Separation anxiety

Clingy behaviour
At times your child will be clingy it helps to remember that you and you're partner are the most important people in your child's life. A fear of strangers and separation from you is completely natural it is known as separation anxiety.

Separation anxiety
This can be a very difficult time but is merely a developmental stage when your toddler gets upset when you leave them, even if it's only to leave the room. It often starts at around nine months and in some children it can go on well into the second year, or even longer.

Learning to handle separation is difficult for parents and children, but it does get gradually easier, there are many ways to deal with it, you could try the following:

Keep the separations short at first, when you need to leave your toddler, especially for the first few times, try to keep separations short and allow enough time for your child to get to know his carer first.

Reassure your child that you will be back- even quite short partings, such as going to nursery for the morning, may be difficult. Always take time to talk to your child in advance about what's happening and reassure them you'll be coming back.

Never just sneak away - even though goodbyes can be upsetting, it's less worrying for your child than if you just disappear. Be positive and upbeat and try not to string out your goodbye. Taking ages to leave or acting worried only passes on your anxiety to your child.

Try to be patient - if your child clings to you even when you're simply going about your everyday business at home or at the shops, try to stay calm and carry on. It may not be easy to make lunch or talk to someone while your child's clamped on to you, but he'll feel more secure soon.

Above all try to be patient your toddler will eventually feel ready to be more independent.

Although it may be hard to believe when you are in the middle of it, many parents miss this behaviour once it's over. Try to trust the people that you leave your children with, calling every half an hour will just unsettle you and who ever has your child will feel that you don't trust them. If you don't trust them go with your instinct and don't leave your child with them you will not be able to relax.

Helping your child to become independent

It is really important to encourage your child to do more for themselves, even though in most cases it is easier to do it yourself.

Ways to help:

Accept some behaviour - defiance and disobedience, or refusing to comply with your requests, are essential parts of your toddler's growth into an individual try to accept some of their behaviour and respect that in some case they can decide for themselves.

Try to avoid barking orders and ultimatums - lead and teach rather than getting into power struggles, a child is much more likely to react in the wrong way if you speak to them in a forceful or aggressive way.

Use distraction - you may find it impossible to get your toddler to follow orders without upset. It's much smarter to use diversion tactics or allow them to make choices and offer them some control over their decisions.

It is just part of life with a toddler and you have to accept the fact that a lot of the time, your toddler will just do the opposite of what you want. They may also seem to resent almost any form of control by you. They will wants to get dressed by himself and feed himself etc. take heart all of this is totally normal.

Crying - why they do it

Toddlers cry a lot and believe it or not it is not always just to get on your nerves. Toddlers cry for many different reasons, apart from the obvious, hunger, tiredness, in pain the same as a baby. As they becomes more self aware they begin to cry for other reasons they include:

Fear of strange places or people, load noises etc

Anger and frustration, if they cannot do what they want to do or tell you what they want to say.

Attention, if a toddler feels they are being ignored they will cry to get you to pay attention.

Anxiety, especially about separation from you or your partner or being left with a new person.

Rebellion, your child may just wish to exert their independence.

Toddlers have no concept of embracement and will cry no matter where you are they don't care if you are at a wedding or in the supermarket it is all the same to them. Most mums suggest a quick cuddle to calm them down and then distracting them is the best solution. Remember its a hard time for them they have few ways of expressing their feelings if they won't calm down it is sometimes best to take them out of the environment but this is not always practical, they will calm eventually so try to stay patient.

Whingeing

One of the most difficult things to deal with when you have a toddler can be incessant whinging “mum I want….“ or constantly saying no or refusing to do as they are told. Occasionally, whingeing reflects a more generalised miserable mood, which may be caused by hunger, fatigue or illness. If this is not the case do all you can to give positive attention to non-whiny behaviour and practise calmly refusing until your toddler asks properly in a reasonable tone.

If they can't talk yet, you may need to distract them with another activity when the whining starts. It can be so tempting to give in to demands for a bit of peace, but this is a mistake as it will only make the behaviour worse in the future. You can not give in to demands but it is best to explain why not just refuse. But try not to get into a debate remember that you are the boss and whether you child likes it or not for what ever reason what you say goes.

How to help your child’s development

In order to help your child’s development it is important to:

Show them love, it sound so obvious but some people have trouble doing this. Hug, kiss, smile, encourage, listen to, and play with your child whenever you can, if you have household chores to do, ask them to help, to show your child you enjoy spending time with them.

Care for your child's basic needs, food, comfort and sleep. For your child to be able to devote their energy to learning and growing, they need to be well fed. They also need to be healthy, well rested, and comfortable. Make sure you feed a balanced diet that you try to follow a good sleep pattern, during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep your child's brain cells are making important connections. These synapses, as they're called, are the pathways that enable all learning, movement, and thought. They are the key to your child understanding all that they are seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. It’s really important that you change their nappies very regularly, wet or dirty nappies are uncomfortable and distracting.

To keep your child healthy, take them in for regular checkups, keep their injections up to date, if you're worried about your toddler's sleeping or eating patterns, talk to your doctor.

Talk to your child, it is so important, research shows that children whose parents spoke to them extensively as young babies have significantly higher IQs and richer vocabularies than kids who didn't receive much verbal stimulation. If you find it hard to come up with things to say just describe what you are doing but try to avoid baby talk. Remember babies learn by listening so be careful how you say things as they can pick up on your mood from a very early age.

Try to build your toddlers self esteem, toddlers are still just realising they're separate people, and are slowly build up a sense of self. Gradually, they learn what they look like and work out the things they can do. Some of the more difficult types of behaviour your toddler might display, which you may find hard to cope with, happen as a result of them beginning to realise they are a separate person with a mind of their own. They quickly learn that they don't actually have to stay where you've put them or do exactly as you have told them. It is important that you reassure your child that you love them and you are proud of them give praise as much as possible. If more likely when you have to challenge their behaviour explain why so they can understand and learn from their mistake. Try to set boundaries a soon as you feel they need them and be consistent and follow through on warnings, toddlers are very quick to learn if they are being given hollow threats. Remember to praise good behaviour or if they do something for themselves, positive attention works really well.

Feeding themselves

Around 15 to 18 months or when you decide that it is time to teach your child to feed themselves either because you feel its time or your child is insisting that they hold the spoon. Be prepared for mealtimes to be extreemly messy, it is often a good ides to place their chair on a plastic mat, don’t forget the bib or a painting apron (it completely covers the clothes and saves you having to change them or scrape food off them). This stages doesn’t last long thankfully and very quickly your toddler improves. By the time your child reaches three to four, there will be less to clear up and you maybe able to redecorate without the paint being ruined

Dressing and undressing themselves

It may not seem it but getting in and out of your clothes for yourself is a great step towards independence. Usually undressing will come first, you'll notice socks and shoes get pulled off followed by the usual 'game' as your toddler resists having them put back on. Then their clothes will be pulled off at any given opportunity, children love to be stark naked especially when you want them to be dressed, many parents have suffered the embarrassment of your child running through the house just as friends arrive, its like they have a sixth sense about when the most embarrassing time will be.

Contrary to how it may seem your child isn't doing it to tax your patience, dressing and undressing provides a host of opportunities for them to practice their hand, eye coordination. Try to help your child out by creating as many chances for success as possible.

If your toddler especially enjoys dressing themselves, provide them with a box of dress-up clothes that are easy to manage they will spend hours changing cloths. When it comes to them dressing themselves for the day, your toddler will do best with pants that have elastic waists, pull-on tops, and Velcro-fastening shoes to minimize morning struggles, this will cut down on the tears and tantrum if they take too long or have to be helped.

Its good to introduce any new challenges such as buttons or zips one at a time. By the age of four, they will be able to dress and undress themselves with little help.