people in the house a problem for toddler?

[forestfern]

My daughter is 20 months old. Since 10 months she has always kicked up such a fuss when anybody comes into the house, and this is not stopping. Relatives live far away and so I suppose she is not that used to visitors, but she has been to nursery 2 half days since six months old and is fine socialising with adults outside the home - I have wanted her to socialise and not get too attached to me. She sees her father each evening but until lately it has been nearly impossible for us to have a conversation without her coming to get the hand of one of us, usually me, for attention. This is getting better but the bigtime fuss when anybody enters the house is still happening and getting worse.I may be moving to Switzerland soon and will need to make new friends.I am worried that this problem will isolate me from anybody without children of a similar age. Hopefully mother and toddler groups will help though. Any suggestions as to why she might be doing this and how to stop it happening? Is it common? Giving her reassurance and attention does not help, and most of the time the minute they are out of the house she is fine. She either returns happily to playing with me or back to Cbeebies like a perfectly happy child. It is also quite embarssing as she seems to others like she is "whingy" or stressed which she isn't. She is a full of fun, happy little girl who loves to giggle and dance. She seems so stressed out about strangers coming into the house? Is it because she hears me talking more fluently to them and cannot understand/join in? She is a child who likes to be able to do things and can get frustrated if she does not suceed, this point is fortunatly improving though.

Sounds pretty typical to me, my dd (now 2.3) has always been an extremely clingy child and I found it difficult for months & months to fully join in with anyone else socially. But she has grown out of it and is only shy & insecure if it's someone she doensn't know too well- although even with people she does know, she does start off a little wary. For a few months now I've had a friend who's a nanny come over every week with the children she looks after, and at first my dd was just really scared & shy of them and clung to me the whole time, but she gradually blossomed and now goes off to play with the kids in her room!

I don't think you need to worry, she'll get used to it and grow out of it I'm sure. In the meantime continue to reassure etc, but also be firm if you are in the middle of talking to someone and tell her to wait for you to finish - I do that a lot too!

ds was like this. He was not clingy until my attention was taken away - especially at home. I totally symphathise because it was a bit of a nightmare. Especially when dh and I tried to spend time together.

In the end I would set him up playing something (ie lego) and make him sit and play for a period of time. If he came over whigning then I would pick him up, put him back with his toy and say "you can play here for a while". I would keep telling him what a good boy he was being playing on his own and letting mummy talk.

You could start with 10 minute sessions and plan it with your dh. It is teaching her the way you want her to behave. At first she might kick up a fuss - but she is just learning. It sounds like she is confident and that this is more of an attention thing. The more she is put in the situation as well - it gives her practise.

I hope that it improves x

Thanks for the advice Emily and Liz. I hope she doesnt do it too much while my father visits the next couple of days. She doesn't see my parents much, but it is less intense wiht them. My husband wonders if she detects a differnet kind of tone in my voice when speaking to strangers? I suppose we would talk more continuously, smile more and are a sort of "different" person to the one they see day in day out who uses less language? Just a thought. Not saying I have two heads or anything! I do talk to her.

Unsually perceptive of him, I thought!

Yeah I've often thought that, I am completely different with everyone else than with dd! Also, quite a lot of the talk is about her, the older she gets the more I bite my tongue, and when I do talk about her, I involve her in the conversation so she helps me tell eg what we've been doing or something. I now save the awkward stuff, like about discipline or embarrassing behaviour etc, for when she's not there.