How Do You Deal With Separation Anxiety?

"Moooom! Don't leave me!" School, work, and play, your child wants to be with you 24-7. The babysitter gets an earful. The daycare provider deals with tears. And all you want is to get to your job without a big scene. Sound familiar? Mindy Roberts of The Mommy Blog asks, "How do you deal with separation anxiety?"

Is separation anxiety a problem in your home? Does your child get nervous when you leave? Or is mom the one anxious about leaving? Let us know how you deal with separation anxiety, and join the Momversation by commenting on the video.

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Showing the Latest of 13 Comments

Cara
3 yearss ago

After watching this video, I was a little bit surprised that it was only briefly mentioned how our anxiety makes our children's grow exponentially! When I first left my son (now 18 months) at daycare at the ages of 4 months, I was a complete wreck. When I did the one-hour trial, I sobbed in my car outside then headed directly to the pharmacy - no not for strong anti-anxiety drugs - though that may have helped. I picked up some Walnut drops by Bach Flowers upon a friend's suggestion. I thought this is never going to work, I am a complete mess. I took the drops and the next day at the 2-hour trial, I did much better. On the 3rd day, I was completely ok - and you know what - so was my son! At 4 months, they don't know the difference, but even today, he does pretty well because I have gotten my anxiety under control. I have to travel a lot with my job and still feel really guilty (not anxious) when I leave, does anyone have any suggestions for that?

BeingSuper
3 yearss ago

I've had a somewhat different experience with separation anxiety. Like Karen, my daughter didn't go through this phase as a baby or toddler. There were times I had to chase her down to get a quick kiss goodbye because she was so busy playing. I was thankful for this, having seen friends go through extreme separation anxiety (both on the child and the mommy side). Then, my husband and I divorced. He moved out of state and ceased all communications with our daughter. Needless to say this was devastating for her and has had some negative effects...separation anxiety being one of them. To this day, our goodbyes last at least 10 minutes and include multiple hugs, kisses and a secret handshake we made up to help ease this process. She is seven years old.

LouEffie
3 yearss ago

My 2 & 1/2 year old son is going through a bit of separation anxiety now, and it is rough when we drop him off and he's crying his eyes out and reaching for us. We say our goodbyes without stretching it out too long, tell him he is going to have fun at school and try to distract him onto something else. "Why don't you go see how the fish are doing in the tank this morning?" "Is that a puzzle I see over there? Can you put it together?" Some morning these tactics work like a charm, and some, not so much. I have been told that about a minute after we leave, he's fine and playing with the others, so that makes me feel better about leaving him.

mommytoall
3 yearss ago

My daughter is adopted. My husband and I didn't really do attachment parenting but we did do some bonding things like feeding her bottle on our bare chest so she could smell our skin and hear our heart beat. the first 2 yrs I was SAHM. My daughter acted like she was breast fed and would Yell My Boobies in public. I thought she would be more clingy and have the whole seperation anxiety. Our daughter ended up having the personality of okay bye mom c-ya! No anxiety no crying when i took her to nursery at church or staying with gam or aunties I think I had a harder time when she went tp preschool at 3 she was excited and totally cool. I cried my eyes out after I left. Problem started for some reason when she turned 5 instantly she was hanging on to me saying dont leave and whining (Its only at school there are no changes in her life just a new yr) I dnt know why but 5 is when the changes came . seperation anxiety , screaming at bath time, refusing to flush the toilet. I dont get it! I do quick good byes no drawing it out. As a nanny I deal with the drawn out goodbyes and it makes it harder on the kids and on the Nanny. I give a quick good bye mommy loves you Ill see you after school. when I come pick her up from school its the opposite "no mommy! I want to stay and play with my Friends" I CAN'T WIN!

CallieAnnie23
3 yearss ago

We just haven't had this problem with our son yet. Although I agree that there are children who go through this stage much younger, I'm really expecting it to kick in for us this fall. Our son will be 2 1/2 and he'll be saying goodbye again every morning after an entire summer with my husband, who's a teacher and who has three months of vacation to play, watch "Cars," and go grocery shopping with toddler in towe. It's been much harder on us to leave Sam than it actually is on him. I haven't been to a movie theather in 13 months because we don't have a babysitter and my mother already has him during the week while we work. Sam tends to cry if I cry, so I've always saved that part for in the car, by myself on the way to work if I feel so inclined.

honeymommy
3 yearss ago

Great topic! I have been lucky that neither of my children really suffer from separation anxiety. (In fact, I think my youngest Shih Tzu has it the worst of any of my kids. But, that's another story...) Every now and then my three year old son would seem anxious when we dropped him off at daycare. (Particularly when our daycare provider brought on a "helper.") These episodes could usually be curbed with an extra hug and kiss. My soon-to-be one year old daughter was always like "See ya, Mom. Whatevs." I think that's probably a birth order thing. She is delightfully well-adjusted. Good luck, Moms!

MeMyselfandMommy
3 yearss ago

Separation anxiety has not been a major issue for Moanna (now two-years-old). I went back to work just a mere 4 weeks after she was born. I know, I'm awful! But at that point in my life, I could not stay home with her all day. I was very weepy and she and I fed off of each other's stress. I became a much better mom once I returned to the working world! I believe that me returning to work so soon after she was born made her a very independent child. My husband and I work a lot, so she spends a lot of time with her amazing babysitters and grandparents. 95% of the time she is perfectly content with us going and coming. However, there are a few days that she turns on the tears and fear. When that happens we keep it short and sweet. "I'm sorry, Mommy has to go to work. I love you and I will see you when I get off at 6:00PM." I just think that it is less painful on them if you are comforting, yet direct and quick about your exits. When you linger, I think it gives them false hopes that, "if I cry, Mommy will stay with me." I will admit that it does make me feel loved when Moanna cries for me. It reminds me that she really does love me, even though she spends more time with her babysitters than she does with me.

MsBwell
3 yearss ago

My girls didn’t go through separation anxiety through their baby/toddler years. It wasn’t until my husband’s first deployment when they were 6 and 3 that we had to deal with it. They were little and didn’t understand really what was going on when we tried to explain he would be away for 15 months. At first we thought they were taking it well, then after almost a week our oldest broke down. She wanted her daddy and nothing I could do or say would calm her down. Then she started to not letting me out of her sight. She would go to school fine but refused to stay at a friend’s hour for a play dates if I wasn’t sticking around. Of course then the youngest started following her lead. So that was fun having two children all of the sudden not letting me even go to the bathroom alone. I just kept trying to reassure them that I wasn’t leaving and daddy didn’t leave by choice he was working. When I had to leave them either with my parents or our regular babysitter I would show them on the clock when I should be home. If I was running late I would call and tell them. My oldest knew how to reach me on my cell and I think it helped reassure her that she could get a hold of me at any time. Once he returned home peace returned and everything went back to normal. The next deployment was the same, the girls were 9 and 6. I thought it would be easier the second time around and it wasn’t.

brandistrand
3 yearss ago

I think my son (9 months) has a bit of separation anxiety...I'm a stay-at-home mom, so I'm with him ALL of the time, but when I put him down in a room, I can't leave. I can't leave to get a glass of water or walk around the chair to turn on the computer. He'll start crying. When I pee, I take him with me to the bathroom. When Daddy gets home, and then after saying his hellos walks into a different room, my son will whine a bit and look for him to come back. Once Daddy is home, I can at least walk into another room. I used to be able to leave him for a bit for a trip to the store, but I haven't tried that in the last couple of months. I must admit, I have separation anxiety from him. I haven't yet had the "oh I have to be by myself" feeling yet. I haven't had the need to go somewhere by myself while Daddy watches him. Because of that, I do everything with him - go the grocery store, go shopping, etc. Maybe that doesn't help his separation anxiety. I have left him a few times when he was younger, but there hasn't been a need to leave him with anyone recently.

ErinHattaway
3 yearss ago

I just wrote an entire comment about how much anxiety I have, and how I need to work on it...la la la...and then I realized...I don't WANT to work on it. I leave my son with my mother a few times a week, with his father whenever I have things I need to do, and that's about it. I have serious stranger danger feelings, I am SO grateful that I can stay at home with him right now. The thing is, I thought I would WANT to be a working Mom. But I guess that sometimes we surprise ourselves. If I had to work outside the home, I would have to deal. But right now I'm grateful that I get to put him down for naps, be there when he wakes up, feed him his meals and play with him all day. I just hope that when we start leaving him in nursery at church or when he goes to preschool he won't be scared. I think it's important that my son knows that the world is safe, and there are people we can trust, so hopefully I feel that way before I need to leave him with people. As for separation anxiety IN our house...well...let's just say that I'm all about going to bathroom alone. So although he gets mad sometimes, he still goes in the playyard for that one. And usually he just plays with his toys and amuses himself crawling around.

How Do You Deal With Separation Anxiety?

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