[premama]

Hello,

I have a 3 1/2 month old who recently has started making frustrating noises (like short grunts) every time I see her. Sometimes, she gets really frustrated her face goes all red! It's quite upsetting as I'd rather be greeting with a beautiful smiling baby, not a frustrated one!

Actually, it's not only when I greet her but she doesn't seem to smile very much when I hold her and talk to her either.

I'm wondering whether it's because she associates me with milk (I'm exclusively breastfeeding) and gets frustrated when I don't feed her. To make matters worse, she seems to have no problem smiling when my helper greets her.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Thanks for your help.

[Rosanna]

Hello premama,

I also am breastfeeding my baby (exclusively). He is 8 months now. I guess they do associate us with "their" food. I guess the only difference was that I never had a maid at that time and was taking care of all his needs on my own. You could probably try to take care of all her needs like bath, change diapers, ect. and probably there will be a change of outlook. I know it's tough especially while breastfeeding. But you could try it out alternately and probably the association that you are only her feeding source would change.

Eventually they'll grow out of this association.

Take care

[ELT]

the first few weeks i switched my baby to formula, he would cry everytime I went near him. I swear he could smell milk from 3 feet.

[BJMing]

I was in a similar situation except my son (also 3.5months) was cheerful to both my husband and the helper because he associated fun activities like playing with them. I resolved this by spending one full week with him alone - basically my husband and helper had very little time with him. I took him with me everywhere and made sure I was the last person he saw before he fell asleep, and the first when he woke up. Its a selfish exercise but it worked and he beams me with the biggest smiles and laughs these days while still being cheerful to the others.