My wife and I took our 7-month-old little one to a baby shower this past weekend. This was in a condominium’s common-use party room.
I thought that this would be zero big deal for my baby since she has gone to busy shopping malls, church every weekend, kids’ parties, and grocery stores and she was always totally cool.
This time was I wrong, and big time!
As soon as we entered the party room, lots of people came over to see our baby.
And then Victoria promptly started to completely freak the hell out.
My wife and I were really embarrassed and quickly retreated to the condo lobby where it was much quieter.
After about a half hour Victoria finally stopped crying her lungs out and slowly settled to a much more manageable whimper-y mode. My family crept back into the party room and maintained a low profile from there on.
The pic to the right is Victoria and dad, after calming down from her freak out.
So we were wondering what the hell happened. My wife and I were shocked that our historically calm little baby went nuclear at this party.
My wife then learned about stranger anxiety. It is exactly what it sounds like. It peaks in babies between 6-12 months. We were totally due for this.
Apparently this is a completely natural, normal reaction for a baby Victoria’s age. Around this time she is supposed to gain a sense of individual self. Along with that comes the realization that her parents are also separate people, and so are all these strange people that occasionally come into her life. The strange people become a source of anxiety, sometimes in an extreme way.
Probably due to some evolutionary mechanism, stranger = danger around this time.
Whatever the reason for stranger anxiety, I was very relieved that this was a normal developmental milestone. My wife is still a little bit shocked.
I also learned a lesson to continue to expect the unexpected with my little kid! Even though I read up on expected milestones as my baby grows, stuff like this stranger anxiety thing still escapes my radar.
So guys, around 6-12 months, watch out for this stranger anxiety thing!