My husband thinks this is bad for my daughter. Is he right?

I thought this was normal, until my husband pointed out that it wasn’t.

My daughter is my little princess. She’s six and while she certainly is daddy’s little girl, she and I are extremely close.

We took the whole family shopping at the weekend, my husband and I, my daughter and her brother who is eight, and my daughter reached her arms out for me to pick her up, so I did, without a second thought.

My husband said, “When are you going to stop doing that?” I said, “Doing what?” And he said, “Picking her up.” He said that he thinks she’s too old for me to be picking her up like that but I’ve never really thought about it before. She’s my little girl. I love to hold her. She’s quite light and it’s not really a problem. But my husband says it is.

And he’s got a point, because every time we are out, after a few minutes she says that her “legs are tired” and asks to be picked up, when clearly, logically, she is old enough to walk herself.

I didn’t carry my son around for as long but he was a lot bigger and by the time he was four he was making my arms ache. Plus, I just love holding her. She’s my baby. We’re really close and I love that she still wants me to pick her up. My son won’t even let me hold his hand in public anymore.

The thought of not picking her up any more makes me really sad and I’m not sure how I’d even go about it.

I’m also really worried because if it makes me sad to not pick her up any more, how will it make her feel when I refuse to?

Is my husband right? Should I stop carrying my daughter? And how should I approach this with her?

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