I have a three year old daughter.. She has only ever seen me around her father.. with whom I've been seperated for over a year. My whole family consists of women so she is not used to having men around. My new friend.. came over a cooked me and her dinner one night..I made sure there was nothing between us that she'd pick up on (ie hand holding hugging.. nothing) I noticed a slight change in her the next day.. How should I approch this situation. :confused:

Children are so perceptive about that kind of thing it's scary. It doesn't matter if you don't flirt, touch, etc, your kid will sense it.

You're in a tough spot being a single mother, there's really no good answer on how you should approach the situation. Just try to be aware of how your kid reacts to men and be especially careful to only date "good and kind" men.

I know how you feel, I have a 3 1/2 year old son, and I'm in a relationship with someone right now, and it's been tough so far. As far as the men I've Dated before my current boyfriend, I've never had them meet my son, I just don't want him to get attached to someone and then later on have the relationship end and have that person disappear. My advice is to not let the men you're dating into your daughters life until you feel that it will be a serious and lasting relationship.....The worst thing you could do is have men coming in and out of your daughters life, there's no sense of stability for a kid like that. Other than that just try to spend some extra time with her and reassure her that even though you may care about this other person, she's still number one as far as you're concerned. I know that even though my son loves Aram, he still sees him as competiton and sometimes he'll tell Aram "Aram, my mama loves you a liitle bit, but she loves me a lot!", so you have to reassure her.

Good Luck!

Lily

Thanks for the advice guys! Lily, that is funny that you said that about your son saying that you love him a lot. My daughters new thing lately is saying " your MY mommy".. She doesn't say it in an angry, but just the fact that she is saying that is a little bit of a warning sign to be careful. When she says that I just say "That's right"!

I have a three year old daughter.. She has only ever seen me around her father.. with whom I've been seperated for over a year. My whole family consists of women so she is not used to having men around. My new friend.. came over a cooked me and her dinner one night..I made sure there was nothing between us that she'd pick up on (ie hand holding hugging.. nothing) I noticed a slight change in her the next day.. How should I approch this situation. :confused:

If this guy had been just a friend of the family, and not a special friend to you, she might have reacted the same way, since she isnt used to having men around, and isnt used to men coming over to cook dinner and stuff... at the very least it changed her routine one night.
(But that isnt neccessarily a bad thing, i mean, yes consistency is good, but that doesnt mean that all changes are bad either.)

actually since I posted the original; he has been around a lot more;just hanging out though, not in a sleezy way; I think by him just being around both of us together doing what her and I normally do is an easy way of handling things.. It's not really changing her routine or leaving her out. She still runs the show.. I don't have him come over and then just tell her to go to her room or something like that; that'd be f'd up! She has started to actually ask for him in the past few days...but he knows that we are taking things slow...I just think that the best thing for this situation is to just let it be; not make a big deal out of it.. at first I was thinking like ok; I'll date him for 6 months or something and then bring him over ;but that isn't really realistic since I never have a babysitter..; so I figure if he starts being around on a fairly normal basis without cutting into her time; it should be ok; Her and I still have our time alone for sure..