12 month old afraid of other babies

[Miggs28]

My almost 12 month old DS seems to have developed a fear of other babies.

We have spent a couple of weeks not going to groups or seeing many friends because of colds (his and mine!) and I'm hoping it's just because of this as I can't think of anything else that would have caused this. He has never been scared of babies before and seems fine around adults even strangers.

Currently if another baby goes anywhere near him he cries very hard and today he screamed very loudly in my friends DD's face and then tried to bite and hit her All she had done was sit down close to him.

He didn't manage to bite her because I got my hand between his mouth and her face. I immediately moved him away from her, told him no biting and distracted him with a toy but could this have validated his behaviour?

My gut reaction is to keep taking him to my usual groups and friends houses but I hate to see him feeling so frightened and I'm also now very worried he is going to hurt another baby.

Does anyone have any experience of this or any advice on how to handle it?

Keep doing normal stuff with him, it will pass. My DS used to point and shout No! No! No! When another toddler came within Ana three foot radius. He's still wary of 'babies' but does react badly any more.

Doesn't

Has he just started crawling/walking? As they can get clingy, possessive etc

He's been crawling for a couple of months now but has recently started to pull himself up to standing using furniture so maybe a precursor to walking??

I have noticed he has become very possessive over toys and gets really distressed if another baby or even I try to take something away from him.

My ds went through a similar stage at around one but it was only if he was trapped and couldn't get away from the other baby. If he tried to hit a baby I took him out of the room and put him on the floor in another room ( often the hall) with no toys and told him we must not hit/push/bite our friends.

We made giving and sharing a fun game, he is obsessed with sharing almost to the point of it being a bit much he follows other babies around trying to give them toys.

It definitely does seem to be a proximity issue, he is happy enough playing with other babies around and in the same room as him but if they try and touch him he screams at them.

I will definitely start to focus on sharing being fun and also actively praise him when he is playing well with other babies near him.

It's just so hard, you don't want your baby to be the aggressive unhappy one. I think I need to get a thicker skin!!

Any chance he might have got hurt by another child and you didn't see it?

My DD's cousin went through a phase of crying if other children came near her - this was because she was seeing a lot of a family friend's little boy (a bit older) who was prone to hitting her/taking toys off her etc - and she obviously thought all children would do the same.

I have been wondering if he has been hurt by another child. I think I will keep taking him to groups and watch him really closely and also I'm planning on arranging some quieter play dates with mums with babies a similar age.

You never know a few happy play dates might help him realise that he doesn't need to be frightened.