9 month old won't look at strangers

[Somethingvague]

Hi,

Has anyone experienced this? Is it something to worry about?

My 9 month old won't even look at strangers. If someone tries to talk to her in her pram or when I'm holding her, she turns away and burrows into the seat or my shoulder to avoid looking at them. Occasionally they might get a very small smile while she does this. If they try and persevere and interact with her then she will cry.

She also still only lets a few family members to hold her without crying. At home with just us then she is fine - happy and smiley. Obviously lockdown has had an impact, but this is very unexpected to me - my older son was always very confident and loved people. I'm also concerned as I'm back to work in a couple of months, so will be using childcare.

Other milestones are OK. She has just started babbling, so a little slow on that I think. And again she has just started, very slowly and cautiously, crawling.

Thank you.

Sounds perfectly normal. Some babies are just a little more reserved than others. Have you got plenty of settling in sessions sorted with your childcare?

Totally normal, the only man my DS let hold him was his dad for many months over lockdown. Still warming up to his grandads now and is only really happy when held by me, dad or his Nan's. Not looking at strangers is very normal - he still doesn't like looking at random people now and is a toddler!

I feel like my 8 month old is the same and I've just put it down to the impact of lockdown. He's very clingy to me and if I put him down he'll cry. Family members can hold him for a little bit but they must be standing up with him or he'll cry. When I'm out and people talk to him in the pushchair he'll just stare at them, but after a while they might get a smile out of him.

Both me and his Dad can easily make him smile or laugh when we're at home with him but when we're out it'll take a lot for someone to get that out of him.

He's been crawling a while now and in the last few weeks he's learnt to stand and walk around the furniture. However the other day I took him to a small soft play area thinking he might enjoy it now he can get around and he was not impressed. He cried until I picked him back up. Yet when we're at home if he's not sleeping or eating he's on the go all day. I think it may just be a comfort thing and not really a developmental problem. I think with spending so much time indoors and surrounded by few people he's just very used to the comfort of you and seeing so many people all of a sudden is probably just a shock.

Then again I was the same as a child up until I started school, if I wasn't within a few centimetres of my immediate family I'd shy away. Absolutely fine now, just give him time 🙂.