7m old, separation anxiety, no sleep, childminder??

[Fourteeth]

hello there,

anyone with similar experience or even a good book to recomend?

my DS is 7 months old. I've noticed a distinct shift in his behaviour in the past week. suddenly cries if I leave a room - even when he is with his daddy. and then for past three nights wakes up far more regularly i.e every 1/2 hour and seems to want cuddles and reassurance of my presence rather than to be bf which was always the case before (he has always woken every 2 hours).

i don't find it easy to sleep with him actually on me (which seems to be his ideal scenario!) but we co-sleep so a little easier. but I am not sure whether we are inadvertently encouraging his wakefulness by picking him up as soon as he wakes. I used to be able to sing him back to sleep without picking him up but not any more.

i'm sure this is separation anxiety but not sure best way to respond. obviously instinct is to cuddle him more but is this making matters worse? also trying to play lots of 'peekaboo' games make 'absence' less threatening.

This week he has been with a childminder twice for 1 hr then 1.5 hrs as part of a settling in period. he will be there 2 days a week from feb 1. i worry this is what is making him insecure. gosh i feel guilty! it has caused my mind to wander and worry about terrible things happening at cm when i'm gone!

Sounds like you're doing he right thing - lots of cuddles and reassurance . If you're worried about the CM, could you ask to stay with him on one of his settling in periods, or maybe pop in in the afternoon on his first day?

DS was a v unsettled baby but I actually found going to the CM helped, more stimulation maybe.

could also be a sleep regression - some useful info here

www.askmoxie.org/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html

Probably not much comfort to you now, but my DS developed separation anxiety at this age too and it went away very suddenly at around 14 months old. He now doesn't blink when I leave the room and will happily run away from me in public places (which has its own disadvantages!). So there is hope!

He was always fine with the cm though, would scream when I left but calmed down as soon as I was out of sight.

Sounds like separation anxiety. It is the classic age for it to kick in and is often pretty full on. My dd used to cry when I left the room etc. It sounds like starting CM is exacerbating things especially if he is so unsettled at night. I'm sure it would really help him if you could stay with him at the CM for a while. If he sees that you like her, trust her he'll feel more secure. Do you think she'd be OK with you doing this? The hard thing is it does make you feel guilty, but then he'll pick up on this which will add to his anxiety. It is tough isn't it.

Thanks I will try to hang around more with him and the cm. About the sleep - did you also find their sleep patterns disrupted i.e. anxiety continuing into the night? Did you have any good ways of responding? Or shall I sit it out - my experience so far is that it's better to accept sleep disruption rather than fight it! Thanks for info about sleep regression - really interesting.

I try to take the easiest route with sleep and hope it gets better at some point! I think 7 mo is too young to do much else tbh (though I know others would disagree).

My DD gets like this when she is coming down with a cold/bug or teething? just a thought?