This article offers practical tips for parents who will be returning their small children to daycare and who worry about separation anxiety.

Staying home with your child for a period of months or years was probably a rewarding experience. However, there comes a time when you, the stay-at-home parent, will have to return to work, whether it is for financial reasons or because your child is starting preschool or kindergarten. Are you feeling anxious about your impending separation from your child? You might be feeling afraid that your child will also become anxious when you leave her at daycare. This article focuses on tips that parents can use to prepare for the separation that occurs when the child returns to daycare.

The bond between a parent and a child is very strong. It can deepen into a special primary caregiver attachment when one parent stays home and cares for the child. Now is the time to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for when you will return to work. The more that you can feel prepared for this event, the stronger you will be, especially if your child expresses anxiety when you leave him with a caregiver. Second, you need to look for positive ways to deal with your child’s anxiety when it occurs without displaying your own feelings.

There are strategies that you can try in the heat of the moment (when you are about to leave your child and your child starts to cry). Another scenario is that your child clings to your leg and refuses to go with the caregiver. Once again, be strong. Establish a pattern for how you will leave the child with the caregiver, just like you would implement a bedtime routine.

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