Episode 181: Separation Anxiety in Babies & How to Fix It

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Welcome to The Kids Sleep Show podcast, where we dive into the magical world of sleep and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips, and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting. I’m your host, Courtney Zents, and I’m on a mission to change how the world views sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children and adults of all ages. As an award winning speaker, author, and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built.

So let’s sleep together. Hey, everyone. Courtney Zents here. We are talking all about separation anxiety in babies today. In this episode, I’m gonna talk to you about why it happens and how you can help.

So first and foremost, separation anxiety is a term that people use when a child gets upset if they are not getting what we perceive they are looking for. Right? So if you have a baby and you perhaps leave the living room and you go into the kitchen and the baby starts crying and then you come back and they’re okay. Or if they’re maybe 18 old and they go, mommy, lay with me. Mommy, lay with me.

Mommy, lay with me. Mommy, can I take a shower with you? Mommy, can I come downstairs with you? Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. Right?

And they, like, are pretty much a stage four clinger. Right? Totally normal is developmental, but there are things that we can do to help a child feel confident, honestly. Separation anxiety happens out of the fact that they don’t understand that you’re gonna come back. Right?

And we have to help them slowly build confidence at a very early age that we are there for them. We are to support them. I tell parents all the time, you are always accessible to your children, just not excessive in your response. So first and foremost, you know, generally, it starts between six and nine months when you leave the room and children cry or get upset or maybe, you know, they have a fear of strangers or new environments. You know, my dad lived in Arkansas when my kids were young, so he didn’t really know them.

So he would come for Christmas and maybe like, you know, Easter or something like two or three times a year, the first couple years of their life. And they had no interest in my dad, and he was like, well, I’m your grandpop. And I’m like, dad, they don’t know who you are. You know? Like, sorry.

Not to be, you know, call spade a spade, but, like, you’re new and you’re fearful. Like, you they don’t know you. It’s stranger danger. You know? So there’s a little bit of that fear of strangers.

Sometimes it’s a fear of a new environment. You know, your child’s first day or week at daycare can be a transition. Sometimes it’s just, you know, going to grandma’s house and all these relatives are around or the holidays. Like, those types of environments, we understand what’s happening, but your children often don’t. And if there’s a lot of people around, they generally wanna hold the baby and, you know, that can cause a little bit more, you know, upset or kind of separation anxiety.

You wanna look at things also like night wakings or a child’s sudden resistance to naps because they only want to be with you or they only want you or they’re only calling for you. Right? And I think parents sometimes confuse separation anxiety with bad sleep associations. And I’m going to explain because there’s an aspect where you have to look at every situation with your child and their personality and go, okay, do they want this or do they need this? You know, and I think as parents, it’s our job to kind of navigate that for kids and to help them feel confident, to help them feel assured that we are there and we are accessible without it going into overdrive, where it creates bad sleep.

Right? Like, I tell parents sleep is the foundation for which the house is built. And so when you have a child who has broken sleep, whether it’s naps or struggles at bedtime or they still aren’t sleeping through the night, you know, honestly, from birth all the way up through 18 of age, you know, there’s a point where sleep should start to regulate pretty early on. And if it’s not, there’s generally some other variables going on. Sometimes you can pick them out.

Sometimes you are blinded by them because you’re just so stuck in it. And that’s what we do here at tiny transitions is help you to navigate those sleep challenges. But that being said, right, you’ve gotta look at a situation and go, is this a want or a need? And and how can I support them in their increased clinginess or their crying when I leave the room or their difficulty in sleeping alone? Because I think it all comes back to confidence.

Right? So signs and symptoms, as I kind of mentioned, you walk out of the room, grandma pops in and they don’t wanna go to them. You know, it’s they drop off at daycare and they’re crying till you walk out the door and beyond, you know, or maybe they’re starting to wake in the middle of the night. And then as soon as you walk in the room, they put their hands up and they go, mama, out, out. You know, those are all kind of signs and symptoms that there might be some separation anxiety happening.

But you also have to look at sleep associations, which I’ll talk to you about so you can kind of understand how to tell the difference. You have to start with confidence growth even as an infant. Right? So if your child is on the mat and they’re sitting there playing and maybe they’re nine months old and they’re having a jolly time in the jumper. Right.

And you go into the kitchen for just five seconds to get a drink of water and they’re within eyesight. You’re just kind of right around the corner and you grab your Stanley and you walk back into the living room just giving them five seconds where you’re like, mommy, I’ll be right back. And you go into the kitchen and grab your water and you go, mommy’s back, you know, or you play peekaboo where you kind of leave or hide behind the couch and you peekaboo, you’re building confidence in knowing that you’re coming back. So five seconds turns to ten seconds, turns to twenty seconds, turns to forty seconds, you know, and kind of over the course of a gradual period of a week or two, you begin to escalate how long you step away from the situation. Now, again, I’m saying that provided your child is safe, they’re with another person, they’re in the jumper, and you go get a drink of water for ten seconds.

I’m not saying, you know, go for a walk and leave your kid unattended. I’m saying, you know, realistic things where your child is safely in the jumper and you’re walking into the kitchen to get a drink of water for a second. Right? Or your child’s napping in the crib or, like, laying in the crib or playing in the crib, and you walk out to go to the bathroom and you come right back and they’re safe in that crib. You know?

Those things start to build confidence. We used to play peekaboo all the time with our son, Max. Savela was a little different personality wise. Honestly, she was like my stage four clinger, and I’m like, oh my gosh. Just get me to 18 months.

And then I got to 18 months, and it was like, oh my gosh. Just get me to two years or twenty four months. And then, you know, she was still very much attached to me at the hip, you know? And then we got to four, and she was still very much attached to the hip. And then we got to eight, which is where we’re at now.

And she loves her mommy. You know? She definitely you know, she plays well, and she’s independent, and she’s got the same personality as me, which when you’re young can be tough. But when she’s older, I know it will serve her well. But it’s just to say it’s personalities.

My son can happily go and play outside by himself for a bit, and Savelle kinda just wants to have her mommy around. You know? And and we balance that, and she’s good with her friends and stuff. But, you know, she loves her mommy, and Max is a little more independent. You know, each kid’s gonna be a little different, and you’re gonna do the exact same thing with both kids, and they’re both gonna turn out different.

So, you know, don’t beat yourself up. You just you have to build trust. You’re trying to build a rapport that you’re coming back and the confidence. You’re building trust, but you have to encourage independence, you know, and and that’s okay. And and it’s responding with comfort, but ensuring that they’re starting to understand there’s an aspect of independence at certain ages as well.

You need to be consistent too. You know, if you create a routine, whether it’s for daycare drop off where I know transitions can be hard or where it is at bedtime where you do the same thing every night, it actually does build confidence as much as they sometimes push the boundaries and go, can we read another book? Can you lay with me? Can you rub my head? Can you tuck me in again?

I have to cough. I need a tissue. Right? Like, mommy, come back in five minutes. Come back in two minutes.

Can you come back again? Right? Like, there’s a little bit of it that starts to be boundary pushing versus separation anxiety. Right? And and so I think the response with the same routine is very helpful because kids understand then predictability and what that routine looks like every night.

This is the time we do this. This is what’s next in the routine. And the expectation is it is now lights off and time for you to go to bed. I have cuddled with you for five minutes. The alarm went off, and now it’s time for sleep.

And it’s important that you get your rest and kind of holding firm in some of that as kids get older because it starts to be a bit of a situation where they don’t want you to leave, and then it’s a problem. Right? So that’s where I would start. You know, sometimes introducing a favorite blanket or a stuffy for added security can help. My kids are eight and 10.

Max still sleeps with his lovey, Bobby d, which he has had since he was little. We’ve managed to not lose either of them, actually. I’m surprised. We bought two just in case, and we still have both, which is kinda fun. And he loves Bobby d, and he had his friend sleepover the other night for the first time.

And he’s like, guys, this is Bobby d, and I sleep with him every night. And it was kind of funny because I didn’t know how they would take it, you know, at ten when, you know, friends can be kinda cruel sometimes. So, they were kinda laughing, and they’re like, oh, we have our blanket, and we have our pillow. You know? So it was kinda cute to see that.

And my daughter sleeps with Lucy. It’s a warmie. She is the elephant. And, you know, it’s it’s those are trust items, and they they take them. We travel with them, and they’re comfortable to them.

That’s just another added sense of security. You need to avoid doing the whole Irish exit or Irish goodbye and avoid sneaking away because that creates fear that every single time you leave the room, are you gonna be gone then. Right? You have to be firm, though, in saying, like, goodbye, mommy will be back, or daddy will be back. And if they start crying, that’s okay.

You need to leave. Because if they cry and then you go back and you’re like, oh, just one more hug. Like, every time you drop off at day care, it’s gonna be like stage four clinger. And over a couple days, they will understand the process and they will be fine. My kids, Civella, especially, when I dropped at day care, it was like waterworks every day for four years because that was just her demeanor.

Whereas my son would, like, cry walking in and he’d be like, alright. Bye, mom. And then two seconds after I left, day care sent me a photo of Civella, and she was happily playing with her friends. So it was like a theatrics performance, you know, and then I walk out the front door of the Goddard School, and but she was totally fine. So, you know, there’s an aspect of that too that you have to understand your child’s personality.

And you always again, you’re always accessible. You’re always excessive, but you just can’t be, like, overly so in what you’re doing. You wanna encourage independence in sleep. I still feel that way strongly about babies for sure. Safe sleep is on their back, in the crib, and nothing else in there but them until they reach a point where they can roll over and then they can, like, sleep on their belly.

That’s fine. But still nothing else in the crib till they’re out of that first year from a safety standpoint. Right? And so I’m not a fan of co sleeping with a baby. You start to see more in toddlers where they come in in the middle of the night because they’re in a toddler bed, and then parents are like, oh my gosh.

Stop coming in. And then they just cave and bring the kid into bed, and then they’re like, I don’t know why they won’t stop coming in. I’m like, because you let them in every night, man. Like, you gotta have some boundaries. Like, you’re not welcome in my bed.

That’s mommy’s space, but you are welcome on the floor. Right? So give them an option that still meets their needs. They’re in your room, but they’re not in your bed. And believe me, the floor with a sleeping bag after a couple days isn’t comfortable.

Right? So you wanna make sure they’re feeling safe and secure at bedtime. If they need a nightlight, great. We love the Shusher Firefly. It’s a tiny little nightlight.

I love the hatch on, you know, a setting for bedtime that’s, like, red, but that goes off overnight. If it does have to stay on, then it’s on, like, the lowest setting possible. I’m really not a fan of nightlights as much. Certainly not with babies. I think they sleep best in total darkness.

But with toddlers, I get it, and there starts to be fear of the dark. I also love Himalayan sea salt lamps because they’re dimmable, and they’re a soft pink light. I have one here in my office. And I love projectibles because they can project a cute picture onto the ceiling. And then after the kids are asleep, you can turn the little ball on them, and it it’s like a tiny little nightlight so they don’t trip and smash their face on something if they have to go to the bathroom.

But it’s not this big bright light in a room. You know, I do think kids of all ages sleep better when it’s dark, so I try to get it as dark as possible, given there might be a requirement as they get a little older to have that nightlight, lay, which I understand. Right? But encouraging independent sleep and setting boundaries around sleep helps protect you from sleep associations that are totally separate from separation anxiety and that you might look at as a sleep regression. Right?

A lot of times they’re not sleep regressions. It’s behavior modification. Right? We need to reset the expectation that your child has around what the result is gonna be. Right?

You have to manage your own guilt and emotions. We all have it. Mommy guilt, daddy guilt, working parent guilt, whatever it’s gonna be. My dad had guilt because he lived away, but you know what? You live away.

Like, you gotta manage that. And if you wanna have a better relationship with the kids, then you gotta move home, you know, which he ended up doing. You know? But there’s a balance with it. And that, you know, there’s really understanding that this is like slow and steady consistency every single day.

And it’s important to understand it’s okay to have your own self care where you leave to get your nails done or where you take a shower when your husband might be watching the baby and they’re crying the whole time. Like, you know what? Okay. Well, I’m gonna take a shower because it’s important to have the ability to step away and to give yourself a minute. Right?

Parenting is tough. It was the first job I ever felt like I failed at, and honestly, some days I still do. And I am doing my best. And, you know, remember, it is a phase. And no matter what phase you’re in of parenting, it will pass, but there are things you can do to make it better.

And I think time and time again, I see as a pediatric sleep consultant that people blend sleep regressions with a baby not sleeping through the night with separation anxiety, and they just make excuses. And if you could just know that, oh my gosh, we could fix it. We could fix it this week. We could fix it this month. We can have slow and steady momentum forward to the end result, and you don’t have to rip the Band Aid off.

You don’t have to cry it out. Like, you can fix a lot of these problems as long as you understand how to address them and what they are. Like, are these typical developmental leaps like separation anxiety, or is this a bigger issue around a sleep struggle that has morphed into something more that can be, you know, reverted? Right? So I want you to understand, babies generally will not cry the entire time you’re gone if you do step out to get your nails done.

If you are doing daycare drop offs, which I did for four beautiful years, five days a week, because I am a working professional that really thrived in being a working professional. I was not good at staying home, and that was not the path I thought was gonna be best for me mentally. And so I did go back to work at twelve weeks, and I had to manage drop offs every single day at daycare. And we kind of knew we had a system and we worked it out with the school. Like what is best?

Do you want me to come spend a half a day here? Or is it better that I just drop and go? You tell me and I’ll happily support it. So talking to your provider, talking to the nanny, talking to the day care professional, be patient in it. Right?

Be consistent. That’s the best thing. Consistency in sleep, consistency in your expectations, consistency in your behaviors, and offering reassurance are the biggest things that can help you to manage wherever you are at this stage. So just understand, there’s a lot of different resources for help. Ask the experts.

We are here, and we are very good at what we do. We do thirty minute ask me anything sessions here for fair parents who have questions that, you know, just just that. We jump on the phone for thirty minutes, and we help you through whatever you’re struggling with. If you might need more help, we have private coaching. I mean, we do it all.

We do all kinds of stuff here at Tiny Transitions. We’ve done so for over a decade now. We are probably one of the most, if not, you know, based on the number of my peers that have shut their sleep consulting businesses down, one of the only, you know, sleep coaching agencies that’s still around that is, you know, been doing this for a long time. So we’ve got a lot of great experience here, and we’re always happy to help. So be sure to jump out to tinytransitions.com.

We got lots of great content, lots of freebies, lots of ways we can help, and we’re always happy to do so. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week’s episode. If you like what you’re hearing, we always appreciate that you leave a review or, subscribe to the podcast because I’m not really great at saying that, but it does certainly help us, to reach more people when the beautiful streaming services promote us because we’re helping new parents to not feel like a total dumpster fires every day. Alright. Well, that’s all for now.

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