Hellobee Boards

@justjules: When you drop her at the YMCA or church nursery, how long are you gone? Do you go back to comfort her? Is it possible it just isn't long enough for her to settle in and realize "hey, these people aren't so bad"?

My middle daughter (now 3.5 yrs) did this to some extent, from maybe around 9 months or so to...maybe 18 months? Maybe a little older. It took her quite awhile to calm down when we left her, and when we walked back in the room to pick her up (backup care daycare at DH's work), she'd start screaming all over again, as if she had to prove a point. When she stopped doing it, it was like a light switch, and now she's typically my easiest kid to leave, if that is any comfort.

My 15 month old, while she's mostly ok being left, also won't allow anyone else to hold her if she sees, hears or (only kind of joking here) smells me. I think that's pretty developmentally normal, so you may have two different issues at play here. Hang in there! It's tough but they do come around eventually

My youngest was like this for her first 10 months. She was not in day care, but if anyone but me stayed with her, they couldn't really feed her, and she screamed so much. She also took up sleeping more during the day to hang out with me at night. That was fun.

Amazingly, she took to day care like a fish to water, and doesn't cry about it nearly as much as DS did. It's like some light bulb went off and she figured out I'll be back. She's an early talker, so I got a lot of comments like "mommy why did you go? No no no, bad mommy!" and "I cried today, I wanted to hug mommy" but at least when she was able to tell me how she felt I could tell her "poor baby, let me hug you now!" and she'd feel better.