Q&A: My baby is experiencing separation anxiety. Is this normal?

Absolutely. While not all children experience separation anxiety, this common stage of development typically sets in sometime between 8 or 9 months and can reach its peak between 1 and 2 years. During this time, I like to explain that children reach a new level of awareness of what's going on in the world around them. In large part, this results from their increasing sense of object permanence, or the realization that objects come and go (rather than their previous out-of-sight, out-of-mind way of viewing the world). While this can make playing games like peek-a-boo quite a bit more entertaining and age-appropriate, this new level of awareness can unfortunately come with additional anxiety when separating from a parent or close caregiver. So long as you provide your baby with the consistent reassurance that you will come back and insure that she is in good hands when separated from you, she should grow out of this soon enough and no worse for wear.

Learn 10 simple solutions for separation anxiety.