My toddler is terrified of my aunt! Any suggestions?

[DitaVonCheese]

This is a bit weird. My 2.5 yo toddler is suddenly either scared of my aunt or is pretending she is. Aunt lives next door to my mum (who DD loves and sees several times a week) but is away a lot, though DD still sees her fairly often. She has just been away for probably nearly three months in total so it's been a while since DD saw her but she has a really good memory for people so that shouldn't really be an issue.

The first time DD saw her after she came back I think she took DD by surprise a bit and we made a bit of a joke of it. Since then DD won't look at her, hides if she comes into the room, and cries and asks to be cuddled or taken away. Yesterday I thought we'd had a bit of a breakthrough when aunt came over to my mum's and chatted for a bit - DD gradually thawed/forgot to be scared and they ended up high-fiving. Today we went over to watch some of the RW there and DD spent most of it with her face buried in my chest, clinging to me and begging to leave - sounded really genuine and heart-rending :(

The problem is we went there this morning to see my cousins and their kids. They all live a long way away now (one in NYC!) so I rarely get to see them; also DD does know their children (all similar age) and quite likes them. Eventually we left but we are supposed to go back on Sunday for lunch for my dcuz's birthday. I want to go and not have to leave early. Also suspect that DD is playing up a little but don't want to be too harsh if she's not.

Sorry it's so long - any suggestions on how to move on past this? DD is generally a very confident happy little thing (confidence has really soared since she started pre-school two mornings a week) so this is odd for her. Help!

It happens at that age, both of mine have gone through the wibbles about various family members and if they get any attention for it it just goes on till they get bored.

Some strategies: if she likes a particular toy or activity, get her to do it with the aunt. We got MiL to bring a pot of glitter glue and a pad and pretend she could not colour in a picture with it and DD happily trotted along and helped her.

DD was scared of my brother (understandable ), he produced a train from his pocket, suddenly he was a genius.

My DD was the sm with cetain men at that age. My BIL is her Godfather and got pretty upset in the end. DD would close her eyes and not open them until he left. Same with friends husbands or grown up sons. DD is 5 now and well over it, but has told us that she was scared of BIL's eyebrows! She was scared of men with bushy eyebrows. Sounds silly to adults but not to a toddler.

Many thanks for the replies - have been trying to think of something my aunt could do with her. I know she'll be in a tizzy, as my mum would say , about catering the party tomorrow so probably not up for any activities, but I've got a chocolate Freddo frog (DD is a frog, apparently ) that she can give DD tomorrow. Let's see if simple bribery does the trick ...

Give your aunt a large bag of chocolate buttons. Ask her to sit and eat them slowly, with plenty of bag rustling.

I predict your daughter will have a complete attitude shift after 4 minutes of this.

I do actually have a large bag of buttons (we are potty training, not very successfully) ... Might use them as a follow up to the frog, though there will be at least three other toddlers there so may cause chaos ....

Is it possible that when your aunt visits your dd gets less attention from either you or your mother?

I remember dd went through a phase of crying whenever next door neighbour came over to chat to me.

Otherwise, is it possible that aunt has strange perfume/startling appearance?

Just throwing things out there - may be way off the mark on every count, but hope you get it sorted.

DD probably does get less attention when aunt is there, but no less than when anyone else visits if that makes sense.

I wonder if it's the fact that aunt looks a bit like my mum - I think DD might have thought it was her granny when she first walked into the room and then got a shock when she realised it was someone else. She has known her all her life though, it's v odd

I think it's partly a game/joke but then she gets confused about whether it's real sometimes. Will see if chocolate does the trick anyway, seems to work for most things

Thanks again for the suggestions. Chocolate frog seems to have worked, or at least I got to have lunch without her begging to go home :) Will have to see whether she is okay with my aunt next time she sees her ...

I would guess that its something to do with the Aunts appearance so the fact that Aunt resembles your mum might be it.

My DD , at that sort of age, was terrified of my brother and we realised that it was because of his beard. She didn't know/hadn't seen anyone else 'close-up' that had one