seperation anxiety - how can i better help??

[prumarth]

Hi all - I'm hoping for some advice. My son who was recently placed with us is broadly very settled. We follow the exact routine that he had with his foster carer, he eats regularly and isn't fussy and naps / sleeps very well.
However he becomes very distressed if I "disappear" even briefly - for example, he was in his pram and I bent down and must have dropped from his sight line for a split second and he burst into tears. Yesterday I stepped a few paces from him (through a doorway) to grab a baby carrier so I could make us lunch but keep him with me and he was devastated and wept.
I've started to play peekaboo games around the doorway which he enjoys to reinforce that mummy is still there but I can't leave him alone in his playpen or be out of eye line for more than a few seconds before he becomes very upset.
I've spoken to his foster carer and she said he would happily play alone in his playpen there so this is new behaviour.
At the moment, I am taking him with me everywhere - loo included! - and at nap time I sit quietly with him till he settles, however I'm worried I may create a longer term problem and he won't ever gain confidence to play alone. Most of time, it's fine to keep him with me but I worry about making lunch with him in his baby carrier - doesn't feel particularly safe having a baby around ovens and hobs and I would love to be able to leave him for 5 mins in his playpen to get a few things done through the day. Strangely, the one time he is fine to settle alone is bed time - he will sometimes shout for a few minutes but not cry.
Any advice?? My son is under 12 months and preverbal. He has been with us around 4 weeks and this is our first week of being alone together in the day. Thanks!

[disneygirl10]

I should just go with it for the moment. It's his way of telling you he needs you. 4 weeks is early days he will become more confident in time. As he is so little have you thought about using a sling? one of the wrap slings are good for this age. You can get on with a jobs etc but he can still be close to you.
Sounds like you are doing a great job

[Italiangreyhound]

When my daughter was little I lived on sandwiches for lunch, I think avoid the hob and eat cold this summer for lunch! just for safety. Good luck.

[disneygirl10]

Sorry just re read didn't realise you already are using a sling. Keep doing what your doing and stick with sandwiches like italian said!

[Mama1980]

I have a 7 month old dd she's been placed with me since birth. She is like this I still cannot put her down for more than a few seconds and out of eyesight is a disaster. I have her in a sling primarily and eat a lot of cold food when I can (I have 3 other children)
She hates the 'playpen' as it means she doesn't have the freedom to get to me, there's a barrier. Maybe try him on the floor instead?
Sorry not much help but roll with it as much as you can. 4 weeks is so new.

[Kewcumber]

Sorry I'm not much help as DS couldn't be left either. He wouldn't have been like this with foster carer because presumably he was placed with them too young to show separation anxiety (doesn't mean he didn't feel it though) but this time he has reason to feel anxious - 1) he if prime age for separation anxiety 2) he has just had proved to him that people he's attached to disappear.

He won;t get more confident by forcing him to separate before he comfortable to, he will just learn that sometimes he is forced to be alone when he doesn;t want to be. One month in is way too early to be worried about whether he will be confidently playing alone when he's 5.

Loads of babies under one don't like being alone and he has the added issue of knowing that people do leave never to reappear again.

You're doing the right thing - keep him as close as you can and show him you aren't going to disappear. I reckon it took DS about 4 years to feel reassured about that!

[fasparent]

May be his pervious environment was very busy (often overlooked), lot's of folk coming and going, SW, Contacts, health and clinic visits, visits too other children in the house etc., friends, neighbours , if so would have attracted much attention, more so if there were other children in the house. As you say settles well would be no distractions at bed time.

Have new DD and baby staying with us for a few week's for support will be going back home in a few weeks. Only today we were commenting. as too the difference our LO baby's are and amount of people involved in hospital visits and so on. Our dd's baby has none of this what so ever.
and is settled perfect as apposed too LO Baby's. busy busy unnatural schedule's

[fasparent]

This is also the 1st time baby's and children will be experiencing consistency in there life's.
The main reason why it said too make visit's within the home and with family in frequent, too give time for them too settle and form attachment's, too help with separation and loss issues, each child will be different though dependant on their history .

[64x32x24]

Hiya,
you wrote
'At the moment, I am taking him with me everywhere - loo included! - and at nap time I sit quietly with him till he settles, however I'm worried I may create a longer term problem and he won't ever gain confidence to play alone.'

I think you may be able to teach him/force him to play on his own, in the next few months. But the key part of your sentence is 'confidence'. He would be playing on his own because he had no choice, not because he were confident enough to do it.

It seems clear to me that what you really want to achieve is for him to be confident - and as a result of that, then at some point in the future, to play independently.
So, you are working on increasing his confidence, NOT on getting him to play by himself. The latter is only an effect of the former.
And to increase his confidence, you need to (pretty consistently) meet his needs - and at the moment, he needs you to be there, in his line of sight, within reach. So what you are doing sounds exactly right - and by doing that, you are NOT creating a long term problem, but rather you are doing the right thing for AVOIDING that very same long term problem.

And yes, I agree with PP - he is at the exact age where separation anxiety is the centre of everything, plus he has additional reason to be anxious about separation.

Ok as for practical ideas of how to help him... have you tried singing/constantly talking? I mean when you are leaving his line of sight. So that though he can't see you at the moment, he can at least hear you.

To get things done - use nap time? I know it is silly really but there are just times when you can't get much done.

To work on his sense of constancy - in addition to peekaboo, there are other 'games' you can play. I used to do a little song which I learned from Jolly Babies, the text is 'When my mummy plays with me, this is how she goes: She hides away so I can't see her, then she goes peepoes!' (Can't really get the tune across sorry!), but as I sang that, I'd 'hide' (just my face) behind a thin see-through scarf, then pull it away again. Eventually DS would tag the scarf away (which gives a sense of control), or I would place the scarf on his head rather than mine, etc. Thin scarfs are great for many things, very tactile, and you can usually find one in a charity shop.

Or just basic peekaboo (rather than around corners), just cover your eyes with your hands and uncover again, babies find this hilarious for some reason!

In general, speaking of hilarious, follow the giggles! My 'playful parenting' book says that LOs find it funny when something is just borderline not-quite-understood but not-quite-totally-strange either. The point they are working on, developmentally. So if you find your LO giggling at some game/action/noise/whatever, then do it again! Luckily it is usually natural and quite easy to repeat an action that makes our LOs laugh :) But good to know that you are not just making a fool of yourself for your child's amusement, but that you are helping them learn, meeting them exactly at their 'stage'.

[Ummmmgogo]

I had a similar problem when my birth daughter was about ten/eleven months. She would cry whenever she couldn't see me too. If you are cooking at the hob or washing up or chopping vegetables, it is safer to have baby tied to your back rather than your front in my opinion. If you YouTube it you can find out how to do it. I used a big bath towel at first and then progressed to a boba 3G. I hope this helps. Congratulations on your baby xxx

[Moomoomie]

Dd2 and dd3 were both six months old when they came home (separately) and I constantly "wore" them, they came every where with me, we co slept too. It really helped to help with attachment. They are now 13 and 7 and I would say they are both confident children. We still sit with dd3 at night until she is asleep and she still comes into our bed most nights. I don't mind this as I feel even though she has been home we are still building good attachments.
It is still very early days for you, take it a day at a time.