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Lone parents

Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

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Original poster

Ridiculous clingyness, please tell me how to deal with it...

14 replies

Newbeginning1 · 05/05/2010 16:43

DS is 18 weeks old and i broke up with his father whilst pregnant. He said he would see DS daily/weekly but it's more like once a week if that. I left him with his father for the 1st time a couple of weeks ago & he screamed most of the time he was there.

Anyway, since then he is so clingy i just can't bear it. Whereas before he would be held by friends or family now he will last about 30 seconds then scream like his world has collapsed.

I'm at home with him all day by myself and I don't know how to resolve it. I don't have lots of friends that i can see and pass him to IYKWIM.

What can i do to make things better? I love DS to bits but i'm at breaking point with the constant holding etc and i just cant see DS going to his father at any point in the future but i'm sure when DS is toddling/talking his Dad wont be able to get enough of him.

OP posts:

Kathyjelly · 05/05/2010 19:16

Can you find a mums and babes group. I know they can be a bit grim but one advantage is the babies do get used to being passed around while someone makes a cup of tea or sorts out the biscuits. Plus if there are other babies there, your ds will soon realise from watching them, what is normal.

Where are you? Perhaps some MNs can suggest somewhere good.

Chandra · 05/05/2010 19:21

How long was he with his father?

I guess that is all about reassuring him that you are still there, even when he can't see you. So, in the mean time, keep talking when you are out of view, that will help him to understand you are still around.

But also, as Kathy says, children need to be socialised and the only way to do that is to get them to meet with a lot of people, starting with meeting with 1-2 persons until you can get him to feel comfortable in more noisy and busy places.

cestlavielife · 06/05/2010 10:07

how did dad cope with this?

babies can be wily....and clever and manipulative.
but you ened ot be a bit firm - you know eh isnt hurt or in danger.

agree with getting out to baby groups is a good idea.

it is a phase and it will pass.

you and his dad need to be firm and try distraction techniques...try posting on baby board.

zeeka · 06/05/2010 22:42

Make sure you get a break! Even if you have to leave him at a creche for an hour, you will go mad if you don't get a break. I have one child who is very clingy, and if I don't get a break I really feel too stressed to do anything!

Some Surestart centres do creches when mums do aerobics or other classes, and they are usually excellent, so maybe try one?

Good luck! xx

Supercherry · 07/05/2010 11:45

Babies can be 'manipulative'? I couldn't disagree more strongly.

Newbeginning, your DS is probably going through seperation anxiety, leaving him with his dad is unliklely to have anything to do with it. What he needs is to feel secure so you need to keep meeting his needs as tiring as it is.

Can you get a sling so your hands are free?

Baby groups are good because everything seems better when there are other people around. Does he like going in the buggy for walks?

cestlavielife · 07/05/2010 15:51

babies learn that crying has results - and will use this to good effect - not wilfully obviously.

10 years ago i left my (nowex)P with my dd age six months for two hours, came back and he said he "hadnt been able to empty the dishwasher because baby would not let me"!

if he put her down she cried.

he was unable to counter crying - so baby got what she wanted and nothing got done that he wanted to/needed to do...

mumtotwoboys · 07/05/2010 16:30

did you leave him alone with his father and he's acting traumatised to be without you since then?
I would perhaps be a little bit suspicious??

Original poster

Newbeginning1 · 07/05/2010 16:49

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posting back.

I left him with his father for 2 hours. He was asleep when I dropped him off which wasn't ideal and then his fathers daughter woke him up about 5 mins after I left apparently so I know that he would be grumpy because he was tired but from what his father told me he couldn't get him back to sleep.

His father said that he had rocked him, bounce him, tried feeding him etc but nothing worked. DS has not seen a lot of his fathers family for 4 months before when I left him and when I went to pick him up he had a female friend round with her baby so my thoughts are firstly with his mum and gran there they should have been able to calm him but also I don't know if his father was too preoccupied with this girl to deal with DS.

supercherry - he's at the point where he screams when he's in his pushchair because he just wants to be in my arms. Is separation anxiety a phase that he will outgrow? I must admit that for all of his life i've never let him get really upset because I find it too distressing so he knows that crying means comfort from me.

zeeka - thanks for the advice around surestart, i'll have a think about that.

OP posts:

mumtotwoboys · 07/05/2010 16:53

Jesus, get him a dummy.
I had such a rough night just last week and I'm quite positive that a dummy saved my sanity. As soon as that thing was in his mouth he was out for the count and slept for 7 hours, it was like a miracle.
Just have to be careful not to use it too much that they get to the point of needing it.

Supercherry · 07/05/2010 18:42

Cestlavielife, I believe that babies cry because it's their only means of communicating their needs. Toddlers learn to cry to get what they want but not young babies. Re: the dishwasher incident, don't know about you but I can easily unload a dishwasher with one hand while holding a baby in the other arm- isn't this what parent's do all the time? Your ex probably couldn't be bothered more like and used the baby as an excuse (if he's anything like my ex).

Newbeginning1, sounds like your DS is strongly attached to you and that's a good thing. The fact that you find it distressing to hear him cry is natural- that's your motherly instinct. His need for comfort IMO is just as important as his need for food. If you meet his needs he will grow more secure not the opposite. I always held DS1 and didn't leave him to cry unless it was unavoidable- ie mid toilet or something! They do grow out of it, when they get more mobile and they can entertain themselves a bit more. Independence comes naturally as they get older and into toddlerhood.

This isn't to say that it's not tiring though and hard work, especially mentally. Is anyone else good at comforting him? I think sometimes it's just a knack.

lindsaygii · 07/05/2010 19:15

Newb - I'm also on my own with a baby, and the first thing to say is that it is physically and mentally and emotionally EXHAUSTING and I have spent almost every minute of the last ten months feeling like I am breaking point. I still do.

So I really, REALLY feel for you. It is hard like nothing I have ever done before is hard. You are doing great.

Do get him a dummy. Stick it in his mouth. If he's screaming then stick it in anyway, hold in place and tap the hard bit with your fingernail. It sort of hypnotises them to clamp down on it. Silence. Wonderful!

Don't worry about him getting too attached to it, he'll get bored of it later and stop using it.

Do go to any groups you can. They are not nearly as grim as staying in on your own.

When you pass him to other people make lots of positive encouraging noises about how brilliant that person is - put loads of effort into getting it through to him that it's okay to go to someone else.

And, not to criticise, but don't leave him at go when he's sleeping. He woke up, and you weren't there. Next time go in, spend some time on handover (so he knows it's okay), and then go. Remember, he doesn't know that bloke is his dad, he has to learn.

But mostly I just wanted to say how bloody hard it is looking after a baby on your own all day. You don't have to be supermum, you just have to get through. hugs

Supercherry · 07/05/2010 19:29

I agree to go for a dummy too- it really doesn't matter if he ends up needing it for comfort, after all it's only a dummy. Ignore the dummy snobs. Anything for a bit of peace is the way forward as a single parent.

I'm single too.

Original poster

Newbeginning1 · 07/05/2010 23:37

Thanks everyone.

He has a dummy which I didn't want him to have but I must admit my boobs just needed a rest from the constant sucking because he is a very scuky baby.

supercherry - i do know what you mean about being great that he is so attached to me and I do hope that when he grows up we still have a close relationship but I must admit there are times when I wish that I could explain that Mummy needs 5 minutes etc. I feel guilty even saying that but I do long for a break.

lindsaygii - do you go to a lot of groups? I feel a bit like a lepper (sp?) with all of the groups i've been to in my area. Where I live there is only 1 other single mother and the other groups i've been to are similar where i'm the only single mum and because i'm quite young (22) they seem to look down their nose at me. I know that i'm not one of those mothers that feeds my baby turkey twizzlers and gives it plastic bags to play with and i'm sure that behind closed doors their life isn't peachy but when you're tired and it's a battle to get people to see that you're decent and nice when they judge you for being a single mum.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant. I'll definitely try encouraging him more when he goes to other people and I am trying to introduce it again slowly starting with him sitting on my knee facing them, then him sitting on their knee facing them etc so that hopefully it doesn't get to him too much.

OP posts:

GardenPath · 08/05/2010 01:11

Supercherry is right. It is separation anxiety, don't worry, its nothing abnormal. He's being clingy because you left him with someone he's not familiar with - and that's not a judgement. Unless, as I'm always banging on, a judgement on the way we bring up children in isolation in our modern Western culture, expecting poor mum's to be at it 24/7 with no help or back up - and then blaming them when they can't cope - makes me so angry.

And yes, crying is a baby's only method of communication, it's a survival technique along with them having 'cute' faces to make us 'want' to nurture them. You could call this 'manipulative', but since they are entirely and utterly dependant it's all they have so you can hardly blame them. (Though, having brought up my six on my own, with no father contact - no bad thing, there were times when I could cheerfully have strangled the lot of them!).

There is a famous experiment, done with a baby monkey in the '50's - considered quite cruel now but they gave it a choice between a fur covered dummy mother and an uncomfortable wire model dummy with a milk supply. The baby monkey spent all it's time clinging to the fur dummy in spite of there being no milk - it only left off clinging to go to the wire dummy for food, then would return to the fur dummy. The conclusion was that comfort was every bit as important, if not more so, than food for a young infant.

whyfiles.org/087mother/4.html

www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm

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