Toddler prefers daddy, heartbreaking for mummy

[Helloandy]

Hi everyone

I’m a dad posting here for the first time.

My 2year old boy has developed a strong preference for me and it is heart breaking for my wife.

There are a bunch of examples, but typically if he is hurt or upset he will insist on me picking him up. And recently at bedtime he increasingly wants me to read to him. My wife (who is finding motherhood challenging) is in tears. She puts so much in and to get it thrown back at her is so upsetting. If I could switch his preference, I’d do so in a heartbeat.

We’ve tried stuff we’ve read about trying to take control by saying things like “I know you want daddy, but mummy is going to read to you”. But none of it seems to work.

I’m just wondering if anyone has had any luck handling this kind of thing, or if people have any other tips we could try

Thanks 🙏
Andy

I've not experienced it sorry but it's definitely not a reflection on how much he loves your DW. Toddlers are just sometimes really focused on asserting a little autonomy in their lives.

Personally I wouldn't push him having his Mum read to him. Could your DW arrange some nice things for her to do instead like going to a class, meeting friends or just cooking a nice meal for the two of you?

I've not yet experienced this with my 17 month old, but my friends with a 4 year old say he has flip flopped back and forth between them so many times they don't sweat it anymore - he would also only let dad put him to bed for a while. I've done some reading about this issue however in order to prepare for it (I'm convinced our little lady will prefer dad, might be my lack of parenting confidence, might be the fact that he's a more relaxed and natural parent than me!) and it suggested stuff like making sure the rejected parent is involved in the routine e.g. the rejected parent does the bath or pyjama change or reading, even if not the actual putting into bed etc.

Thank you both. What you say makes sense. It’s just so hard for her. Even to play a supporting role, which is heartbreaking.

Hi there, I have a similar situation at home with my DC. They are now 4 and the preference for one parent (me) has been generally stable, although it goes up and down in intensity. It has been pretty hard at times on both parents - exhausting for me being the preferred one and upsetting for my DP being the non preferred so I really understand your situation. My DP is a fantastic and very involved parent so there doesn't seem to be any rational basis for the preference that we can discover.

Things we have tried (some successfully, some not):

• making sure my DP has lots of 1 on 1 time with the child (our DC is absolutely fine with them if I'm not around)
• having some very fun things that they only do with DP to make sure there are lots of positive associations
• equally, having some things they don't like to do only done by me
• trying not to 'give in' to the preference so even if she cries, DP will still do bedtimes/bathtime/whatever she is complaining about. This one is hard on my DP if she is protesting but we feel like giving in will only exacerbate the problem.

I have to give credit to my DP for generally taking the rejection very well - just sometimes he gets frustrated. I'm not sure I could be so mature about it.

My only other thing to add is that I once searched on here for other threads related to this issue, and one thing from a poster stuck with me - that parenting is very much a long game. She said she'd been a real mummy's girl when she was younger, but as a preteen / teen she became much closer to her dad, and as an adult she was close but in different ways to the two. Just a thought to try and gain perspective, that these toddler years might not reflect at all what will come to be later.