High needs baby with bad separation anxiety

[M1ssF]

Hi all. My LO is 9m and is super high needs. She's been worse lately with separation anxiety. Hers started at 3months and has been bad since. She doesn't like it when anyone looks at her or talks to her let alone picks her up. If they do that she will scream hysterically for ages. I start work in August and I have no idea what to do with childcare. I wanted to send her to nursery but she will not cope at all. I have been going to my parents house once a week and she still moans and cries there and doesn't allow anyone to pick her up. I don't know why she's like this. I am thinking of leaving her at my parents house for about 20mins and just let her cry it out and see if that helps. I don't like the sound of it at all but I have no choice. I'm so tired . I am with her 24/7 I really don't want to quit work as I need to go for my sanity but it seems like the only option now. Any advise/ suggestions?

Hi, I really empathise - I had a baby like this too and it can feel like such relentless, hard work with no break at all sometimes.

I think you are thinking along the right lines when you say you might leave her with your parents for a bit. If you do this regularly and gradually increase the length of time, perhaps she'll eventually be calmer with them.

But before this, when you are with your parents, could you try and all play together with your daughter? Essentially trying to show her that you are comfortable with her gran and grandad, so she can be too.

I used to always wonder if the baby could pick up on my anxiety/worry. It was hard for me to switch it off when he'd spend the entire time crying whenever we went to someone's house or had visitors ourselves.

When you go to your parents' house, what do you do? Do you all sit down for a chat? If so, would it maybe be easier for the baby (at least to begin with) if you walked around with her (with gran or grandad), showing her things, for example?

Hi Thank you for your message. So when we go there they try not to engage with her straight away because when they do she moans and cries so she sits and looks around for a while while I carry on talking as normal. My parents usually talk to her from like a metre away sometimes closer. Any sudden loud laughs she just bursts in tears or sometimes it's nothing so its like tredding on egg shells with her because you just don't know when she's going to burst into tears

When did your LO grow out of it and did you do anything to resolve it?x