Ok, I think my baby may be experiencing the first trauma of being raised by a nanny. I drop her off every morning before work and pick her up every day after work. Two days ago, I brought her home, lifted her out of the stroller, and suddenly she started screaming and crying like I have never heard her before. Immediately, I held her close, began burping her, talking to her, walking around the apartment, turned the lights low and put on soft music without putting her down, but she continued screaming for an hour, till her face was red, she was drenched in sweat and she was clearly exhausted. Eventually she calmed enough that my wife could give her a tit and she fell asleep.
The screaming wasn’t due to hunger or need for a diaper change and it was much more sudden and intense than those types of complaints. I began wondering if the nanny was doing something wrong. So the next day (yesterday), my wife picked her up, first going inside to see if she was happy at nanny’s house. According to my wife all seemed to be just fine, the baby was laughing and smiling. But on the way home suddenly she erupted into the same kind of screaming, crying fit. After trying unsuccessfully to console her, my wife handed the baby to me and I performed the same burping, rocking routine for well over an hour before she finally passed out.
It could be intestinal gas or some other physical pain, but I doubt it, because it was so sudden and intense. My wife called her mother and was directed to take an article of the baby’s clothing to the temple for a blessing, which she did last night, but I’m a little sceptical of that.
My guess is that it’s separation anxiety. I haven’t looked that up yet in our baby books, but I recall reading about that. If that’s what it is, I guess it’s because the baby is perfectly happy and content with the nanny and perfectly happy and content with us. But it’s the back and forth that is suddenly distressing her. Suddenly (at 3.5 months old) she is old enough to recognize her surroundings and to understand that she is being taken away from her nanny (who sort of resembles her grandma who she enjoys), but not old enough to understand that it’s only temporary. So she finds the separation traumatic. That’s just my armchair analyst opinion. Has anyone else had a similar experience?