Super clingy one year old...help!!

intothewest

I have a just gone one and just gone two year old. The one yr old has always been a more ‘high maintenance’ child from day one in that she had colic, and so was what I would describe as harder work than our first. Since she could sit and been crawling, she would play on her own and with her brother for periods of time with no worries. Gradually over the last couple of months, she has become more and more clingy. To the point where now, she will not go to anyone else (incl her dad) once I am around. If I’m not around she’ll cling to her Dad. Over Christmas, family members did some babysitting for us, and she would literally pick a person and cling to them. My mother was looking after them one day, and she said she was like a different child….that was until I came back. At her worst, you cannot put her down without her screaming the house down. If she does potter about playing and she see’s you move, she’ll come scurrying crying. When you eventually pick her up (I’ve tried just leaving her to cry/not making eye contact/ignoring her/letting her cry/hoping she’ll get distracted by something else etc etc!), it’s like a switch and she’ll stop crying..and sometimes she’ll throw in a head butt for good measure. Sometimes I can’t even sit down on the couch with her, she wants to be on my hip walking around. It’s definitely gotten worse since we’ve been at home from work for Christmas. FYI, we both work, and her and her brother are in a childminders. I went back to work in Sept. With having the two so close in age, just a year between them, I was busy with looking after them both, so not like she’s had my undivided attention from day one. Yest, my husband picked them up from the childminders. He was taking her out of the car and I was getting our son. She was laughing away but once she saw me, her arms were out for me and started crying, and once we were in the house she was trying to jump out of his arms into mine. I know I’m not causing her to cry, but when she behaves this way I find it so disheartening and that I am doing her an injustice somehow.

I’m hoping it’s a phase (and not her personality!), but has anyone any advise on how I get through this phase…it’s exhausting, means I can’t spend quality time with our son cos she goes banana’s when he comes near me, and I don’t want her to develop bad habits and social skills. It sounds awful, but I’m at the stage where I don’t look forward to trying to juggle her clinginess and the wants/needs of our two year old aswell. She’s definitely teething like mad, and so I realise she is prob in the horrors on that front.