15 mo away from beloved father for 2-3 weeks?

[sky_and_lavender]

My dd loves her father. They share a beautiful relationship and delight in one another every day. He spends time with her most mornings, most lunchtimes and most bedtimes. On weekends, they are almost inseparable. (During the week, I'm the primary caregiver.) When he gets ready to leave, she tries to cling to him and sometimes cries for a few seconds. He's been away on work-related trips for up to a week, but not since she was maybe 8 months old. (She's 14mo now.)

When she's around 15mo, we are planning a work-related trip that will involve all of us going somewhere, my husband going away for 2-3 weeks, and then all of us reuniting. I'm really worried about the long separation! We will be with my husband's parents and extended during that time, and his mom is great with kids and the situation is pretty kid friendly in general.

But what effects might this have on our daughter and her sense of security and attachment? She is generally a happy, easy going kid. Does anyone else have experience with this? Thanks for any input!

[globe-trotter]

My husband just had a work trip without that lasted 2 weeks last month. My 14 month son developed a little stranger anxiety while he was gone (still fine for me), and it went away as soon as dad came back. That was my experience.

[confustication]

My husband is working away right now, and has been since early September. The kids were, and still are, very attached to him. We stay in touch with Skype so the kids can actually see him, and they are always excited for dad to call.


They are both a little more clingy with me than they had been previously, but really, they are just fine.

[globe-trotter]

Skype was HUGE for us also!

[EzzysMom]

We had some longer term repercussions of sleep disturbance and such. Skype was good, as was taking video of daddy reading her her favorite stories. It was a hard adjustment when he got back, it showed up in some strange ways.

[Ruthie's momma]

DH has had to travel for extended periods of time, as well. During his absence, DD seems to regress (for lack of a better word) a bit regarding whatever her most recently acquired skill. For example, the last time DH was gone for 3 weeks came a couple of months after DD had potty learned. So, she had a few accidents during his absence. I never comment on whatever her regression may be and it literally disappears upon DH's return.

While DH is away, DD and I talk a lot about Daddy, draw pictures of him, look at photos of him and talk to him on the phone daily. Plus, DH will take pictures of himself and other interesting things and email them to us. DH's last extended trip was to the midwest during the winter. So, he was able to take a cute picture of several cows covered in snow. Months later, DD still mentions the photo of the funny looking snow covered cows that Daddy sent her.... Plus, we have found that cosleeping is a wonderful way for DD and DH to reconnect after his return.

[Fly Girl]

My DH travels to Europe for 3 weeks every 6 months. It's a hard 3 weeks for me especially now having 2 DD's. DD1 really misses him and definitely becomes more clingy with me. But we talk to DH on skype every day and that really helps all of us. We <3 skype!! But all in all, it's no big deal and they do just fine.

[gagin37]

my dh is in the military, and we've had to deal with a few separations, a 6 week long training course back in May/June being the most recent and the only one ds remembers. Ds is very attached to his 'dah' and it wasn't until week 3 that things really got ugly in terms of him acting out and being aggressive. Some things that helped: keeping busy doing fun stuff, having a routine, looking at pictures of daddy, talking to him on the phone in the evening (admittedly, this took some getting used to for ds). When ds would ask about daddy, I'd tell him 'we said byebye dah! dah's on his trip, but he'll be back'. When he came home, ds was clingy to him, got upset when he left for work the first day or two back, but after about a week, everything was back to normal.

[thaihotmama]

DS and I spent 2.5 weeks away at 15 months. We stayed at 5 different homes and spent time with many different people. So, it was somewhat different than your situation. However, our fallout was similar to others. Clingy to me, extreme separation anxiety. TERRIBLE sleep, but DS and DH sleep without me at home b/c DS tosses and wants to nurse all night when I am there... so no surprise there.

The other thing that happened was DS refused to talk to DH on the phone after a few days. This was upsetting probably to all of us. We didn't have internet or Skype while traveling. When reunited, everyone was happy. Sleep routine took a few days to return to normal once back home.

Good luck!

[sky_and_lavender]

Thank you, mamas! Your stories are really reassuring and helpful. We will plan to make liberal use of Skype while separated!