This may be long
MiniPPH (15 months) is clingy beyond belief, and it is getting to the stage where it is seriously hampering my ability to get anything done, my ability to do much with the other children, and my enjoyment of her. Which isn't good. And I don't understand why or what I can do about it (if anything), so I thought I'd tap into the combined wisdom of MNetters as I'm sure someone will be able to shine a light...
She has been pretty shy from a v early age, never really liked strangers, does that princess diana thing of no eye contact but peep under her eyelashes every so often to see if they are still there. Definition of strangers very wide and includes grandmothers if she hasn't seen them for a fortnight. Basically the people she feels comfortable with are those she sees every day - me, dh, children, nanny, cleaner and gardener. She loves all of those and is as demanding with them a she is with me.
At Xmas (11months) we had 20 people for lunch, all close family (grandparents, aunts uncles and cousins) and I spent most of it with her in a room by ourselves because she was so distraught at all of these people LOOKING at her and god forbid talking to her.
Now she is really only happy and content if one of the favoured adults is carrying her on a hip, or sitting right beside her as she plays. For short periods of time if she is in the middle of some interesting play she might allow you to get up and walk to the other side of the room to do something without screaming blue murder, but if you leave the room she goes mad.
She is a particular daddys girl and if I'm sitting beside her on the floor playing quietly and DH walks in, says something to me and goes away again she is INCONSOLABLE until he comes back and picks her up.
It has now got to the stage where if you are standing up with her on your hip and you dare to sit down (with her still on your lap), she goes bananas - screams, throws herself about, goes red in the face, tears - the MOMENT you stand up again it all switches off like a tap and she sits quietly with a slightly outraged expression on her face that you should have committed such a crime.
If you put her on the floor to do something (take a boiling saucepan off the floor, butter toast which you CAN'T do with a child on your hip) she screams, cries and often bangs her forehead on the ground. We have a stone floor in the kitchen and she often has big lumpy eggs on her head.
She is a big girl, can walk but gets hardly any practice because she insists on being carried. She weighs a ton and I now have sciatica quite badly, probably because my hip is thrown out all the time carrying her.
Basically I'm not enjoying her at this stage at all, it is very wearing on me and on the other three children who are effectively living with a tyrant ordering all the adults about despite their needs, and I really need to know
a) if there is anything I can do to manage her a bit to either make this stage more bearable or (holy grail) actually break this habit and/or
b) if it is just a stage, HOW LONG WILL IT LAST????
None of my others were like this at all and I don't think I've done anything differently with her. I don't leave babies to scream for anything - my modus operandi is to meet their needs and make them feel loved and secure but in my other three that actually made for happy little toddlers who were really independent and happy to do their own thing as long as they knew where you were (ie bird happy if you were in the same room albeit doing something dull like making lunch).
Please help!
Thanks for reading this far, my most epic post ever, in 4 years of mumsnetting