My daughter doesnt show my wife as much affection/excitement and we bot hdont know why? please help...

[michael1234]

Hi, any advice would be really appreciated.

Our daughter shows me lots of excitment and affection when I spend time with her at home or when i pick her up from nursery...but when my wife does she doesnt show half as much exctiment and on occasions appears to ignore her. She is 18 months old. Its upsetting my wife as she spends lots of time with her playing etc but doesnt feel she gets any of the love that i get back from her. Is this normal? is there anything I can do to help. Maybe changing our routine and letting my wife take and pick her up from nursery all the time may help.

Does she see a lot more of your wife than she does of you? I'm at home whilst my dh works and he gets all the smiles etc from our 2 year old son and I often get 'go away mummy' just cos I have to do all the boring discipline and getting hoim to eat his dinner etc whilst Daddy is seen as playtime iyswim

It's pretty normal behaviour, I think. Your wife is with your dd all the time, you are a novelty so she greets you with excitement. Plus Mummies do all the disciplining when they're there all day, so Daddies are just for fun - that's how my dd was at that age, anyway!

I'll bet it's your wife she runs to if she hurts herself and needs a cuddle though ...

my sisters daughter was exactly like this with her daddy. she always went to daddy for comfort,cuddles,play, anything really and my sister used to her dd preferred her partner.

her dd is 3.5 now and has changed to mummy for comfort,cuddles etc

im sure she'll change,tell your wife not to get upset it isnt her, its just kids are weird

sorry dad - your a novelty - a new face from the face of mum all day. how exciting.

when they get older mums the word IME.

Entirely normal at this age (it used to drive me potty with DS), really. It's not that she doesn't love her mother. It does even out and/or swing back the other way in time.

thanks for all the great advice its nice to know that we arent the only one experiencing this. It was fine up until 3 months ago but i put it down to a phase she is going through.

You are right though - when she is ill and doesnt feel well she does always go to her mum first which i knows helps her lots.

thanks again

i did forget to mention that we do both work during the day so do see our daughter at the same time for similar amounts of time, its just that I tend to pick her up from nursery the most but when my wife does she is greated differently.

But I am guessing that your wife took more maternity leave than you took paternity leave when she was smaller?

oh yes, she was at home all the time with her daughter. thanks again for your help

How I can sympathise! Sometimes I think if DH could lactate, DS would never come near me again! And yet DH doesn't just do the fun daddy stuff and is quite often stricter than I am. I reckon it's just a phase and in time DS will realise how very much more fun I am and generally nicer to be around than his father. Failing that, I tell myself that the next one will want ME as its favourite.

Oh yes, daddy is always special because they don't see you as much as mummy (if she's a sahm).

Don't worry about it, just try and get your dw to realise it's not her.