Is my 5 month baby to clingy?

[Scruffyhound]

My DS2 is very clingy. I dont mind to an extent and he has been unwell with refulx then recently teething. Hes been treated for the reflux so thats fine now. I have a DS1 whos 5 yrs old I dont remember him being any where near this bad. DS2 wants me all the time. I have never slept with a baby in my bed but we have with DS2. I never had to do this with DS1 he was fine a few restless nights and crying but nothing much. This time around with DS2 he crys instead of going to sleep he fights it and get worked up and then he has to sleep with us from about 2am. I dont like this and where its going i dont want to be one of those people who still has a 3yrd old in thier bed at night! Im giving him a bit of space but once his on solids and a proper routine will sort it out. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have to rock him to sleep all the time, he has to sit with me all day (its very restricting and frustrating!!) I get up to do something he cries so I let him get on with it for a bit but he just does not stop! Any advice would be great :) I cant eat a dinner as he cries when I leave him in his chair even if hes right by me he still cries until hes picked up....... I need to loose weight but not like this!

DD1 was like that. The one thing that didn't work was forcing her to be away from me (for example if relatives took her away so I could have a 'break', while I could hear her screaming constantly). I gave her lots of time and eventually she made her own way out. I went back to work part time when she was 12 months, and she got clingier when I was at home then, but she was alright while I was away, and she is still physically much closer to me than her younger sister is.

Not all kids are the same, and as long as this isn't seriously impacting on DS1 I would say just live with it until DS2 feels he is ready to find out that the world is far more interesting than your knee is.

I also found it got easier when she could crawl, as she could follow me to the kitchen and attach herself to my ankle there. She starts at school tomorrow, and I'm not at all worried about her missing me.

If you read through past threads on mn you'll find loads of similar queries, with lots of helpful advice. If I could condense it down to something digestible, it would be that a baby will end up being more independent and secure if you give it what it needs when it's little, and will be insecure if you try to train it to fend for itself emotionally at this early stage in its life. There's lots of up-to-date scientific research that points to this. Your DS needs to know you'll be there for him.

It sounds to me as if your baby is like mine. He has always been strongly attached to me, and it does make it difficult to find time to do anything. Like you, I have to carry him around everywhere, can't leave him with anyone, and I also sleep with my DS. I've been assured by the past threads that loads of mumsnetters with similar babies have followed the advice to give the baby the cuddles and constant input he needs and found that the baby just grew out of it. I think it would be just too optimistic to expect this to happen when he is weaned onto solids, especially as 6 months is when most babies become clingy for the first time. I'm sure I'm in it for a longer haul, though the upside is that babies who are like this (try googling "high needs baby") are absolutely lovely as they get older, and I've even read that they're less likely to have the terrible twos in a big way than other babies (how much data there was to bear that claim out I do not know).

By the way, mine's 6 months old, and eating dinner is now a pleasure because he shares bits of my food, has a great time pretending he's eating it, and lets me actually eat the rest of it in relative peace (google "baby led weaning"). I still haven't found a way to get him to let me cook the dinner in the first place though.