"Everyone goes through this...."

I kind of hate that phrase. Especially now that Baby A is going through her transition phase starting daycare. And I keep hearing it applied to separation anxiety. Yes, yes, I know, it is part of her developing and awareness of object permanence and realizing something (or someone) is gone. And babies learn the concept of leaving before they learn the concept of returning. So I might never be coming back when I say goodbye. So no wonder she cries.

But I’m suspicious of how often people say “every baby goes through that.” It is such a generalization. Not every baby goes through it in the same way. My daughter screams like her toe got cut off when you take away your wallet she has just been playing with. When she is tired or hungry. She doesn’t just sniffle. She tells it….forcefully.

And she works herself up something fierce, again, mostly when she is tired and hungry.

So when I look for advice on getting her used to a daycare during this sensitive time, I’m tired of just hearing about staying with her for a bit and then saying a quick goodbye. Duh. Really. That is, like, the zero-th order thing we’ve done. I want to hear about more subtle issues and tricks. Like making sure she isn’t too close to needing a nap when I leave. Like maybe inviting the teacher to our apartment for an hour, to help Baby A see us include her in our “pack.”

I get that often there isn’t enough time for parents who need to go back to work to do a long transition period, but Baby A’s nights mirror her days. And let me tell you, you’d much rather she had a day without much screaming. Because when night comes,…

And I have the time to make this a slow transition. To try out a few different things each time we go, to watch her and judge if I’m better leaving before hand washing and the snack, or after the song.

I don’t doubt that almost all children go through a stage of separation anxiety. And that almost all of them (including my daughter) will cry when I leave her at daycare. I just wish there was a more rich discussion on-line or in books (yes, I know I promised to stop reading those) about the variety of the separation anxiety experience. Instead, it feels like “they all go through it, so drop them off, short goodbye, and leave fast and distract yourself quickly so you don’t feel so guilty.”

Sorry. That doesn’t work for me. I want to stay, just around the corner, to hear how long and how strong she cries. Sure it makes it harder on me, but I’m the adult. I can manage my anxiety about it. I want to be able to judge how to proceed with the rest of the day once I pick her up, whether to try a different phase to leave her, and hear with my own ears, how this departure went. I’m glad when the teacher can tell me she is doing relatively well, compared to other kids. It is an important piece of information. But I need to know, on my own scale, how she did, too.

At this point, she cried loud and strong and then proceeded to explosively poo herself two days in a row when I left. Today, she got a teeny nap before we left for daycare, and the teacher and I decided in the moment that I should leave while they were going for handwashing, a time when Baby A gets held in the teacher’s arms and is involved in a change of tasks and a novel environment. And she still cried, but not so strongly. It took 1 minute instead of 5 for her to calm down.

As I sit here in the daycare office, I can once again hear her cry, but it is coming from the bathroom. She isn’t so fond of changing tables right now, so I know these are tears that might still be there even if I was there. And I feel better. We’re both going to do okay here.