Cousin’s baby hit three months about a week ago and she’s started to cling. Not even daddy can hold her without triggering the scream. Mommy is distraught because she just wants to be able to go out and see a movie or have lunch with her friends for a couple hours every now and then, but baby won’t accept the care of anyone else. Doesn’t matter if it’s the faces she recognizes best — grandma, daddy, great aunt, me — no one is exempt from scream except mommy.
So here I come with my infinite patience. I’m thinking the best path forward is just to hold her, soothe her, and let her scream at me until she gets used to it and begins to understand that people aside from her mother are also ok. Her grandma seems to take it too personally and just hands her back over to her mom when the screaming begins, which I think merely enforces the “only mommy” habit that’s forming. I think it’s just an issue of her getting some “practice” with other people holding her, so to speak.
What do you guys think? Reasonable or traumatizing? I hate to do some kind of Freudian damage or something.
let the screaming continue from my experience.
it’s all about who’s supposed to be in control. the parents or the infant. when the bsby finds out anyone can feed it, it loses all care
I like the good sound of a baby screaming (normally)–it sounds healthy. It’s a visceral sound though, and there’s a cultural disposition to prevent it I think.
This reminds me of when my daughter would have a tantrum. I would put her in her bedroom, close the door, and tell her she could come out when she was calmer. She would then proceed to scream and yell in her room but I would just ignore her (although I’d check on her through the window).
Well, by my sister-in-law’s reaction, you would of thought I was the worst father in history. She wanted to go running to the room to “rescue” my daughter and was shocked when I refused to let her do it. The mother-in-law wasn’t that impressed either but I just told them once my daughter was calm then she could come out and until then, everyone was just going to leave her alone.
I like too. I already forgot how my babies were screaming at 1 yo, but their screamings at 3 mo were much more feeble and cute.
By crying, baby’s lungs become strong. Some crying may be good for them.
No baby at nursery cries all day long just because there is no mummy, unless they have some other problems. After screaming enough and getting tired, they stop crying. If they feel hungry, they can be fed by a bottle.
So, my advice is letting the baby cry until she gets tired. I’d hold or sooth her when possible, but I don’t mind just putting a crying baby at a safe place when I have something to do.
My guess is a 3 month baby is not wise enough to understand the cause (stop crying) and the result (someone comes to hold).
From my experience (as a male… not that it matters) of having many younger cousins, I think you have a good way of approaching this and you seem sure of it. I believe the children get sensitive enough to the touch/voice of the preferred individual, so the only thing you can do is make it so that you find what they enjoy most while they are in your arms and run with it… a song, strokes at the cheek, cooing, etc. Through the years, it certainly has worked with the more impatient youngins (mind you, this doesn’t happen in only a few minutes many a time), so I suppose establishing “control” has its place as someone suggested. Seeing that grandma isn’t letting you take a whack at it though, as @tempogain mentioned, is quite the issue.
Good on ya for the pristine innate mommy senses, though!
