Stranger Anxiety

When Your Baby is Afraid

By C.J. Johnson

Between 3 to 6 months of age, infants develop an awareness of strangers and may experience anxiety in their presence. They also realize for the first time that they are separate from their mothers and can feel separation anxiety. For the parents and people surrounding them, the distress and tears of the baby can be disconcerting.

Dr. Kathy Ostler, a pediatrician in Park City, Utah, explains the phenomenon. "It happens because babies at that age cognitively understand the idea that they are separate from the person taking care of them," she says. "By then they realize who their mother is. When she is not in the room with them and someone else is, they can become very upset."

From there, the development continues. "Then they start to realize when they see something and it leaves their visual field that it still exists. This is known as object permanence," Dr. Ostler says. According to Dr. Ostler, the important milestones of separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and object permanence happen on a continuum. These crucial cognitive advancements are very normal and help a child develop healthy responses to unusual situations.

Dr. John Dorsey, a pediatrician in Beaumont, Mich., often sees stranger anxiety in his young patients. "At varying stages infants become more skilled at recognizing strangers. Because of that, I have had to examine a lot of crying babies who want to get back to their mothers," Dr. Dorsey says. "I complete the checkup as quickly as I can because there is not a lot I can do to soothe them."

But Dr. Dorsey says many babies don't develop anxiety until 6 months of age. Better still, some babies never seem anxious. "Larger families will have kids who can handle new faces better. Sometimes a 9-month-old I am examining will look to their mother, but let me continue handling them," Dr. Dorsey says. "Some infants are even delighted to meet strangers."

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