Separation Anxiety

pinkshades05 · January 2013

We are in total mommy mode over here. Nat doesn't want to be away from me for even a second. Who here has gone or is going through this? How did it go?

Sept07b2b · January 2013

I was actually going to post the same thing. We are totally in the middle of this, and I was curious what people thought was the best way to deal with it. Are you supposed to indulge it and wait for it to pass? Are you supposed to give a little tough love and let her fuss/cry and sort of work it out? It's very frustrating.

I, clearly, have no suggestions for you, but I can definitely commiserate!

n8swife · January 2013

We've been in this stage for a loooooong time. I don't even remember when it started...maybe around 7 months. He's gotten a little bit better recently and has started playing independently every once in awhile but it's still pretty bad. I have no advice. I'm just waiting for the day he grows out of it.

kristin172429 · January 2013

Ben does this when I pass him off to DH, but if you give him a few minutes, he adjusts and forgets about me. In terms of other people/places, he needs 5-10 minutes to adjust and then he will wander away on his own. If someone tries to pick him up right away, he's not having it. I have to tell people to just give him a few minutes to warm up to them. Once he is comfortable, he lets go of me and just wanders off to play or interact with others. He just needs that time.

NatesLady1309 · January 2013

I feel like we have JUST gotten out of the this stage within the past couple of weeks. Once she finally became very confident in her army crawling and cruising. She very very much wants to practice her cruising all the time now and to do so she obviously can't be attached to me so that has helped at LOT. I am so thankful, I thought I was going to lose my mind. She would completely flip out anytime I tried to be apart from her for MONTHS. I am liking this stage a lot. She still comes to me for cuddles and such a lot of the time which I love but she's "apart" from me more than 50% of the time which is so much more than it used to be. It used to be maybe 10% of the time and most of that she was probably crying.

Maybe when your DD moves to a new stage of "motion" or is able to walk this will be to your advantage in this area.

karleegirl · January 2013

I have to sneak away at home. She doesn't want h or her brothers. If I think of putting her rotten butt down she holds my leg and screams. Because I'm a sucker I hold her and do everything except pee and cook. I'll never have this again so I'm going with it.

hizah05 · January 2013

Logan is like this only if someone else tries to hold him other than me and DH. He will crawl/cruise up to others, they can sit and talk to him and he will laugh, but the minute someone tries to pick him up it's a total meltdown. I really hope it's just a phase. It's making it hard to have a babysitter!

MollySm · January 2013

We started this stage around 6 months, and she's finally starting to get a little better. She'd still prefer to be with me (or H if I'm not an option), but it's better. With H, we forced it. I gave her to him when he got home, even if she cried. He would just walk away and go play with her, and I'd stay out of sight (usually cooking dinner in the kitchen). It just wasn't an option for her to not go with him. It didn't take too long before she mostly got over it, and was happy to go with him. When she's super cranky she'll still pick me, but he works too.

With others we tried to just keep making her practice, as best we could. There really aren't that many people around in our day to day life, so that was a bit tricky. To be honest, I think the things that worked the best were staying with MIL in a hotel over Thanksgiving weekend, and staying with a bunch of family for a week at Christmas. Those people were around all day every day, and I think that really helped her be more comfortable with it.

Since Christmas we've tried to keep it up, and it's getting better. She still doesn't love being held by other people if I'm in her sight line, so if they want to hold her I tell them to take her away from me. She's been babysat a couple of times (by Gramma and SIL) which helps. Last weekend at our nephews' birthday party, she crawled around everywhere without me, brave as can be. We were shocked!

Anyway, it's far from perfect, but she is getting better!

Want a personalized experience?

Separation Anxiety

Re: Separation Anxiety

Choose Another Board

Search Boards