SEPARATION ANXIETY for parents

Okay, it has been a busy start to the new year but people need to eat and blogs need updating. And I found the perfect think to write about: Separation anxiety.

It's baby-related okay?

Anyways, once a baby starts recognizing people around her, like her mom, or pop, it will develop a sense of security and thus can sense when there is a lack of it. Hence, when the baby is around strangers or people that they do not know, they will cling on tighter to those that they do, suckle on the pacifier more frantically or try to not move as much as possible until a person that it is familiar with enters the room, upon which it will do whatever it takes to hitch a ride on that familiar person out of the room that is filled with strangers.

I had to learn about separation anxiety the hard way.

Yesterday Eva was taking her one-hour nap in the evening. Seeing as she has gone to sleep, I went off to take my evening bath. My husband is in another room, tapping away on his laptop, absorbed in work. When I was done, I heard the frantic crying of Eva from inside the room and rushed to her 'rescue'. Judging from the amount of teardrops pooled on her cheeks, she had been crying for a while. It was quite hard to get her to stop but eventually she did and she slept off the fatigue after a bottle of milk.

At 325 am last night she began crying again, this time for milk. I was too tired to get up and so my husband did, only to come back with water instead of milk. By that time, Eva had been crying too long that she refused the milk that I made after and would not, for the love of god, STOP crying. This continued for a good half hour. The father and I kept awake until we could get her to finally stop crying by giving her toys to play with and showing her colourful pictures on the PC. In the middle of the night. Yes. It was torture.

I was beginning to think that a bug might have bit her or she had an upset stomach but it wasn't any of that. It was due to separation anxiety, which I only found after my dinnertime just now, at the babysitter's place.

According to her, babies need a sense of security by the people they know. When you leave the room, they cry immediately or if they have a particular favourite, they would cling to that person regardless of who else was in the room. In my case, the first time I left her in the room crying cemented an idea that her crying will not get me in the room quick enough, and so she has to cry really long, hard and loud. Which was why the second crying session happened in the middle of the night.

Her advice? "If she makes a sound or two in the middle of the night, reassure her that you are around and that she can continue sleeping because you are there. If she returns to sleep, she just needs reassurance. If she stirs some more, she needs something, perhaps she is thirsty or hungry, or her diaper needs changing or she is warm and needs to be relocated."

She adds that "being a mother is a full time job where there is no one to listen to your complaints. You just gotta be there for your kids and be the one that they fully depend on until they grow up and leave the house."

So true.