13-Month Old Shows No Attachment to Parents - Is This Normal?

[Lilly212]

Hello everyone,
Our child is 13 months old, and we’ve noticed something that concerns us. When his father comes home from work, sometimes he gets excited to see him, but most of the time he just passes by without paying much attention. In general, he doesn’t cry for either his mother or father. He doesn’t seem to show attachment to us.
When it comes to strangers, it depends — sometimes he may cry if an unfamiliar person picks him up, but more often he doesn’t.
Overall, he has good eye contact, responds to his name, actively seeks our attention, and plays with us. He constantly shows us his toys, hands them to us, points to things he wants, etc. However, he simply doesn’t show any clear attachment toward us.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Is this normal at this age, or should we be concerned?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

My teenager is autistic. He was always very placid. Never really went through the clingy phase. On the other hand my neuro typical child oh my god he’s 7 and still is really clingy. It’s likely just his personality

I have a 13month old. I'd say you're is definitely different to mine but that's not to say there is anything wrong.

Mine will independently play for bit and loves exploring new spaces. He's happy enough if we walk off but very excited to see up come back and will actively walk to the door if he hears us and for his siblings and grandparents.

He will often come up to us for cuddles and live to just sit on us for a bit before going off playing again. He brings things to show us and wants us to play with him and chatters away a lot.

Have you ever left him with a stranger? For example settling into a childminder etc? My baby hadn't been and at 11 months when I left him he suddenly realised we COULD go and that's when the attachment started to show. He is super attached he just doesn't show it until he realises we are all going. He's fine when left if his brother is there, or if one of us comes and goes, but all three? Suddenly the attachment appears.

That is healthy attachment behaviour.

Since he was very small, we noticed that he has low muscle tone (neurologists also confirmed this), but they said it was very mild and they never once suspected it might be something genetic. This made us, as parents, think that there might still be something. With rehabilitation, he managed to start walking at 1 year old; he is still a bit floppy, but overall, he has caught up motor-wise and does everything appropriate for his age. He makes sounds quite often (almost constantly) and sometimes growls; they say it's a way of communicating, because he most often does it when you ask him a question and he doesn't know the answer (like to point to a certain object that he can't find). He imitates animals and generally recognizes them in books. He has strange behavior in the water (he kicks his legs a lot when excited, very hard, since we go swimming... he used to be very afraid of the water, but not so much anymore). All these things stayed in our minds, and that's why we watch him so closely. They haven't ruled out sensory processing disorder or hyperactivity, but he is just too young still.