I know you think you're helping your kid transition gracefully from one caretaker to the next, but look at her. Does this look graceful to you?
She's losing her mind. And the more you try to appease her, the worse it gets.
You're holding her as she wails. "Shhh, it's okay," you tell her. "Melissa will take good care of you."
Her response to that? "WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"
Now she's becoming desperate. She's not even two years old yet and she has an extremely limited vocabulary. She points to the fruit bowl. "Apple!" she yells between her tears.
Nice one, kiddo. Manipulation achieved. Now your loved one is saying, "You want some apple, honey?"
No, Mom. She does not want any apple. She literally just had dinner. What she wants is for you to wash the apple, get a cutting board and knife out, and slice the apple for her. Because that will delay your departure. She'll do anything to slow you down. If you hand that sliced apple to her, all she's going to do is drop it on the floor.
Just Give Me the Kid
You know, I actually do this for a living. You've paid me numerous times for exactly this. Do you remember the videos I've sent you five minutes after you left, of your daughter playing and laughing with me?
She and I are actually very good friends. Does she love me as much as she loves you? Of course not. You're her family — you're irreplaceable. She wants nothing more than for you to pay all your attention to her exclusively until she's about 12 years old.
But she does love me. We have a lot of fun. She knows she can trust me to take great care of her and give her anything she needs. Also, I listen to her and speak kid language. I'm the only one who knows, for instance, that when she points to the Bluetooth speakers and says, "Why why why why," she's actually saying "Hawaii" and asking to be rocked to sleep, because "White Sandy Beach of Hawaii" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole is the song I play for her while I prepare her to sleep.
The Longer You Do This, the Worse It Gets
Every minute that you extend your departure actually equals roughly another half minute it will take me to calm her down. The crying is building, it's becoming more intense.
I have very early memories of the sensation of having a crying jag from before I was four years old. I remember how eventually, it started to hurt my head — my earliest headaches. And that would become an even greater reason to cry. I remember how the more I cried, the more difficult it became for me to stop. I remember how I'd hiccup for at least an hour after I finally calmed down.
But if you just gave her over to me and left, do you know what would happen?
- I'd walk her over to the window to watch you go. We'd wave bye-bye.
- I'd tell her not to worry, you will come back to her and in the meantime, we will have lots of fun. By this time, most kids will have stopped crying because you're no longer there to hear it. Their only goal was to get you to change your mind about leaving, and now that goal is out of reach because you're already gone.
- I'll start to be silly, playing with her toys, and she'll join in. For the more sensitive kids who didn't stop crying as soon as you were out of sight, they'll change their minds right about now.
Seriously, It Will Be Okay
I've babysat literally hundreds of children. The child I had the most difficulty getting to stop worrying about their mom leaving, ultimately, I set up a makeshift bed for her in front of the door so that she could see you the second you returned. Of course, she fell right asleep, and I carried her to her bed.
I've got endless creative solutions. Your kid is special, and she is unique. But I've got this, and I'm empathetic about her needs and desires. We will figure it out. I'll send you a video in a couple minutes to prove it.
I promise, she will not be crying for long. Let's end this suffering for all of us — you, me, and the little one.
Hand her over, leave your home, and go have a fun night out.