So LO is 20 months and started daycare 1 month ago. It has been ROUGH on her. She isn't sleeping there, still, and comes home incredibly exhausted and clingy every night. Add to that her general missing me (I think) and I literally can't set her down ALL NIGHT LONG unless (sometimes) if I sit on the floor with her next to her toys. If I try to set her down for so much as 10 seconds while making dinner she starts an epic tantrum and flails around-- just to give you an idea of her mental state on weeknights.

Ever since a few days after she started daycare, she has freaked out about going into her high chair. I'm guessing some combination of her not having to be in one there (they do little tables) and wanting to be on my lap. At first we could sort of distract her somewhat and mostly keep her in her chair but it is getting worse. We switched her to a booster seat in a high backed chair, hoping it would make it better, and she flung herself backwards in a tantrum so hard that she tipped the chair over backwards. That was fun.

On one hand I really don't want to give into this because I don't want to turn into one of those parents who chases their kid around the house with food trying to get them to eat. Dinner is eaten at the table, period.

On the other hand, she seems so emotionally fragile and close to the edge at night that it feels impossible to get her in the chair. If we do physically get her in the chair she hurts herself (like flinging herself backwards or just smacking her head back against her seat or the table). On weekends when she is well rested this is far less of an issue (she still fights it somewhat but with a lot of distraction we get her to eat there).

What she wants is to sit on my lap and eat, or sometimes for me to stand and hold her while she eats. If I let her, she eats fine.

Any tips? Things I should try? Is this a battle I should even fight? I can't tell anymore