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| |    Separation Anxiety by Dr. Benjamin Spock reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. Infants If a mother goes away for a number of weeks (to care for an ailing relative, for instance), her baby of six to eight months is likely to go into a depression, especially if the mother has been the only caretaker up to that time. The baby is visibly depressed, loses her appetite, is unresponsive to known and unknown people, is more often found to lie on her back just rolling her head from side to side, no longer tries to sit up or explore her environment. If the separation is short, the baby will recover completely once her mother returns. It may take time--days or weeks--for mother and child to get back on track. The best way to deal with this problem is to avoid it whenever possible. If you have a choice, don't stay apart from your baby for longer than, say, 8 to 12 hours at a time, during these early months. It's probably a bad idea to plan a "parents only" vacation weekend when infants are quite young. If you know a separation is coming up, help prepare your baby by getting her father, or another care provider, more involved before you leave. That way, your baby will have a trusted figure to rely on. If you find that you need to go away suddenly, take your baby with you, if you can. Toddlers At two years of age, separation from the mother no longer produces depression. Instead, it results in dramatic, severe anxiety. If a mother or father is called out of town by an emergency or decides to take an all-day job without preparing the child for the transition to care by a sitter or at a child-care center, the child may show no marked distress while the parent is away. In fact, she seems to like the sitter. In retrospect, the child was too well behaved to be normal. But when the parent returns, all the pent-up anxiety breaks out into the open. The child rushes to cling to them. She cries out in alarm whenever her mother goes into the next room. She won't let the sitter do anything for her, won't let her come near, in fact, is rude in repulsing her. At bedtime she clings to her mother or father with a grip of steel so that she can't be put in her crib. If her parent finally gets free and heads for the door, the child unhesitatingly scrambles over the side of the crib, though she has never dared do this before, and rushes after her mother or father. It's a truly heartrending picture of panic. If the parent succeeds in getting the child to stay in her crib, the baby may sit up all night. In cases in which the mother has to be away for a number of days or the child is put in the hospital for several days, the child may punish her mother by refusing to recognize her when they are reunited. When she decides to recognize her mother again, she may scream at her in a rage or begin hitting her. See: Why Do Children Have Fears? See: Fears at Bedtime See: Are You Overprotective? Preschool By the age of three years, there is much less chance of panic because you can explain the new situation to the child with a fair chance that she will understand well enough to be reassured. But you can't be sure how she will react. Insecure children, overly sensitive children, and children who have known only their parents may continue to resist being left at a child-care center or with an unfamiliar sitter. (See: Fears in Preschool Children.) School age Even at ages five and six, a few children will resist being left at kindergarten or first grade at the beginning of the term. There is less chance of this if there are older children in the family, for the youngest will have been talking for months about her desire to go to school like her siblings. (See: Starting School or Preschool.)
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