One of the hardest things a parent can do is leave their baby in the hands of another. Even when that other is a family member. Passing off your baby for any reason can be difficult, and when that time frame has to be extended (like for work), it can be even harder. Part of that comes from the fact that it is quite common to hear of parents telling awful stories of their babies screaming for them as they left. The return at the end to find out their baby screamed for hours until finally stopping. Caregivers will reassure them that it will pass, but for many, we worry about what is happening to the trust between our children and ourselves. Some children will adapt quite readily with little to no problems, but some struggle and often we get a sense of this (as parents) well before we’re about to leave our children for extended periods. This can cause a lot of stress for us and for our children.
What can we do? Here I’m going to provide four steps that parents can take to help babies transition into someone else’s care for any extended period. [These suggestions may not work for all, especially if a baby is experiencing strong separation anxiety and at that point, each family has to decide what is best for them while considering their needs and the needs of their baby.] These steps assume that either you have a caregiver in home or a considerate daycare which will allow you to spend the better part of possibly up to a few weeks helping your child to transition. Not all daycares will allow this (sadly). If you have a child that struggles with separation, you’ll want to consider this when looking for a daycare when possible.
Step #1: Shared Exposure
One of the most important steps to making your child comfortable is ensuring there is shared exposure between the caregiver, yourself, and your infant. As this person becomes a stable presence in your child’s life, s/he is more likely to feel comfortable with them when you aren’t around. Of course, the time it can take for this to happen varies by child, so the sooner you can start with that, the better. Feedings are one of the ways in which you can help this transition, especially if the caregiver will be feeding your child. If you are nursing but will be expressing, while you are there you can see how your child takes to the other caregiver actually doing a feed (by cup or bottle), even if you need to start with you holding your child and the caregiver doing the feeding (or vice versa). Other things that help: having the caregiver there while you change your child and eventually having them do the change while you’re present, having the caregiver hold your baby while you’re there for as long as your child will allow, and letting the caregiver try to soothe your infant for a minute before returning your child to you while you’re there offering vocal support.
Step #2: Short Leaves Within Earshot
The next step is to try to transition away for short periods where you remain in earshot of your baby while explaining to your child that you are just going to the other room and you’ll be right back. You want to gradually build this time up, but remain responsive to your child’s cries for you. Start with as little as five minutes (and working in shorter intervals if needed) and try to leave the caregiver (who your child is hopefully comfortable with by now) and your baby together while you leave the room. If at any point your child cries for you, return and comfort your child and wait a while (at least half an hour) before attempting to separate again. You can increase the intervals in times that feel comfortable for you and your child, but I would recommend going up no more than 5 minutes at any given day.
Additionally, you’ll want to build up the time it takes for you to come back if your child gets upset. At first you should return immediately. Your child needs to build up the knowledge that you will return and you are there for him/her. However, as you’re extending your time away, you can start to wait one minute to see if the new caregiver can offer comfort during this time away. You don’t, however, want to leave more than a few minutes before returning as the negative experience with the caregiver can make the process of bonding between them much harder. One recommendation is to chart the times and keep track of how long you can take away in the house. Note that you may see some ups and downs in this as your child adapts – don’t fret. Just because your child was fine for 10 minutes one day and then 5 the next doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress, it’s a bump in the road, that’s all.
Once you can go 30 minutes without your child calling for you inside, you should start to take leaves (or have your child and caregiver takes leaves if it’s a nanny/family member at home situation) outside. This means you may not be able to return immediately if your child is upset. Explain this to him/her. It doesn’t matter how young, if you get in the habit of explaining these things early, it will help serve you later on, and if your child is old enough to understand even partially, you’re helping. Some children will do better being in a different environment with a new caregiver while some will prefer the same environment (i.e., home). You’ll have to see how your child does and make arrangements that fit with his/her needs in that regard if that is a possibility.
Once again you want to build up with this, but starting at 30 minutes (where you left off in the inside case) and going up. This allows the caregiver time to work towards calming your child if s/he becomes slightly upset. I would strongly recommend that you have a phone on your or way to reach you. If your child becomes hysterical, it’s best to head to him/her straightaway – let the new caregiver put you on the phone with baby to explain you’re coming right away. If this happens, don’t go out again that day, save it for the next day, but remain with the caregiver for an extended period after, letting your child calm down and become reassured in the caregiver’s presence. Again, you may have periods of up and down, but the best thing you can do for your child’s sense of security and anxiety is respond when they need you. You’ll want to build this up to around half the time you’ll be gone for work before moving on to Step 4.
Step #4: Long Leaves But Ability to Return Quickly
Once you can go half the day with few problems, you can try to double that for the full day. However, the caveat here is that you return quickly if something goes wrong. Make sure you aren’t an hour away, but rather 10 minutes away (or so) so that the caregiver can reach you should your child become upset. The key at this stage is to make sure you can be responsively quickly to your child during these long absences. Eventually you won’t be able to regularly do this so you need to build up that sense of security in your child at this stage. Additionally, your child will learn that the caregiver is willing and able to get mom or dad when absolutely necessary which can help build trust between the two of them. But at the end of this stage (which may not take long or may take a week or so), your child should feel secure and confident with their new caregiver and secure and confident that you as a parent are still there for them and can be there when they absolutely need you.
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The main point during this transition is to follow your child’s lead with respect to offering comfort and to avoid stepping them too far out of their comfort zone. They will already be forced to take a step away from what is most comforting for them, which is normal (after all, that’s what developing any skill involves), but going too far out of that zone too quickly can be traumatic. Allowing the child to take the steps needed towards being comfortable in a different environment can go a long way towards making the caregiving situation optimal for everyone.
I will reiterate here that I realize this isn’t possible all the time. Or even necessary. Some children simply adapt much faster than others and will take a few days to get used to someone new. Great! This is for those children that aren’t there. However, the problem of it being possible is the larger issue. Daycares often don’t want parents hanging out and many have the erroneous belief that children will settle quickly are fine, but we know that’s not actually the case with many children showing increased stress responses in daycare environments for extended periods, even after they have stopped crying[1][2]. Notably children with secure attachments don’t show these stress responses when a parent is present during the transition periods, but does show them once the parent has to leave (in these studies it was 3 days of transition). This is why the longer transition period can help. If you can, search for a daycare that can provide this or a nanny who can offer this type of transition if needed.
The other problem is that many families simply don’t have the time to employ these four steps as they do take an extended period of time. This is predominantly an issue in the US where leaves can be as short as 6 weeks (or shorter). There’s just no time to bond and then transition. In some ways, children this young will adapt to other caregivers very quickly and the impetus thus becomes finding a great caregiver. The vast majority of daycares in the US are not good, sadly, and will not provide the type of one-on-one attention young infants need.
Regardless of your situation, the most important thing is to find a caregiver you trust and who treats your child with love and respect. That will most likely mean having to call you during the early stages, but that is part of what transition is and helping your child to know you are there when needed. There are excellent caregivers out there, they just may take a bit of looking! Good luck!
First off, I generally enjoy your articles, I don’t always agree with your interpretation of the research but I appreciate your point of view. However, I really think you’re way off on this article. I understand that you get to stay home with your daughter and I think that is awesome. I work and I have transitioned two children into daycare. I am fortunate enough to also be Canadian and didn’t have to do so until my children were 13 and 14 months respectively but I still feel like your advice is well-intentioned but misguided.
Step 1: I agree with this point generally. I feel it is important, with both my children I spent a whole week with them at daycare, extending the period of time we were there. I felt it was important to show my children that I had a positive relationship with their caregivers and that I trusted them. While I was there my children wouldn’t let them feed them or change them or put them to sleep but I used that opportunity to show the caregivers what my children preferred. I also stressed to the caregivers that I was against any sort of crying but since I had dropped by unexpectedly several times leading to my son’s first day they already knew that and I knew that they never left children unattended to cry. I also used this time to show my kids how fun daycare was. I was on the ground with them, playing with them and the toys and the caregivers. I used that week to really build a positive relationship between myself and the caregivers and to nurture my children’s relationship with them and show them that the caregivers could be trusted.
Step 2: I wholeheartedly disagree with this advice. The first time I left my son alone, it was right before they were going outside, I said something like “Wow! You’re going outside! So fun! Mommy is going to run out for a little while I will be back before you have lunch.” Then I kissed him, told him his caregiver would take good care of him and left. I feel strongly that if you are able to spend time demonstrating a positive relationship with the caregivers and showing that they are to be trusted then you need to trust them to comfort your child when/if they cry. I was gone for less than 30 minutes and was back before lunch, showing my son that I was also trustworthy. I did watch for a minute and he did cry and they comforted him and then distracted him by getting him ready to go outside and he was fine. If you run back as soon as they start crying then you are showing them that they can’t depend on the caregiver to comfort them. This obviously assumes that you were honest with your child and you do trust the caregiver to not let them cry without comfort. I understand that the caregivers comfort and parental comfort are nowhere near equal but, if you have to go back to work, then you need to find a way to make it work.
I do agree with steps 3 and 4. I understand that you are trying to provide advice to parents who have to go back to work but this article had no real research backing and no actual experience on your part going into it. I have done it, my children really do love where they are and I do trust their caregivers so we are lucky in that sense. I just feel like this advice also isn’t practical. If you were to do step 2 than it could take weeks. I had to pay 75$ a day until my kids were 18 months. I couldn’t afford to do that for longer than 2 weeks without being paid myself. Sorry the comment was so long.
You are totally entitled to disagree (though I am, as an aside, amused that you agree with 3 of 4 parts but feel the article is way-off 😉 ). I offer suggestions based on what we know of child responsiveness and my own experience having spent years working with younger children as a caregiver (au-pair, nanny, etc.). Step 2 was key for some kids (though again, not all, as I said some will have a different experience) in that over-anxious children needed those moments before mom was gone with no return. But as I said, you start showing them you are there and build up the time you wait to return for the caregiver to offer comfort. You have to remember that 30 minutes of crying where the child is with someone they don’t know or trust is a long time. I’m glad you didn’t have to go through that! As for comfort – we know comfort from a trusted source provides protection against stress responses, but that has to be given by someone they trust. This is why I suggest coming in earlier at the beginning.
And yes, this could take a long time (and again it might not depending on the child – some people can jump to step 3 and be fine). Sadly there is no real research on children’s responses to entering daycare and the transition period except the stress response work which I cited and which clearly indicates the benefit of parental presence in transitioning and when that is too short, even with caring daycare workers, many children show prolonged stress responses.
The biggest problem, as you rightly point out (as I did too) is that it’s not always practical. Which is very unfortunate because we should have a society that allows children to transition to new care and value the importance of that for parents and children. But like anything, people can take the parts they think might work and ditch those that aren’t feasible for their family – it’s what I would suggest with anything 🙂
(And never apologize for a long comment – they are welcome!)
Edit: I should add that I do realize I was lucky to have also been the caregiver on a one-to-one (or two) basis allowing this overlap time and real connection to be built between me and the kids I cared for. In all cases I became incredibly close and it was always easiest when we had this transition period for them to adjust to me. And this was especially key in the older (9-18 month) children than the younger (3 months was the lowest I went).
Haha! Fair point, yes I suppose saying the article was way off was a bit if an exaggeration;)I guess I know that it’s just so hard to leave your kids for the first time and trying to meet an unrealisic formula might make it harder. I guess I would put steps 1 and 2 together, just showing your child that the daycare is a safe place for them before attempting to leave, if time allows.
I think I was also a bit defensive reading it because I get the strong sense you feel home daycare or nanny is better than centre. I always thought that too. I just never met the right person. When I toured the daycare my kids are at now the supervisor made it clear they practised positive discipline, would not support CIO and that I was allowed to drop off and pick up my kids at anytime throughout the day, no notice needed. When I asked if I could maybe drop in unannounced before I paid my deposit, she actually encouraged it. Just letting you know there are actually good centres out there, they’re not all bad:)
I hear you on all points 🙂 The daycare situation is tricky – there are great daycares, but they are sadly few and far between. If you can find one – wonderful! – but often what people can find is not optimal. This is particularly important for younger infants too who need lots of one-on-one time and as parents in the US need to leave their children much earlier on average than elsewhere, it becomes a real issue. What you’re describing is a wonderful centre! Sadly, though, it falls in the minority 🙁 And so *on average*, home based cares and especially nanny (or nanny sharing) *tend* to be better than centres. But on an individual level, it all changes.
And yes, some will combine 1 and 2, some 2 and 3, some 3 and 4. With anything, I always hope people don’t take anything as a formula!!! There is no one formula for anything! I suppose I should have called them something other than “steps” – hmmm… perhaps I’ll change that if I can come up with a good alternative.
Yeah, the mat leave situation in the US is bad. I have friends there who went back a 2 and 3 months respectively and they saw no issue, I think the problem is that when you go back that early, your baby hasn’t really started interacting with giggles and big smiles and all the fun stuff. They thought it was awful that I ‘had to wait a year’ to go back. By the time the year was up it was hard because I had this amazing, interactive, engaging child. That my only explanation to their ease of going back at 2 months. Not sure that makes sense.
You will be happy to know that the policies at my daycare (no CIO, positive discipline, no schedules for infants, encouraging parental involvement) are actually all based on research. When I signed my son up I was concerned about CIO and parental involvement, one year was too young to think about discipline in my opinion, but I didn’t know anything about the research. They base all their policies on the latest child development research and explain that to each family that registers their child. Honestly that led me here in a round about way, I was curious about all this research. So your word is getting out through the most unexpected of places.
First off, it’s awful in the US. Sadly children there do acclimatize easier but it’s still not best for them because they often acclimatize to subpar care 🙁 So there’s a lot to be desired, but from a parent perspective I can see that they find it easier than at 1 year where kids are in the midst of separation anxiety!
That’s GREAT to hear about your daycare centre! I wish more would follow their lead 🙂
It’s not the parents fault in the us. I’m here in the us and I cried every single day when I had to leave my baby at 5 months old and go back. There was no maternity pay, so we couldn’t afford for me to actually take time off any more than that. It kills me still to leave her and she’s two. It hurts to see other people say it’s “awful “even if it’s just a silly blog where you are trying to get help adjusting your child to a new nanny.
It’s not the parents’ fault at all, but it’s still a reality that much of the daycare in the USA is subpar compared to other areas of the world. It’s why I also wrote this piece: https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/who-is-raising-the-kids/
If you’re interested in petitioning for better maternity leave, you can also check out the letter on our download page:
https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/downloads/
[…] the infant while the mother is there. Evolutionary Parenting explains that the child will be comforted by the presence of mom, but learn to be okay with someone […]
I like your tip to have parents explain to their children certain things, even if the child doesn’t yet understand. Developing habits like this will help evolve the relationship overtime to have healthy communication. With how busy parents are and the need for infant care, it’s important that the child feels understood and that the parents maintain communication.
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