Our 2-year-old calls for me (dad) for almost everything. Nightmare in the night? Dad. Need to put on shoes? Dad? Need to be picked up? Dad. Mom tries to do something? No, dad!
I don’t mind this. And I know the phase will end, and I will miss it.
But it seems to be really hurting my wife. I think she also knows, deep down, that it’s just a phase and that it’s nothing she is doing wrong. But I can see in her eyes that she feels that our daughter loves her less than she loves me.
Any advice? Neither one of us wants to force our daughter to show affection to anyone. But any ideas how to make mom feel more included/wanted?
I have two sets of twins and we go through this sort of thing a lot. For us, I have found that modeling works well. When my daughters come to me for help I will say, “Hey, Mama is really good at this. Let’s ask her for help” or I will go to her in front of them and openly ask for help. This often times will accomplish spreading the affection around. I think you are right about phases though. Time will fix this sort of stuff without any intervention though.
Thank you! We actually started trying something like this yesterday. We’ll keep it up!