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Desperate Clinging in 17 month old....really really getting me down.

3 replies

herbgarden · 22/11/2007 17:18

My ds has always been a bit clingy but at the moment its got ridiculous. He won't be left playing on the floor alone most of the time. I'll sit with him and he'll come and literally sit on my legs and hang on like a koala. If I move to go to the loo, he follows me arms in the air, muzzy in one hand screaming his head off tears pouring down his cheeks.

I work 2 days a week and he goes to nursery and when I leave him there he might cry for a few minutes or even have stopped before I leave the room and I'm told he rarely cries there and is generally one of the ones laughing (apparently). I am at home with him the other three days and we do the usual things, shopping, going to the park, swimming sometimes, meeting with friends and then time at home to do (boring) chores like washing/cleaning and cooking.

I try to "involve" him when doing things at home but I am finding the whingey clinging more and more wearing. People tell me its a phase and it'll pass like everything else but it's really really getting me down now. I've suffered from anxiety and depression before and I worry that this will push me over. I've also had a virus that I can't shake for a while which isn't helping....

Anyone got any similar stories/ ways of getting through this. This afternoon I was so down I wandered around the vicinity for an hour and a half with him in the buggy so I could clear my head.....

To those of you with several whingeing children my situation might sound like a breeze so sorry if it might seem trivial. He is otherwise an adorable child.......

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Acinonyx · 22/11/2007 17:37

I have the clingiest child of all my friends. Dd is famous. This is partly why we have always gone out such a lot - it's pretty wearing to be at home for any length of time when to do anything at all that doesn't involve dd produces clinging and wails. Even visiting, she usually clings to my knee for at least an hour.

I've always been required to sit with her on the floor - or her with me in a chair. I can't sit on a chair and her play on the floor. Not good enough.

She's 2.4 now and has got a lot better - I think the turning point was about 22 mo. That was when I could go to the loo on my own if I was reasonably quick and fetch laundry from upstairs without howling (either of us...). Still top of the range compared to every other toddler we meet irl - but a lot better.

Dd is also fine at nursery although it took a while for her to totally settle - and she successfully faked illness this morning for the first time (mutter, mutter - so not out of the woods yet).

So my only advice is, yes, it will get better, in the meantime - get out of the house as much as possible and be with other mums and tots even if he clings (dd loves her toddler friends now). Jill

oneplusone · 22/11/2007 17:43

Right now I'm at the table sitting on my chair, clingy DS is standing behind me on the same chair clinging to me my round my neck!

It's much worse at home, when we're out he runs away!

herbgarden · 22/11/2007 21:05

Mmm
mine is always so much better when we're out, when we're at either grannies and is desperate to escape when he's in the buggy and then I fight to get him back in it again....He'll make a run for it if I open the back or front door and throws a wobbly if I then close the door...it's strange isn't it.

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