I hope someone else has experience with this and a way to help my DD!
Madeleine is 4.5 years old and has started to freak out if I leave her for almost any reason.
We do have a new baby but she's 4 months old now and there was nothing like this happening until a month ago.
Examples...
My husband leaves for work at 10 pm and I need to lock the door after he leaves. At first she started to run out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs to watch me go down. Now she stays in there but starts hysterically crying and for at least an hour before he leaves will ask me "who is going to lock the door?"
She has older brothers who sometimes do it if they are downstairs.
If I tell her that I am, she repeatedly asks whether I am going anywhere else.
This past week has been the worst. We went to a store where I had to go around to the back to pick up a large item instead of being able to carry it out of the store after paying for it.
It was dark, windy and cold and DD2 was also in the car. The car was a few feet away from the stair I had to go up to ring the buzzer and I told her she could see me and I was not getting her out of the car to do this. She said ok but as the person came out the door with the box, I heard her start to cry loudly, then it turned to screaming. We came down the stairway to the trunk and I opened the door and asked her to stop. She did but was still whimpering when I got in the car.
Another day we were grocery shopping and I opened the door for her to climb in her car seat and took DD2 around the car to the other side to put her in the infant seat. She was crying by the time I got there because she couldn't see me.
This kind of thing happens all the time, over and over every day.
I'm so frustrated and sometimes I catch myself saying just stop! Then feel terrible and tell her I am sorry for being impatient with her. I have tried explaining to her that I am not going anywhere.
I ask her if I have ever left her and not come back and she answers no, so I ask her why she thinks this will happen..."I don't know"
She starts asking in the morning, Are you going anywhere today? I answer her over and over. She asks before she takes a nap, "are you going anywhere?" She will start to quietly cry and ask again a few times.
Sometimes I do because I try to schedule Dr. appts then. (My husband is home with her). She never had a problem with this before.
If she stays home with my husband or her older brothers while I go somewhere, she will seem to be fine till the point where I am leaving and then grab me and start screaming that she wants to come! My husband is now getting really upset and has no patience with this which makes the situations even more stressful.
She is still fine when I take her to school.
I just don't know what to do! Is this a normal stage that some kids this age go through or is it possibly related to the baby?
Any suggestions? I hate for her to be so upset and afraid!
Madeleine is 4.5 years old and has started to freak out if I leave her for almost any reason.
We do have a new baby but she's 4 months old now and there was nothing like this happening until a month ago.
Examples...
My husband leaves for work at 10 pm and I need to lock the door after he leaves. At first she started to run out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs to watch me go down. Now she stays in there but starts hysterically crying and for at least an hour before he leaves will ask me "who is going to lock the door?"
She has older brothers who sometimes do it if they are downstairs.
If I tell her that I am, she repeatedly asks whether I am going anywhere else.
This past week has been the worst. We went to a store where I had to go around to the back to pick up a large item instead of being able to carry it out of the store after paying for it.
It was dark, windy and cold and DD2 was also in the car. The car was a few feet away from the stair I had to go up to ring the buzzer and I told her she could see me and I was not getting her out of the car to do this. She said ok but as the person came out the door with the box, I heard her start to cry loudly, then it turned to screaming. We came down the stairway to the trunk and I opened the door and asked her to stop. She did but was still whimpering when I got in the car.
Another day we were grocery shopping and I opened the door for her to climb in her car seat and took DD2 around the car to the other side to put her in the infant seat. She was crying by the time I got there because she couldn't see me.
This kind of thing happens all the time, over and over every day.
I'm so frustrated and sometimes I catch myself saying just stop! Then feel terrible and tell her I am sorry for being impatient with her. I have tried explaining to her that I am not going anywhere.
I ask her if I have ever left her and not come back and she answers no, so I ask her why she thinks this will happen..."I don't know"
She starts asking in the morning, Are you going anywhere today? I answer her over and over. She asks before she takes a nap, "are you going anywhere?" She will start to quietly cry and ask again a few times.
Sometimes I do because I try to schedule Dr. appts then. (My husband is home with her). She never had a problem with this before.
If she stays home with my husband or her older brothers while I go somewhere, she will seem to be fine till the point where I am leaving and then grab me and start screaming that she wants to come! My husband is now getting really upset and has no patience with this which makes the situations even more stressful.
She is still fine when I take her to school.
I just don't know what to do! Is this a normal stage that some kids this age go through or is it possibly related to the baby?
Any suggestions? I hate for her to be so upset and afraid!
