DS 15 month prefers DP?

[mumtomoley]

DS is 15 months and for the last 2-3 months has been showing an increasing preference for DP over me.. I know it is a bit self-indulgent to worry about this as he's a happy little boy, but I'm wondering if I'm not doing enough with him and that's why he prefers DP - but it's a vicious circle because if I sit down with him with a book or something, he'll get up take the book and give it to DP instead - so even when I try to do more with him, he wants DP to do instead.

It's obviously great that they have such a good relationship, and DP is very good with him, he plays with him a lot and is a natural with little kids. I am not such a natural but do play with DS in my own way.

We both work, I do 4 days and on my day off take DS to gymboree in the morning and then meet up with baby group in the afternoon so we spend the day together. Then over the weekend, DP probably has him more while I get on with cleaning etc, plus DP does his bath every night and give him his milk and put him to bed.

He's fine when it's just the two of us. He does cry when DP leaves the house but within a few minutes he's quite happy with me, so I'm not hugely worried about it in itself, but just whether it's an indicator that something isn't quite right.

Any thoughts?

Don't worry, my DS is exactly the same. I noticed that he has had a preference for men for at least 6 months now and he is also 15 months. Even in playgroups he'd find someone's dad and would try to engage them. When in a park he'd approach men eating their lunch. Boys like to be with men, it doesn't mean that he doesn't love or need you.

Oh yes that true - I mentioned it to the childminder - we were saying about how whenever I collect him he runs away (I think to be chased?) but when DP collects him he's quite happy to be picked and cuddled by him and he bascially reacts completely differently. She said that when her husband comes home DS goes straight to him. So perhaps he's a man's man at the moment.

Any ideas if it's just a phase? I know it doesn't really matter but I would like to play with him more!

Sounds like a phase to me, and also at 15 months they still take Mummy very much for granted. DD was exactly the same but now it's Mummy Mummy Mummy!!!! I can't shut her up.

DS (15 months) is going through a phase of preferring me at the moment. Up until the last month or so he has preferred either DH or my mother! It is nice to finally be flavour of the month!

In the past wee while I've been spending more time with him and interacting with him more. Now that we finally have half decent weather we've been out for walks a lot - with or without the buggy. And we talk all the way about what we can see. There is some building work going on in our village so we go to see the diggers a lot. I've also decided to limit tv watching to only In the Night Garden and Come Outside each day - I think we were watching too much tv.

DS eats everything so doing crafty stuff together is out, but we made rhubarb crumble together the other day and I get him to help me with housework so we're interacting all the time - it takes twice as long so I save a lot of tasks for his nap time.

However, DH works a lot more than yours and I work a lot less, so maybe that makes all the difference.

I think its a boy thing at this age. My DD is almost one now, but in the early weeks she gave both her first smile and giggle to my husband. After spending all day with her screaming with colic for the first few months of her life I was devastated that she bloody went and smiled and giggled at him!

Well, things seemed to have evened up now thankfully. DP and I both had some time off work, he had two weeks and I had one and we are now both equally in favour. It may have been having a week off so I could properly spend time with him. Just incase, i've rejigged my holiday for the rest of the year so I have a week off roughly every 6-8 weeks. I wonder as well as if he was just in need of being at home, sort of like a half term holiday from the Childminder to get a bit of balance. He had become terribly hard to settle at night and this also seems to have been fixed by a couple of weeks at home.

Having said that, DP was off for the first week of the holiday, while I still worked and things improved even after that first week. I wonder if it's also the case that as he was on his own at home (and with his 2 older boys) he couldn't give DS his undivided attention all the time. Before then I think I sometimes have to get DS to wait but DP is always available to him.

Anyway, it doesn't matter now, I am just pleased to be back in favour. I was missing him there!!