of it on TV or saw one of the toys.

justwondering12345 · 05/09/2019 22:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Cherry4weans · 05/09/2019 22:46

My youngest was scared of me singing dingle dangle scarecrow. Any other song was fine 😂

ILiveInSalemsLot · 05/09/2019 22:56

at Phil Mitchell.
Ds was terrified of dh’s sneezes.
He loved Shrek and watched it loads but always ran and hid under the table, blocking his ears when the bird sings the high note and explodes. Then he’d come back and watch the rest of it.

Corna · 05/09/2019 23:02

Dd was petrified of the happy birthday song. Proper wierdo.

Oopsinamechangedagain2020 · 05/09/2019 23:15

My dd was terrified all men except her daddy until 18 months. She could tolerate them at a distance but if they spoke to her or were near her and just looked at her we'd have the full on waterworks. I remember a Tesco employee (not the cashier) trying to talk to her while I was putting my shopping into the conveyer belt and she was getting upset but he wouldn't give up. In the end I said very nicely 'sorry she's overtired and isn't good with strangers (I lied but it sounded better than 'she hates men'😂) and he said well she's never going to get better with strangers if you don't let them talk to her. FFS I was just trying to get my shopping done not socialise my child... no idea why he had to take it so personally!

Amibeingsensitive · 06/09/2019 00:01

Spiky plants and flies 😱

BlackeyedGruesome · 06/09/2019 00:11

My 12 year old is scared of the eyeless people decals at the local hospital.

Autism, again.

flyingspaghettimonster · 06/09/2019 03:19

My firstborn was utterly terrified of a bouncing tigger toy we had. You pressed him down and he said "I'm gonna bounce! Bouncing is what tiggers do best!" And he would jumo up and down a few times.

She was absolutely positive the toy was possessed. We only had to carry her near the high shelf it was on and her eyes would go wide and she would shake her head vigorously, "No! No Scary tiggert!"

FuckFacePlatapus · 06/09/2019 03:39

My youngest use to be terrified of the hoover lol!

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/09/2019 04:20

Dd was petrified of hand dryers and the hairdryer. She only stopped at about 7/8 and was only complacent about them at 10. She used to be scared of all men, who weren’t daddies. Aged 3 we had a lot of work done on the house so I used to get the workmen to play along that they were all daddies.

Dipi · 06/09/2019 04:37

My eldest twin is scared of the cartoon, 'Moana'; my youngest twin is scared of the hoover. 🙄

Brittany2019 · 06/09/2019 06:16

Hand dryers, Hoovers, and other loud-noise-making things when she was younger. She still doesn’t like them, but at least she doesn’t scream at them anymore.

Oddly, she seems to have a thing now about deflated ballons. Properly inflated ballons are fine, but once they start deflating, they become terrifying. Even if they’re completely deflated, she makes us take them out of any room she’s in.

CautiousPractice · 06/09/2019 11:51

When I was younger, my home town used to have a singing Christmas tree in the local shopping centre. It was about 15 feet tall, and had these huge plastic eyes that opened and closed, and a moving mouth. Every half hour it did a 10 minute show singing songs like grandma got run over by a reindeer, and then when it was done it closed its eyes and went to sleep. My little brother was absolutely PETRIFIED of it. He was about 5 months the first time he saw it, and while the rest of us loved it, he would scream the whole time we were near this tree. And this happened the entire christmas season.

The next year, when the tree went up, he was now 18 months old, and the same thing. Got close to the tree, he screamed his head off. My mum eventually had to start planning her trips into town around the shows that the tree put on, because if we were anywhere near it when it opened its eyes, he would get hysterical. This went on until he was around 5, when one year the tree stopped working, and couldn't be fixed.

A couple of years ago, while in a bargain shop I found a small dancing singing christmas tree with a face, and of course I bought that tree as a "gift" for my brother. Even in his 20s, he screamed and threw it across the room. Now every year, my parents put it out with their decorations. My niece and nephew think its awesome and will play it over and over. My brother will sit on the opposite side of the room glaring at it, plotting its downfall. He can't even tell us why he doesn't like singing christmas trees other than "it can't be trusted".

Roomba · 06/09/2019 11:58

DS1 was terrified of sellotape when he was a baby too.

DS2 was petrified of sand. We live close to a beach and DS1 loved playing there, but DS2 refused to touch the stuff. He wouldn't sit or stand on it, he'd only sit on a towel, being held closely and even then his lip would wobble the whole time. If a grain of sand touched him he would scream and shake like a leaf. I think he wasn't convinced that he wouldn't fall through it and vanish? Once he was a hit older and reassured that he could tocuh it without being sucked in, he was much happier.

Cautiouspractice, DS2 was similarly terrified of the singing Christmas tree at Meadowhall. He sobbed and sobbed in fear, bless him.

Roomba · 06/09/2019 12:02

Just remembered I was frightened to death by Coronation Street as a small child I happened to be in the room while my gran watched the epsidoe when Alf's first wife died in a car crash. After that I would cry and hide whenever I heard even a snippet of the theme tune. My parents had to stop watching it as my fear went on for years!

Morado · 06/09/2019 12:04

My 1 year old is scared of ball pools! Also I'm generally really chilled out so whenever she hears me shout her Dad upstairs she jumps out of her skin and runs to me all scared and flustered! She also cries when someone knocks on the door and she's not expecting it..

radioactiveimagination · 06/09/2019 14:02

DS is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. When DD was younger she was terrified of hand dryers.

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