How Separation Anxiety Affects Baby & Toddler Sleep

This last week I came across a fascinating sleep issue that had arisen out of separation anxiety.

As you probably know, separation anxiety is a normal baby phenomena that occurs at around 6-8 months of age. Not all babies experience this and it depends on your baby's temperament as to what degree you're bub will be affected. It usually lasts up to 12 mths of age and occasionally can last until 2 years of age.

separation anxiety

Why does it happen?

http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=141&id=1848

They get an internalisation of self, which means they suddenly realise that they are a separate person from their carer.
Babies suddenly realise that they have one main carer, so all the other 'mummies' who changed him, fed him, played with him, bathed him etc suddenly become one so as soon as the main carer leaves the room they get panicky and cry. They want to be held and constantly reassured. It's flattering but extremely painful, especially when you need to get things done.

It is important to respond to them and reassure and it will pass.

Some babies can have sleep issues if they awake and their carer is not there. The first part of a baby's sleep cycle is light sleep and this is why we get 'cat nappers'. They find it really hard to go into their next sleep cycle if their carer is not around.

This is what was happening for this little baby, Harry.

Harry

You may remember a blog from Wintertime (July 17th, 2012) and Miss Kit and the hat that was causing her eczema.

Well Miss Kit and Master Harry are cousins and so different in temperament.

Harry can self-settle really well and sleeps all through the night without a need for a re-settle.

But those pesky day sleeps well...they're an entirely different matter. Will he re-settle without his mummy? no no and no!

One solution is to go for a walk with baby in the stroller, at sleep time, but what about hot days and rainy days and do you really want to be walking every day for an hour or so???

Another solution is to do Magic Presence in the day and at night for the settle and re-settle.

You basically sit by the cot and model sleep, no direct eye contact, minimal talking and stay with him till he re-settles. To start with he may whinge a bit and it may take up to a week to 10 days to get him used to it. But it's a lot nicer than a baby who can't re-settle and is sleep deprived and cranky!

We'll see how Harry gets on. I'll let you know.

http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=122&id=1900

Tags: fil_Baby Sleep and Settling

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Karen was understanding, kind and supportive with clear strategies to help improve our toddlers sleep. She explained what was happening and gave us a plan to follow. This is the second child we have used Karen’s methods with and I would recommend Nurture Parenting to any parents wanting to better understand their babies sleep and gently help them to self soothe and sleep better.

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I just wanted to write and say thank you. We started your program almost three weeks ago, and it has dramatically changed our babies sleep for the better. Toby (10 months) went from waking 6+ times each night. We fumbled during each wake, as we offered dummies, bottles, whatever we thought would stop the crying for a moment. The only thing that we achieved, was waking him up even more and frustrating the **** out of him!

The first night of magic presence took 40 minutes, and now he is down within minutes once he is placed in the cot. We have had a few sleep throughs as well.

Your advice and videos are so clear and succinct. We found them so easy to follow. To compare, we looked back on a sleep consultant plan that we paid $300+ for with our firstborn and were stunned at how complicated and convoluted the plan was. No wonder it didn't work!!

I was so nervous about going back to work being so sleep deprived, and I was also concerned about how Toby would cope with the transition to day care. However, I now feel a lot more confident (and well rested!).

All the best and thank you again.

Christina

I'd pay 10 X what I did for this sleep program

never wanted to sleep train, I didn’t think I could personally tolerate listening to my baby cry endlessly. It surprised me how quickly my 7mo picked this up. Night one we removed the dummy and overnight feed cold turkey. We’re on night 11 and bub has been sleeping through almost every night since night 2 (we’re still battling early wakings every now and then). Day naps have also improved remarkably! I’ve also got one of the mums in my mother’s group onto this who is having huge success with her 8mo boy who she fed to sleep previously!

As my title says, I would pay 10x the amount for this program knowing how well it worked! Listening to the crying whilst in the room with bub was hard, but I know my presence was reassurance for her and it is the only reason I went with the program!!

Thanks so much Karen for this program, it’s working beautifully for us and I know it’s setting us up for long term success! I will recommend to anyone who will listen 😂

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