I love my 3-year-old DS to bits and we have a very close relationship. He’s very affectionate, tells me he loves me a lot and lots of kisses and cuddles (which I love) and vice versa. He goes to nursery 3 days a week and I have him two days, we often go out to various playgroups, swimming etc, but some days we stay home most of the day. Up until recently I’ve thought it was normal for him to want to be no more than a foot away from me at all times and want me to play with him 24/7. He is an only child after all. When we have play dates he plays with the other kid fine and isn’t at all clingy with me. When it’s just the two of us though it seems I’m his only source of entertainment. I do play with him a lot - we do puzzles together, painting etc etc but I’ve recently started to encourage him to do a bit more independent play as I feel he should be old enough to entertain himself by now and feel it’s a skill he needs to learn, but he wants me to do absolutely everything with him, drags me up to his room to play, has a tantrum if I won’t sit and do a puzzle with him that he can easily do himself. Today I’ve told him I’m having some mummy time and sat down to watch tv (as an experiment, knowing it’d be a disaster!) he is jumping all over me, constantly asking me questions, tried to sit on my lap and watch tv with me but got bored after 3 mins, begging me to do this and do that with him. I’ve tried to help by showing him the huge selection of toys he has and the different ways he might want to play with them but if I’m not involved he’s just not interested. He tried for 30 seconds today before whining that he couldn’t do it and actually said “I can’t do anything by myself mummy”. He has a wonderful imagination when playing with me or with other kids, he’s great with pretend play etc but as soon as he’s by himself it’s like his imagination disappears and he doesn’t know what to do. I love him but he’s driving me mad. The only thing he will do alone is watch Baby Bum on tv, which i resort to when I need to stuff around the house but I’m obviously not just going to stick him in front of the telly for hours on end. I fully expected this of an 18 mth-2 yr old but he’s 3 now and not only can he not entertain himself, he still follows me everywhere in the house and won’t let me do anything without him being involved. If I sit down to do something for 2 mins on the computer he’ll climb on my lap and press keys, ruining whatever I’m doing. How do I deal with this? I’m going insane. Or is this just still normal for a 3-year-old? Have I brought this on myself by giving him too much attention/being too loving & affectionate?