Last week school started again. Not for my 3 year old but for my husband and myself. I am gone all day several days a week, and she is often sleeping by the time I get home. she is at a new sitters, who she loves while she is there, but once I return she can't hold it together any longer. By day 4 of this she was a sensory mess. Everything was a meltdown, and she wouldn't talk to me or leave the house. Where the week before she was functioning as normally as she does, this week she stopped.

She is clingy, fearful, cries all the time. Is having accidents, and it even asking to nurse again, and cries when I tell her I have no milk. ( nor have I for a long long time, but she saw a baby nursing and got jealous.)

I am at a loss of what to do to reassure her, or let her know it is okay. Routines here change every 16 weeks or so, and there is little I can do to change it short of dropping out of school completely.

She starts back to her preschool in about 2 weeks and her routine will change all over again.

Also my sister lived with us this summer, and now she is back at school herself, and she cries for her "B" to come back.

What do I try? I am at a loss, this is the first semster I have gone to without the direct support of therapist, or aunt's around to help ease the transition.

Sit her down and explain that the world changes and that she needs to help deal with these changes. Talk to her like an adult and explain reality in a lot of detail. Do not drop out of school.

Does she have a stuffed animal that she loves that she can keep as a sensory confort as she goes throughout her day?

She may need a child's chew toy. That may help with the oral sensitivity that she may be trying to refer to by saying she wants to nurse.

Even a child with no sensory problems will have meltdowns when their routine changes. It is part of the adjustment phase.