Separation

My daughter has a lot of separation anxiety. Basically if she is not with me, and she is awake, she screams her head off until I come back for her. This includes with people she knows well such as her grandparents. She is now 13 months and it's only in the last couple of months that she has started to tolerate being left with her daddy for a little while (by tolerate I mean that she only cries for half an hour or so rather than screaming non-stop the whole time!). I don't want to force her to separate from me before she is developmentally ready (I don't have any deadline such as return to work date etc) but OTOH I desperately want to have the occasional time away from her.Does anyone know of any techniques that would help her to feel secure with other people?

Maggie is not the best at being left with others, even DH, but she is getting better as I have been doing it more often. I find distraction works really well eg. I dropped her off for a few hours at occasional care, when she arrived there was music going and kids dancing, there was also a heap of different toys to play with, she barely noticed that I left. So is there something that whoever is looking after her can do that is really exciting for her? A special toy, dvd, cd etc?

I also find she goes well at another mum's house that I visit regularly, she is comfortable there and enjoys playing with her son, she actually seems to look forward to going there, so I don't think she minds that I'm not there at least for a while. When she does get upset the other mum just finds something to distract her, like playing outside. So do you have a similar friend that can look after her for you for awhile so you can have "you" time?

Yeah I found distraction worked best too. I never used to be able to walk out the door without my little man screaming his head off, it was terrible, made me feel so bad for leaving everytime. But if he was distracted watching tv or playing with someone and I snuck out the door he seemed to be ok. It got better over time too, the more he was left with others the better he got, and he's fine now when I leave him places.