I am the proud father of a 1-year-old boy. My wife and I love him to pieces! A few months after his birth I suffered through a terrible bout of anxiety attacks. Turns out it was just my way of reacting to such a drastic change in my life and it took me a few months to fully embrace my new reality. While I was working through this period of anxiety, my wife let me take the lead on most of the activities with our son in the hopes that by jumping into the situation with both feet, my anxiety would lessen. This was indeed the case and I can now look back on that time as a learning period and feel pride that I am now past it.
For the past 6 months, our son has been showing a very strong preference for me over his mother. I have tried to remove myself from some of the daily tasks that we do with him and my wife has taken over in those, in the hopes that our son will see us both equally. While his favouring of me has lessened, it most certainly has not disappeared. This clearly hurts my wife who only wants to be treated equally and not be shunned by her little boy.
I have mentioned that I am sure that this is a phase and that at some point I may well find myself on the outs with our boy and he will be stuck to her like glue. While she understands this, it does nothing to help in the present and I hate seeing my wife suffer emotionally.
I have to mention as well that I went back to work full time one month after the birth of our son. My only time with him was at night and weekends. My wife stayed home for a full year and has only gone back to work recently.
Has anyone gone through this type of situation and how long did it take to pass? How to handle it?