Hi everyone,
Just after some advice about my 21 month old DS. For context, he lives with me , my husband who is his dad and our older DS who is almost 3. He has always been very very clingy with me, and doesn't like DH to do anything for him such as comfort him or put him to bed. He'll cry and push him away, and now that he can talk will shout NO when my my DH tries to hold him or even play with him sometimes. This has been hard on my DH and also me because it means I don't get much respite.
However, ever since he could reach out to other people/crawl/walk he has always been drawn to other men. This started with men in our own family, such as my brother, my stepdad, brother-in-law etc. He'd follow them around and want to play with them and sit with them. As he's got older this has extended to my male friends, and other men we might meet out and about at activities and groups. He takes their hands and guides them to whatever he wants to play with and wants to be carried around by them.
Yesterday when I went to pick him up from nursery his key worker mentioned that they'd had a baby come in with it's parents for a settling in session, and my son was obsessed with the baby's dad!! He wouldn't leave him alone, he wanted to sit on him and kept pulling him towards things he wanted to play with etc.
This got me thinking whether this is normal behaviour? Especially since he is so against his dad doing anything with him or carrying him. It's such a polar opposite in behaviour when it comes to men! Has anyone else experienced this?
It really hurts my DH's feelings to see him toddle off and request to sit on other random men's knees when he shouts and cries if my husband tries to sit with him. Like I say, this isn't just a phase, it's been the case since around 8 months old.