Seperation anxiety and new creche, please help!

Hi IreneL


I really feel for you...there's nothing worse than leaving a crying child behind... I think she will adjust with time, she's been there a short while... little ones like familiarity and the unknown is terrifying... Maybe you should express your concerns to the teachers formally if things don't change.

I have a clingy boy who I'm hoping to enrol next year...my little girl took to school happily and then after the first school holiday was all tears every time I dropped her off...after about 2 weeks she was happy at school again...

I wish you all the best...

I'm feeling pretty terrible about this and I'm hoping someone can offer some advice.

My baby is 1 year old, and since about 8 months she's been experiencing separation anxiety when I drop her at school in the mornings. She stops crying after a very short while (when I'm gone from her sight), but I still feel awful. To ad to that, she started at a new school on 1 June. I had to move her because I was not happy with certain conditions at her previous school, where she has been since she was 5 months old.

Now, at the new school, she starts clinging to me when we get to her class's door, and she starts crying when we go in. She also didn't want to eat at school for the first three days, the teachers say that she made herself throw up (given, this could be because their food is different from what she was used to at the other school, where the food was still pretty baby-ish). Luckily that seems to be resolved now, as they say she is eating now. However, I noticed that the water level in her drinking cup remains the same, so I asked them this morning if she isn't drinking her water. The one teacher said that she wasn't drinking from the cup and that she didn't know how to drink from it (it's one of those no-spil cups where they sip from the sides). The teachers probably thought that it was a new cup and that baby just didnt know how to drink from it, but in fact she's had that cup for a few months and she loves to drink from it at home. Do you think that she's just still overwhelmed by the new environment and that that is why she's not drinking from the cup - maybe too distracted? New teachers (three in her class) to get used to, and more babies - and they can all walk already, whilst she is still holding onto things when she does.

Any advice on how to help ease her separation anxiety? I feel like I'm now suffering from anxiety too because it's so stressful to leave her when she is clearly scared for me to leave her ;(