Zuzu, at this stage daughters see moms as competition. It has nothing to do with whether or not you are a fun parent.
When I was a little girl, I would pretty much cut my mother's emotional throat to get and keep dad's attention. I skipped home from kindergarten for lunch one day and decided that this princess needed to change into another dress before I went back. I had convinced myself that my fellow classmates didn't need to see me in the *same* dress I had left in. I think I was processing this similar to thinking I was wearing the same dress 2 days in a row.
Anywho, mom said no. I promptly told her that I would tell my daddy on her when he got home. It just so happened that my aunt was there as I performed my "treat mom like poop" routine. She grabbed me up, started spanking my bottom and said "tell daddy this!" My dad didn't deal with the very typical childish attempts to be his number one and mom and I had issues for a long time.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I found that my own young daughter was trying to freeze me out in just the same way. I, like you, just boohooed over being rejected by my baby. In this case NOP used his power of being the popular parent to explain to our daughter why her behavior was unacceptable. No freezing out mommy. As he posted, she had a very close relationship with her dad, but *he* made sure she was corrected whenever the jealousy monster reared a head. Some of what he pointed out to her was that I loved her emmensely and took care of her all those times when daddy wasn't around. And that her behavior was hurtful to someone who loved her very much.
Daughters adore their dads. My daughter said for years, "When I grow up I'm going to marry daddy." When she was younger I wouldn't try to correct it, I would just say, "You really love your daddy, don't you?" When she got a little older, I explained to her that she could live with us forever, but the law didn't allow little girls to marry their daddy. So, her goal became, "When I grow up and get married, we're going to live here with daddy." After a period of time, "When I get married, I'm going to live next door to daddy."
So, maybe with this understanding that it is normal, daddy can step up and let little daughter know that it HE finds it unacceptable for her to be unkind to mommy. It made the difference for us, my daughter and I continued to have a close relationship without the baggage that I had had with my mother.
