separation anxiety - is that 'all' it is?

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

DD is just turned one and hates being apart from me and / or DP. Sometimes it is just me that will do (and sometimes just DP). She starts the day sunny and happy and then about an hour in, when I think she cottons on it is a day I go to work (I am getting ready not slobbing in jeans) she clings on to me and won't let go. It's like getting dressed with a koala attached to me!

When her nanny arrives there is a momentary smile and then she starts whimpering and clinging on even more tightly. When we actually hand over she screams and screams.

I follow the advice to make it a short and sweet handover - trying to be smiley and not show I am upset and doing it quickly then leaving straight away while the nanny distracts her.

The nanny is lovely and always updates me to say DD is happy quite soon after and sends photos of her smiling at breakfast.

So my questions:

Is it really just separation anxiety? She is SO upset and clingy I feel like I am making her miserable?
Is there anything I can do to lessen it?
DP and I have very random lives. We travel a lot and it must make it hard for her to know what is going on. e.g. this week DP is away Tues - Friday, next week I'm away Tues-friday, then we are on holiday, then grandparents are staying etc...there is no 'normal' week. Nearest to normal is probably this week, with me at home and DP away. I can't do a lot in the short term to change this but could it be making matters worse? And if so can I mitigate it in any way?

Thanks for any ideas and sorry this is long

What worked for us (with DH going to work) was to tell DS that his father has to go to work now, okay, we'll see him later on, wave bye-bye, watch him go out the door, he's off to work now isn't he, but that's okay because we'll see him tonight, oo it looks like a nice day outside, what shall we do now?
It made a massive difference from when DH would just try to slip out while I distracted DS - that only caused DS to get upset whenever DH did so much as leave the room (and to cling on to him when he was there), because he feared that DH would disappear at any time.

This sounds kind of familiar but again we have very random lives (in a slightly different way, we travel as a famiy to a house in a different country for a month at a time, so while he's usually babysat by my parents in the afternoons, he then doesn't see them at all for a month ) so I am not sure if it is all the changing about, as you suggest, or if it is a phase. Our son is 1 year old. He is sociable, happy to go off with his grandfather and to stay with his other grandparents, but nowadays especially around bedtime he is really, really clingy to me and weepy. He used to be fine with his dad putting him to bed, but no longer - now it has to be me.And he is up several times at night crying, and is only quiet if I hold him - cries the instant I put him down even if he was on the brink of sleep. I don't know what it is but it's exhausting (am in fact drinking a well-earned G&T at the moment, after getting him off to sleep FINALLY so apols for slight incoherence of this post:)).

We have totally un-random lives. I'm at home with the kids (I do work, but from home, and after they've gone to bed - any external work is either evenings or weekends) and DH gets the same train most mornings and comes home a similar time most evenings.

DS still screams if I so much as go downstairs without him to retrieve the toy he's dropped through the banisters. He's then all smiles as I turn to climb the stairs again. Same thing if I dare to shut the stairgate in the kitchen doorway when I'm cooking - so he's still playing less than 6' away from me but can't physically reach me. Yep, separation anxiety is very real, and very annoying! He's 16m, DD went through the same thing but a little earlier. Both are very confident, sociable children - DD started nursery a couple of days after her 2nd birthday, ignored me from the moment we went through the door and cried her eyes out when it was time to come home, so they scrapped the rest of the settling-in sessions. 9m earlier, she would scream blue murder if DH tried to prise her off me to do bedtime...

@wingdingdong, what would you suggest for the sleep separation anxiety thing? In the daytime it's okay-ish but at night it's terrible, he wakes, cries, won't stop till I pick him up, is then completely quiet while I walk up and down with him but as soon as I put him down he either starts crying again or else sleeps only very briefly before waking and crying again - and the whole merry dance begins once more. This morning he woke at 5.30, was obviously tired but wouldn't settle - in the end we let him cry it out and he slept another 2 hours. It feels awful letting him cry, though - but we do have to get some sleep.

Thanks, that is some comfort. It just seems so miserable for her.

We have the clingy non sleeping thing with weekend naps. Just jumps up as soon as i get to the door!

I do say goodbye each day and tell her i'll be back after tea. Then after tea i show up and say 'see, i'm back' but she is too busy clingy on to me to care.
Here's to it being a short lived phase.

Thank you.

There's a sleep regression around 1 plus teething means they're not feeling quite right. They will settle down again.
I remember bedtimes being quite hard going and had to use calpol on occasion for teething pain.

Another sleep regression? Oh crap.