concept of time with a 2yr old?

[beansbeans!]

Hi all!

So Im here with another quesiton;

Dh is going away for work tomorrow and he'll be away for about a week before we see him again.
What im wondering is how can I explain DH's absence from the home to DD1??
Shes 2 and at the moment she gets that Daddy will be home after she goes to bed, and that he'll be in bed when she comes to join us during the night.
So at the moment I'm starting to fret about wednesday night when she comes into our room looking for him (every night when she jumps into bed, she says 'look mummy, daddy's here' while she pats him)... And then in the morning when his 'special' duties are due to be done. (he gets up with her and gets her her milo, according to her Im not allowed to do any of his jobs!)

At the moment Im considering getting some stickers for our calendar, and getting DH to put a sticker a the start with her, and then one when we will see him again, and then I'll get her to put a sticker up as each day passes.....
Is that too far above her understanding? Is there a better way?


cheers

Justine

[~Kim~]

Justine, you might be surprised hun. DH left for a four month stint when DD was 18ish months. She is a daddy's girl and I was terrified of how she'd go.
They have NO concept of time/days/dates. When she'd ask, I'd tell her he was at work and would be back soon. SOmetimes he has to work away. They fact thet mine is a shift worker and already works differing shifts all the time helped a little I guess. She'd talk to him on the phone - so he was still 'around' in her mind and it was all good.
I also used to tell her (and got DH to in the time before her left) that Daddy said I (me) needed to do his special jobs until he came back. She was cool with that.

Good luck.

[sneakysparkle]

I had to go away for 2 nights when DD#1 was 2.5 and what I did was draw up a calendar with the days that I would be away (including the day before and after) with a list of all the things she would do. For example on the day I left it was something like:
wake up
have breakfast
get dressed
help mummy pack a handbag
go to the airport
say goodbye to mummy & eva
go to the park with daddy
etc

That way time was sort of segmented as she would know it? Hope that made sense!

[beansbeans!]

thanks girls;

I might do that for DD1 in the morning sneakysparkle, well something similar.

I dunno about having no concept of time though kim; If DH has a morning shift. In the morningbefore he goes to work he tells her that he will be home after her daysleep and before playschool. The first thing she says when she wakes is where is daddy? then she will be happy and play but once playschool comes on and he isnt home yet, she is at the front door at the sound of every car that sounds like his.
And she has some understanding of when swimming lessons are (i dont know how, but she remembers when her lessons are more than I do!) and a few other events in her world. Thats why Im more worried than normal about it!

[Emma1979]

if it were me i wouldn't make a big deal of it.... when my dd goes to my parents house to be looked after, we just tell her she is going for a visit... sometimes she asks if it will be a little visit or a big visit, and we will say either big or little, but thats about as far as we go... once we left her for a weekend away and my mum just said we were at work, and would be back soon.... they don't need to be bombarded with huge amounts of detail, and the less big a deal of it you make the more accepting they will be.... sometimes work goes for a long time, sometimes for a little time... simple.

[krysalyss]

We usually say that we will be gone for XXX sleeps (meaning night sleeps). I think he understands that where he might not understand days etc. DS is 2 and I have been away for several days at a time because of work.