Baby hates her Grandad!

[mrsjuan]

DD is 6 months and is very happy and amenable 90 percent of the time. Only really cries when she's tired (hope I am not jinxing things by writing this down!)

She is happy and smiley with everyone (including strangers) except my FIL. She cries when he holds her and really doesn't even seem to like him being close to her unless I am holding her.

This has been going on a few months - the first time we noticed was when he came round one evening and we passed her to him (perhaps a bit quickly). We put it down to the fact that she was tired and hungry but now it seems to happen every time she sees him.

I'm sure she'll come round eventually but it's obviously not very nice to for him in the meantime!

Any ideas?

Does he have a beard? Perhaps there is something about his physical appearance which is spooking her.

Otherwise she's probably seeing him looking nervous and reacting to that.

We have a fantastic photo of dd1 aged 6 months, sitting on grandpa's knee and looking utterly depressed.

Some older men just aren't comfortable with babies, despite trying very hard. Could this be the case here?

Not much you can do to get a baby to fake its expression.

No beard but he is a bit bald!

He tries very hard - (maybe too hard?) but does seem to be a bit awkward.

It is just strange that she can be so laid back in every other circumstance.

I think babies pick up on subtle feelings of discomfort. Like animals.

My DS was scared of my dad for quite a while and I felt awful. There didn't seem to be a particular reason. After a while he was like it with a few other males but we didn't push him to sit on laps or anything and just got the person he was wary of to carry on doing there thing or offer him toys and he soon came around and now he gets excited when he sees his grandad. He was a bit older than yours but they do come around in their own time, just don't push them. Hope this helps.

Both of my ds's were very strange with their grandpa and thier uncle when they were babies.

We had to leave ds1 with my bil for an hour once in an emergency when he ws about 8 months and bil said ds screamed every single time he looked at him

This changed when they hit around the year mark when they realised granpas and uncles are great for playing with.

Our neice was also the same with dh when she was tiny. Then at the age of 2 decided he was the 'funny man' and thinks he's great.

Your dd will be fine with him- as every one else says just give it time

DD was the same with FIL, screamed when she looked at him, but now she adores him, he did have a beard incidentally. She loosened up around age 1 as far as I can remember.

DS was the same with MIL, he's fine now too - she, by the way didn't have a beard.

Your DD will eventually be ok, I know it seems so upsetting and you feel so bad (for the grandparent more).

Both of mine got better when we said to each grandparent to sort of ignore baby,- be there but not making a big fuss and being 'in their face' this did seem to work.