Growing & Milestones
Stranger wariness turns up around the time a baby learns faces
A baby who smiled at everyone suddenly objects to your neighbour. It is a developmental step that arrives on its own schedule and is frequently mistaken for a personality change.
Treat the sections below as a sequence. With stranger wariness, getting the early decisions right makes the later ones much easier.
Before you start
- It reflects a baby distinguishing familiar people from unfamiliar ones.
- Intensity varies enormously between babies and says nothing about parenting.
- Relatives take it personally and benefit from a warning in advance.
What has actually changed
A young baby will often be passed around a room happily, and somewhere in the second half of the first year that generally stops. The change reflects a baby becoming able to distinguish familiar people from unfamiliar ones and to prefer the familiar.
That is a step forward rather than a problem, and it depends on the same memory development that makes peekaboo funny. It is easy to read as the baby becoming difficult, particularly by relatives who were previously welcomed enthusiastically. Naming it in advance to those relatives saves a considerable amount of hurt feelings later on.
How much it varies
Some babies show it strongly for months and some barely at all, and both are within the ordinary range. Temperament appears to play a substantial part, and it is not a measure of how sociable a child will eventually be.
Week by week, the intensity also fluctuates, so a baby who was fine with a grandparent last week may object this week for no identifiable reason. Tiredness, illness, hunger and unfamiliar surroundings all make it more pronounced, which is worth remembering before big family occasions. None of this reflects anything about the parenting, which is the reassurance most parents actually need at that point.
Handling other people
The main practical problem is other adults who approach quickly, make direct eye contact and reach for the baby. Almost everything improves if newcomers approach slowly, stay at a distance, talk to the parent first and let the baby initiate. Handing the baby straight to a relative on arrival is the version most likely to produce crying, and it is also the most common.
Explaining this in advance is much easier than managing the reaction afterwards, and most people take it well when framed as a stage. It is entirely acceptable to decline a hold, and doing so calmly is better for everyone than an unhappy handover.
The related separation upset
Around a similar period many babies also become upset at a parent leaving the room, which is a related but distinct development. It rests on the baby now knowing that the parent continues to exist somewhere else, which is why it arrives when it does. The commonly suggested approaches are short practice separations, consistent goodbyes and not slipping away unseen.
For a first baby, how long it lasts varies widely, and it typically comes and goes rather than resolving cleanly.
If it is severe enough to be affecting the household, that is worth discussing with your health visitor rather than enduring alone.
Childcare and the timing problem
This stage frequently coincides with a return to work, which is unfortunate timing that a great many families encounter. Settling-in periods exist for this reason, and most childcare providers are experienced at managing exactly this transition. A longer settling-in than the minimum offered is worth asking for, and providers usually accommodate it.
Consistency of who does the drop-off often helps, as does keeping the goodbye short rather than extending it out of guilt. The provider will tell you honestly how the baby was ten minutes after you left, and the answer is usually reassuring.
Safe sleep and feeding guidance is set nationally and updated periodically, so follow the current official guidance where you live over anything general.
It softens
Stranger wariness generally softens through the second year, though it recurs at times and never disappears entirely in some children. Nothing needs to be done to fix it, and pushing a baby into contact they are objecting to tends to prolong the reaction. Letting the baby approach at their own pace, from the safety of a parent, is what most people suggest and it costs nothing.
For a first baby, warning visitors in advance turns a rejection into an expected stage, which changes how they respond in the moment. Anything about how a baby responds socially that genuinely concerns you should be raised at a developmental review.
The takeaway
Warn the relatives before the stage arrives, let visitors approach slowly, and stop reading the reaction as a verdict on anybody.
Nothing in the first year lasts, including the parts that feel permanent at three in the morning.
Questions readers ask
Why does my baby cry when my mother holds them now?
Distinguishing familiar from unfamiliar people is a normal developmental step in the second half of the first year. Warning relatives in advance usually helps more than anything else.
Should I push my baby to be held by other people?
Most people suggest letting the baby approach at their own pace from the safety of a parent. Forcing contact they are objecting to tends to make it worse.
