Could this be seperation anxiety?

[Eviepoo]

My DD is 5 months old and the last few days she has been behaving differently. I have looked up seperation anxiety and found the following:

^Separation anxiety is pretty easy to spot. The following are behaviors typically demonstrated by a baby with normal separation anxiety:
1 - Clinginess
2 - Crying when a parent is out of sight
3 - Strong preference for only one parent
4 - Fear of strangers
5 - Waking at night crying for a parent
6 - Easily comforted in a parent?s embrace^

So the clinginess is increasing daily
she shouts to me a lot when I go out of the room
she only wants to go to me not my DH but when I do cuddle her she settles pretty quickly - only to scream if I put her back down
And the last few nights she has started waking and screaming up to 6 times a night (previously she has only woke once or twice for feeds and settled fairly easily again) - so it's only number 4 she hasn't shown.
She is BF and she just refuses expressed milk from bottle or cup (I've tried going away so I'm no where near)

However everything I read is suggesting she should not show seperation anxiety until 7 months + so I am wondering what else could be the cause of this behaviour.

I have just been reassuring her loads, playing peekaboo, going out of the room for a minute or two only and letting her see me come back.

I'm not sure what to do at nigt though, I'm trying only to give her 2 night feeds and the other times just settling her and putting her back down

Any other ideas?

Someone will come and give you advice shortly.

However my brief thought is that she's too young to get separation anxiety and that this is a normal part of her development which, whilst being a complete pain in the arse, will pass.

Get used to many other phases like this until you are adept at the mantra "it's a phase, it will pass"

My baby does this really badly just before he learns to do something. He had a really bad patch earlier this week and started walking today! It could also be a mental development thing, not just physical but you might see her do something new in a few days.

my DD got separation anxitey with around 4 to 4.5 months. it is unusual but i disagree with second poster that your child is too young. most get it around 6-8 months but some can get it at 4-5 months. Up to 4 months, i could leave DD in the creche and with others no problem when I went to the gym or had to run an errand, and from one day to the next she absolutely freaked out and panicked when I left her anywhere, from which point I couldn't leave her in a creche anymore as she wouldn't settle down. She started nursery at 5.5 months when I was supposed to return to work and she would scream and cry non-stop for all of the first week there until I returned. Then she settled in and was fine there.

Separation anxiety can come early. Not much you can do, it passes but it's really tough on baby and parents.

DS started with separation anxiety at around 5 months (maybe sooner) so I don't think your DD is too young...

...still waiting for it to pass unfortunately (DS is 23 MOs) but I live in hope!

Thanks all, DD has a very runny nose this morning and pulling at her ears and trying to bite everything, so she is probably feeling rotten and wants a mummy, poor thing.