For me, the biggest surprise of parenting has been how hard it can be when your baby loves the other parent more.

Everyone knows that kids play favorites (I sure did as a kid). In practical terms, this means that for most of Charlie's short life to date, Charlie has loved his mommy more.

This can be surprisingly difficult emotionally. For most of this year, I've woken up with Charlie and given him his morning bottle every day. For a long time, that meant that we spent 3-4 quality hours every day. We were close, he loved me, and he didn't have a clear favorite.

But lately, he's been waking up later in the morning and our morning time has been cut short. So it's only natural that he'd start preferring mommy, with whom he has more time in the evening. I expected that, and wasn't surprised or upset when Charlie started turning to his mom more and more.

But then last week, things reached a new low. For a few days, Charlie refused to take his morning bottle from me and kept asking for mommy. He wouldn't take the bottle, and I had to go get Mrs. Bee so she could give him his morning milk.

In my personal life, if someone doesn't want to spend time with me, I am not going to force them to hang out with me. But if I take that attitude here, then I'll just spend less time with Charlie and we'll drift apart. So for me, it's tough because sometimes I have to force Charlie to do something he doesn't want to do: spend time with daddy when he could be gloriously ensconced in mommy's arms.

Anyway I don't have an answer here. beyond just making sure to spend as much time with him as possible. I read somewhere that quality time = quantity time, and that is so true.

But I've been surprised to read that some kids show a preference for the parent who isn't always around! How can I get in on that one haha! Anyway I have been curious about how the split goes, so thought I'd ask.

* Who does your baby love most?
* And is that person the parent that baby spends the most time with?