DD7 separation anxiety and sleep

[Mumsfun13]

Hey everyone, please help me, we are going out of our minds. Sorry for the long post. Our DD7 is in year 3 and often a happy and confident child, lots of friends, likes various activities, has a basically happy life. Last year she had a month or so where she started struggling going into school - she would say she missed me, or was worried about missing me, and would cry going in, sometimes scream. It was awful, but the school helped and we helped her lots and it went away. She went on sleepovers, a school overnight trip, all good. She’s had the odd occasion feeling a bit shy with big groups at parties too but like I say has generally seemed a happy kid.

I thought it had gone away but since half term she has started to get super upset again anticipating various things like going to school. She’s started to talk about it very very often (eg “mummy, I’m so nervous I’m going to miss you tomorrow!”) then got extremely upset recently going to a sleepover with a family she knows well (she eventually went, had a good time and then asked me to pick up her up come 9.30 which I did and of course didn’t mind doing - they’re still young of course- it’s more the fact that she used to be fine with sleepovers and now isn’t ). Then today she got really really upset at the school Xmas concert because I couldn’t sit right behind her, and started mouthing “I don’t love you” at me because she was so sad and angry. We’ve also had a few occasions in the last fortnight where she has started refusing going to sleep entirely (including right now) - on one of these occasions we told her it was fine, ok, she could stay up, and she eventually got on the floor next to my bed and said “I need to punish myself by sleeping on the hard floor”. Such a horrible thing to hear my child say!

On the one hand I think some of this is just a sensitive child who is very tired at the end of a long term. On the other I think she has quite serious separation anxiety (only to do with me, not her dad) , and is also a bit anxiety prone in general, and I’m starting to get really worried (and also really tired and sad!).

Ang thoughts/help v gratefully received!

I should add probably that she definitely doesn’t not see me! I pick the kids up everyday as I only work part time, we hang out a lot and reasonably frequently if she’s ill or her dad is away for work she’ll come and sleep in me bed. I feel like I give her a lot of my time and attention! (I don’t resent this btw, just saying for context.) I did have long covid a while back when she was v little, which limited my ability to play with the kids for a while, and I do wonder sometimes if she has some innate memory of that time playing into this… in any case not sure what to do!

I think you're overthinking this. Kids go through phases and separation anxiety is normal. If you feel anxious about it, she will pick up on this so try and stay calm and cheerful and breezy - if she's worrying about missing you at school, just say 'you'll be fine, you'll be busy in school and I'll see you in a few hours and we can go to the park after school'! Don't make a big fuss when she comes out of school or go overboard with praising her for being brave etc - act like it's perfectly normal and chat about her day.

If she's having worries at bedtime, I'd sit with her a while and just reassure her with your presence, no chat or playing, just say it's time for sleep and mummy will sit here with you for a while. It's probably just a phase and will pass.

How are her friendships at school? I'd invite friends home for play and tea, to give her a chance for socialising outside school and to gently encourage her to be less clingy to you. Get dad more involved in doing activities with her and also doing bedtime so it's not all on you.