Dd won't tolerate me leaving the room for even a second

[tortoiseshell]

This is driving me mad - dd (14 months) screams inconsolably if I so much as open the door to the room we're in - it's getting so that I have to carry her around everywhere, or listen to her hysterical screaming. I know it's a phase, but it's really hard to cope with, especially when I need to get things done quickly! Any advice/words of wisdom?

I always try and remember to say to my dd that I am leaving the room and give her a smile. Often I will talk to her as I walk down the hall and say e.g. "mama is in the kitchen"

how long does she scream for if you go out of the room? my ds1 used to do this, but after about a minute would stop and get on with playing, it was a control thing.

You haven't really said enough and I'm possibly jumping to some conclusions here that are wrong but it sounds to me that she may have associated you disappearing from her sight with you disappearing for a long time. On the occassions when you have left her to go out etc have you always said goodbye or crept out without her knowing? If the latter then she needs to learn that you will say goodbye when its going to be a long time and that out of sight for a few moments is not going to be for hours.

Saying that my dd2 is 14 months and has over the last few months just occassionally cried if I'm not in the same room as her. I have always reacted by calling her in a calm voice and letting her know where I am. She then comes and finds me. Now most of the time she will come and find me before screaming. She will still occassionally cry if I go upstairs without (toilet etc) but I suspect this is more to do with her desire to get to the stairs than her need to have me.

Hope I've helped

Hi tortoiseshell, have only just put two and two together and realised who you are. please ignore first part then. Hope second part is helpful.

Yep, mine did this too. Good news is that it is a short-lived phase. You just have to be strong and get on with what you have to do, leave the door open so she can see you and ignore her screaming. She'll soon calm down and understand that you are not gone forever. Sorry, I know it's hard, but honestly she'll probably be over it by this time next week.

That seperation anxiety and they do grow out of it, LOL. With DS I would tell him when I was goign out of the room and why 'I'm going to the loo/making a cup of tea etc' and then i'd talk to him whilst I was gone 'Won't be a minute, i'm just on the loo, i'm washing my hands now, i'm coming back now/i'm just making the tea, blah blah blah' so he knew what I was doing at the time when I was doing it and didn't think i'd abandoned him!

The phrase that stood out for me was "do things quickly". What about doing it a bit slower and giving her some notice, saying bye bye, lots of smiling. It sounds like you are tensing up and expecting it to be bad and then dashing off. Try it when you don't actually have to leave the room (and then you won't be resentful when it doesn't work at first) and just increase the time out of the room from 1 second to a trip to the toilet alone. By making it a game you take the stress out of it.

Tortoiseshell, my nearly 14 mth old is the same at the moment except when she is out of the flat and with other kids. I have put it down to a)being bored b) teething and needing to be picked up all the time unless entertained sufficiently.

I will pinch ideas from this thread as well !

Thanks for the advice everyone - I am trying to tell her whenever I am going out of the room, and the idea of talking to her the whole time is a good one too. Will let you know how I get on!

tortoiseshell, mine's up to this at the moment too. Happy to trundle off to nursery every weekday morning, goes ballistic if I leave the room at home for a nanosecond. Tbh, I'm just gritting my teeth and getting through this phase...we are already saying where we are going, asking her if she wants to come too, saying we'll be back in a sec etc, and it doesn't seem to make much difference. Like yours, ours "wants up" so she can peer in to saucepans, trash fridge magnets, stare intimidatingly at her stash of plastic beakers etc. So I tend to the control theory too. I think it will improve when she starts walking, we're nearly there on that.