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5yo favours one parent for care

2 replies

givemushypeasachance · 21/01/2025 20:54

5yo boy, in reception. Has always favoured mum for care, things like dressing, brushing teeth, getting ready for bed. If she is not in the house then he'll accept it from dad or another adult. But if she is there and doing something for other children, or in the toilet, or trying to do another job, 5yo will refuse to let someone else do it. Fights, runs away, undresses himself again, will work himself into hysterical crying because he wants mummy to put his pyjamas on/brush his teeth etc. No amount of explaining that mummy is just doing xyz and she'll come and be with him in five minutes to put him to bed will help. Other adults aren't being harsh with him or anything different it's the same routine, but he wants mummy doing it not anyone else. Any suggestions of how to try to work through this? When he was a breastfeeding toddler it was understandable but he's 5yo and still putting it all on her, she can't and shouldn't have to do it all, but if trying to get his pyjamas on leads to hysterical crying just before bed then other adults trying to takeover seems to make the situation worse.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
andyourpointiswhat · 22/01/2025 05:06

I would say mummy needs to absent herself regularly at trigger points like bedtime. It’s not especially unusual and is usually just a phase kids go through and grow out of but it’s exhausting in the meantime. You could try talking about it with him at some other point in the day when he is calm to see if he can explain why it is so important to him and how he feels but tbh he probably won’t be able to articulate anything other than “I just prefer mum to do things”.

Sprogonthetyne · 22/01/2025 05:13

I'd go with a combination of dad taking child out more and having fun together at non trigger time, and mum strategically going out over bedtime. It's easy to fall into the positive feedback cycle of one parent doing more, so develops a closer bond, so can parent more effectively, so ends up doing more ..... etc. Make an effort now to break the pattern or it will just get more and more ingrained.

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