New Mummy Blog: Dealing With Separation Anxiety

We’re suffering from a bad bout of separation anxiety at the moment.

We’d been warned that it often happens around six to eight months, when babies have begun to grasp the fact that their parents are separate entities, who exist independently of them. This means, of course, that they understand that their parents can leave. But it seems they haven’t also quite learnt that they will also come back.

So I had been expecting it. I just hadn’t expected it to be quite so sudden, or so severe.

I now can’t leave the room without Honor crumbling into wailing tears, as she shuffles herself desperately across the room in my wake, pawing at the door until I return. It makes going to the loo somewhat more complicated.

And heaven help anyone else who tries to pick her up. If I try to hand her over to someone, she clings to me like a chimp, her little fists like iron, clenched around any part of clothing, hair or skin she can get hold of, in an effort not to leave my arms.

Ok, so I’ll admit that it’s kind of nice, to be so loved and needed. But I feel awful when she cries when her daddy’s got her, and she twists round lunging out his arms to get to me.

And sometimes I need two arms to get on with things. But she doesn’t want me to put her down, crying the second that I do, and often I cave in and pick her back up again, meaning hanging the washing out becomes a Crystal Maze challenge or the hoovering gets abandoned until later.

I know it’s likely to pass soon enough. I hope that when she masters crawling, which she is clearly building up to now, her newfound freedom and independence of movement will help her to forget all about boring old mummy as she starts exploring.

I’m pretty sure it’s nothing I’ve done, that’s turned her so mummyish, and that it really is Just A Phase, as many other behavioural quirks are destined to be labelled over the coming years.

I take reassurance in the fact that many of her little friends are also displaying this same separation anxiety – lost and forlorn little faces whenever their mum pops out of the room; as well as a bit of the green-eyed monster from our own offspring whenever we pick up each others’ babies.

There’s strength in numbers and seeing other babies acting the same way helps free me from the worry that I’ve caused my child to behave in this way, and helps to add weight to the just-a-phase theory.

In the meantime, I have been trying to find any ways I can to help speed us through the phase as quickly as possible.

[Weaning My Baby From Soft To Solid Foods]

[Why We Shouldn't Pressure Our Children]

The experts concur that playing peek-a-boo helps to accelerate the understanding of disappearing and coming back. Luckily peek-a-boo is Honor’s favourite game, so we play it a lot anyway. Although she likes being the one who hides her face, she’s not so keen when I hide mine – so this might be slightly missing the point.

I’m also adopting an overly cheerful and exaggerated “Bye bye, I’m coming ba-ack”, every time I leave the room, reiterated with a “I’m ba-ack!” when I do return. The theory here is that she’ll sense confidence in my manner, which will reduce her anxiety, coupled with the repetition enabling her to start recognising the words and what they mean.

Whether it will work or not, who knows. But it’s logical, simple and at least allows me to be proactive, rather than sitting and waiting for the phase to pass. If it helps to stop the injured daddy face I see on my husband when she climbs up my hair to stop me passing her over to him, or it allows me to go to the loo in peace, then it’s worth it.