Originally Posted by
GettingBy 
And, the whining and wanting to be held... Some of that is because she is mommy. My kids do the same thing to me... It drives me insane, and we are working on curbing that (their whining, and my insanity!!!).
Agreed. My DD is 2.5 yrs old, and with other caregivers (my parents or her daycare providers), she is an angel. As soon as she sees me, all the worries, the frustrations and insecurities come pouring out. Instead of getting a happy "Maman!" when I walk in the door at 17h30, I get a "WAAaaaaah, I fell down at daycare and got a booboo and it made me saaaaaaaad!".
When we were still nursing, she's almost tackle me to the ground and start undressing me just to get to my breast. A solid five minutes of nursing, touching my hair and cooing, and then she'd be more..."centered". It's almost as if she's saving up all her discontentment and lets it out with me, despite the fact that I am by far the strictest among her parental figures.
I do agree that being around the alcoholic parent was a destabilizing factor, at least for my daughter. She'd come back from her visits with her father completely confused, fussy, overexcited (but maybe that's from him feeding her chocolate and chips). It always took a good 2 days to get her back to normal. Even though I had no control over what occurred during the visits, I always did my best to provide DD with consistency and love, so that she knew what to expect with me.