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What is separation anxiety?

One afternoon you are playing with your baby on the floor – your baby’s about eight months old, has started to shuffle around on her bottom – and you need to nip to the loo. A pretty normal occurrence, and one that your baby hasn’t reacted to particularly strongly before. 

But today, the second you go out of the room, your baby starts crying and screaming, and will only be consoled by your holding and comforting her.  

Why is there such distress?

One of the first things to say about separation anxiety is that it’s very common (and completely normal). Another thing to mention is that for the vast majority of babies it will go away in time.

From around six months, babies begin to become more mobile, and more actively engaged with what’s around them. They have also by this time learned to recognise faces. Whereas previously your baby probably didn’t mind being held or comforted by people other than yourself or your partner, they can now differentiate between people.

But while they may be getting good at face recognition, babies aren’t too hot yet when it comes to the concept of time. Your baby’s protests are perfectly natural reactions for someone who doesn’t know when, or if, you will return to them.

Rather than being a sign that something is wrong with your baby, or your baby’s development, separation anxiety is in fact (noisy!) proof of just how strong the bonds between your baby and you are.

Does separation anxiety have a purpose?

By around six to nine months, babies will have learnt that things continue to exist when they can’t see them. This is quite a sophisticated bit of mental gymnastics – being able to hold in mind an idea of someone or something, rather than having to have the person or thing in sight, or within touching distance.

But with this insight comes the realisation for a baby that they have no idea when, or even if, their absent caregiver will return. Hence the screaming, which is usually an effective way of getting mummy or daddy back so that they can feel safe and content once again.It has been suggested by attachment/evolutionary theorists that this behaviour serves to keep a parent close by and thus keeps the baby safe. After all, babies are still totally dependent on their caregivers, and the ones who make a fuss to get their parents back to them are going to be less vulnerable – because their screaming and crying generally has the desired effect. Hence its success as a strategy from an evolutionary point of view.

What’s going on in a baby’s brain

However successful it might be from an evolutionary perspective, from an adult’s point of view, separation anxiety is something of an overreaction.Babies going through separation anxiety don’t see it this way. This is because when a baby is experiencing separation anxiety, the more ‘primitive’ part of their brain will be the one which is ‘switched on’ and levels of stress hormones will be flooding their body – from where they are sitting, they are in a very dangerous situation.

As a baby gets older however, so-called ‘higher’ parts of their brain will develop that are responsible for what are called ‘executive functions’, such as thinking and planning. As the ‘wiring’ in these higher parts of the brain becomes more established, a baby can use them to override the ‘lower’ parts of their brain that are involved in more basic, instinctive reactions to perceived dangers. Essentially a baby learns – through the responsiveness of those close to them – to recognise when the danger is real, and when they are over-reacting. However, this is not something babies learn overnight.

Ways to respond to separation anxiety

‘What a small child needs,’ writes Sue Gerhardt, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of Why Love Matters, ‘is an adult who is emotionally available and tuned in enough to help regulate his states.’ Having a baby who gets panicky and very upset when you are not there can be very upsetting for you. It can try your patience and can be overwhelming. You might also find it embarrassing sometimes if it happens in public. It can also be difficult for some parents to acknowledge how much their baby or young child needs them to reassure them that the world hasn’t ended when they go out of the room.

But moving a baby who is trying to cling to you into a playpen for example, or trying to sneak away from them, will only add to the feelings of panic they’re having. What it says to your baby is that you’re not available emotionally to them, that you aren’t willing to help them make sense of what is happening and, more significantly, that the way they’re reacting is inadmissible or wrong. Instead, what a baby needs is reassurance – over and over again – that your absence doesn’t mean that you have gone away for ever.

Page lasted updated 2008.