My 4 month-old has starting bawling at Grandad. Help!

[nutellagirl]

Hi everyone
My first MN post!
My 4-month old baby girl is generally quite a smiley baby but about 3 weeks ago I noticed she started to yell if someone else was holding her and I was out of sight. Most of the time she's fine, and grins happily at most people from safety of my arms. But now when others try and hold her she's giving them the full-throttle yell until I rescue her. Most upsettingly, she's doing it especially for my Dad (who I guess just looks like a scary old wizard to her). Even when he's feeding her and giving her yummy milk. Rather upsetting for all, especially as I would like to be able to leave him to babysit occasionally - but he's a bit nervous now!
I thought it was a bit young for her to have separation anxiety etc. but is this pretty normal/anyone got any good tips for how to help?

I can't remember what age my dd was when she started to make strange but it was earlier than the age the books say. It is a natural stage in their lives and a sign that they are becoming more aware of what's around them.

We too had more problems with granddad than grandma but he accepted it was a phase and phases pass. We didn't force the issue and took her off whomever when she got upset.

I can't remember either how long it took to pass, and I guess it depends on how often they see others as well as just their personality. But it will pass. For our dd it was men in general, even the newsreader on TV set her off once. I was amazed that she could differentiate gender at such an early age.

Thanks for the reassurance RiskIt! How true, now I think about it she's definitely reserving her best lip wobbles for the men folk. Hoping she'll get a little braver in time.

We had exactly the same thing at around this stage. I couldn't decide whether to keep trying to get DD to go to other people or whether I should just leave it. In the end we did the latter and she eventually grew out of it at around 7 months. It does mean that babysitting is a bit of an issue though :-( With us it was pretty much everyone other than me and DH - DD would cry if anyone else picked her up even if we were in the room. TBH I don't think there is too much you can do about it. Sorry I don't have any tips - just wanted to let you know this is not unusual.