Hi, I’m new here, just realized there’s a step-parenting forum, although I’ve been reading a lot of pregnancy related posts on mumsnet I general. My SO has 2 SC, DSD just turned 11, and DSS is 18. I’m 35 weeks pregnant with our daughter, which will be my first kid. I get along really well with my SO’s kids, care about them a lot and they are both happy and excited about the new arrival. We have the kids 50% of the time so every other week.
DSD has always been close to her dad, but lately I feel it’s too intimate and touchy especially for her age. She never showed obvious jealousy signs towards me, but has had phases of getting between us, needing to be close to dad, baby talking etc. There was one particular period when we moved in together to a new house that we bought where she was taking it a bit too far: she was climbing on him and basically striding him when he was on the sofa, wanting to sit on his lap all the time etc. She got over it eventually.
Recently she started again but it’s 2 years later, and I’m worried that it will get worse when the baby arrives. Now she is constantly stroking dad’s arms and chest, kissing him all over, playing with his hair all the time. It honestly looks like more like the contact I would expect between a couple than father-daughter. Her brother is uncomfortable with that too, and my SO occasionally tells her to cut it out, but more in a ‘let me be’ sense than explaining that it’s not appropriate.
I get that she’s worried about no longer being daddy’s little princess, and I see other behavioral signs of that, but he spends time with her, we involve her in baby stuff (looking at toys, preparing the nursery, etc), she even participated in the discussion for our name choice. So how do we manage that? On the one hand how can we reassure her more and open up a conversation but also cut out the wifey behaviors? Or is this kind of intimacy normal and I should just suck it up?