Hello all,Writing for advice about my 15 month old daughter. She's our second child, her sister is 5 years old.Since she was born it was very clear that she wasn't going to be as laid back and innocent as our older daughter, and that was to be expected(since our first daughter was ridiculously easy to care for).As the younger daughter grew up my wife and I were very conscious of some very slight things she did that we didn't think were normal. Banging head head against the wall(lightly), more severe tantrums than we were used to seeing, not attaching herself to any real toys or even showing a remote slight interest in the TV or watching photos or movies on our phone in situations where we are trying to keep her calm. The big item we noticed though was that she had absolutely no interest in any sort of cuddling or hugs or any affection of any kind. As soon as she was strong enough to hold herself up, she would most times literally push us away. It sucked, but we just figured it was the difference between two kids. I would guess that the longest she has allowed me or my wife to hold her "like a baby" since she was about 4 weeks old is maybe 15 seconds. This hurts from a selfish parenting perspective, but this also makes it to where we basically can't take her to restaurants or most public places because she won't sit in our laps or be entertained for anymore than 5-10 minutes.With all of this said, she seems to be developing fairly normally. She knows 20-25 words, some sign language, understands several commands and generally seems eager to please when she is in a good mood. There within lies the problem, she seems perpetually unhappy.She wakes up in a bad mood, often times crying/whining until we find whatever random variation of eating/standing that she wants. We take her to day care and she fights us to get into the car. When we pick her up, she seems to enjoy day care and seems happy to see us, but then she fights us to go back home. We chalked this up to some kind of separation anxiety...maybe she doesn't want to leave us in the morning...then adjusts....then doesn't want to leave them in the afternoons?When we get home, I would guess out of the 2 hours we get to play with her she spends AT LEAST 50% of it unhappy. Some of it uncontrollable crying, some of it just heavy whining. If we tell her no or stop her from doing something stupid, she goes into complete meltdown mode every time with no real pattern of how long she will be upset. Most of the time she hates taking baths, she doesn't seem particularly interested in any of the hundreds of toys our first daughter accumulated(the toys she does use often times are things like forks or inanimate objects). It's literally a fight almost every night until bed time. On the weekends, it's basically the same except for longer periods of time, so it's clearly not just her being tired(although that could be some of it during the week).My wife and I have done our best to try and just pass this off as having a child that is a little more stubborn than most. We are both home, virtually the entire time after work, everyday. We actively play with her, and her sister absolutely adores her and tries to play with her too. The majority of the time we reset and keep positive attitudes around her, but it seems to sometimes only be getting worse.We spoke to our doctor at our 1 year checkup and he didn't seem too concerned. At the time, we noticed she had a lot of runny noses and stuff so we thought maybe she had bad allergies and it was causing her a level of discomfort. We tried allergy medicine for a few weeks and it didn't change anything.It should be noted that when she IS in a good mood, she's a really awesome fun kid. She communicates well, she is really really mobile and is fun. When we go to other peoples houses she often seems more entertained and acts better. Maybe she's just bored of our house? But to THIS level?Anyway. I don't even really know what I'm looking for answer wise. Maybe someone has had similar experiences. I obviously feel like there are some behavioral type issues we might need to lookout for down the road, but it's not like it's something they can(nor do I likely want) her to be doing at this young age.For the longest time my wife and I kept telling ourselves that we weren't being patient enough or we were spoiled because of our first kid, but it's becoming far more worrisome now. We are having to spend so much time and energy keeping the younger child happy that we aren't spending as much time with our 5 year old.Thanks for reading. Any help would be wonderful. :) via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2puMgSu
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