Is my eight month old spoilt?
My daughter is 8 months old and I think she is spoilt, although everyone always says that you can't spoil a child under the age of one. I can't ever get anything done during the day, as she always wants to be right next to me. When I try to put her in her playpen she screams so I try to rush what I have to do and pick her up. I feel as if I am deserting her and I don't want her to feel as if I'm not coming back.
I am a new, single parent and don't know what to do. Should I still be letting her sleep with me? I don't mind, but everyone I talk to says that she should be sleeping in a cot. If I let her stay, how and when should I start to put her in her own bed? I haven't got many friends and just want to get some answers.
Jessi
Dear Jessi
You are by no means spoiling your eight-month-old baby when you sleep with her or pick her up to carry her around with you during the day.
Young babies need to feel physically attached to the person looking after them in order to develop a sense of basic trust and security. Over the next two-and-a-half years your daughter will develop what child psychologists call 'object constancy', which means she will be able to feel you caring for her, even when you are not there. However, that is a long way off yet.
Do not despair. Instead lower your expectations of what you must get done every day. You can continue to do the jobs that need doing, but your pace will be greatly reduced by doing them with her very nearby. This is not a punishment. It is being a parent. Although it seems as if this phase will go on forever, it does not. By the age of three, your baby will gradually have developed into a self-assured toddler, and then a small child. If you devote your attention to satisfying her needs in the first year, you will help her to develop basic trust. If you try to meet her emotional needs and set limits that enable her to master her sense of independence over the next two years, you will be able to do your work increasingly separately from her.
However, you are not an endless source of nurturing. You have needs of your own, and single motherhood without many friends may be weighing heavily upon you.
Contact Gingerbread, the organisation for single parents. Their web site is at www.gingerbread.org.uk and their freephone number is 0800 018 4318. Try to find a mother and baby group with other single mothers near you. Develop a support network for yourself so that you are able to pursue some of your own interests.
Getting in touch with other single mothers will lessen your expectations of yourself in the early years with your baby. You will see other mothers struggling to get things done and be close to their children. You need time away from your baby to recharge your batteries, so that you have greater patience with her when you are together.
Remember, these early years will never come again. You have a right to enjoy being close to your baby now, for she will not always want you to be this involved with her. Before long, she will be seeking her own friendships and activities away from you. It might not seem like it now, but they do grow up very quickly. Enjoy her need for you now, because it will eventually disappear. Like time-lapse photography, we need to imagine a sense of ourselves in time. Imagining your daughter's development over the next 17 years is crucial to keeping a sense of change alive in order to appreciate what is happening now.
If you do the job well, she will choose to keep in close touch with you as an adult, when love and friendship with you is her choice.
Gayle Peterson is the family therapist on Parentsplace.com
Visit her website at www.askdrgayle.com
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