Fussy 1 year old

[NannyAnny]

Hi, I am a nanny to a 15 month old. She is t quite walking but we're trying to encourage her to and encourage her to be a bit independent. But sometimes when we put her down she just cries and has a bit of a tantrum, how can i try and stop this?

Developmentally she's going through a phase where a) she needs to be close to someone and b) she's frustrated by not being able to do physically what she can conceptualise - like walking. She wants to move around and see the world - can't do it independently, can if she's carried. She can't explain that verbally so she communicates it by crying.

You can either ride it out and accept that independence will come when she feels secure (which would be my preference) or if that's really not possible every time you put her down you need to explain why, how long for and give her something interesting to do, building up the length of time until she's used to being put down. Just popping her on the floor isn't going to develop independence because she'll feel rejected and therefore be clinger.

It's a challenging stage but it does pass :)