Hey gals. Well DH left Tuesday Morning for a month long training. This is the longest one yet. January we will be married for 5 years and he is gone about the whole month again. Febuary DH is going to take two week of leave and he deploys May 2008....I should be use to all these work ups for the ship,but I'm just having a real hard time with these work-ups. My Son,who is 4 yrs old has seperation issues ,cuz he's daddy's boy and he keeps telling me "daddy isn't coming back" or that he's sad and wants his daddy. How am I support to make it easier for my son to understand about my Dh's job?? My Son has nightmares about his daddy not coming home...it breaks my heart that my son is stressing out about this and shouldn't be....he breaks out in hives when he gets upset about his daddy.
Any one have any ideas?? My Ped says that it's normal and just give my son benadryl for the Hives. I personally don't think theres anything normal about a young child breaking out in hives and stressed. Theres has to be a better way to help my son.Thank you for listening ladies.

Your DH must be with mine right now. My youngest is 6 1/2 and is AWEFUL when my DH is gone. He has teribble mood swings. One minute he is mad, the next he is crying. I always just try to sit down and talk straight about it with him. We always make a calander (even if he is only gone a few weeks) that way it is laid out for him ( in squares! :giggle ) how long till he will be home. I don't really know what to do for a 4 year old. When mine was 4 he didn't seem to have a problem with it at all. I do have a friend that her son also gets hives from the stress of daddy being gone. I personally get hives from stress also. It is normal. Just not something that you want to happen. Try to keep it as positive and up beat as possible. I also never let them see me cry about him being gone.

all of our dh's must be on the same ship.

i have a 5 yr old son and he is also having a hard time. He started having accidents in school and now he has to take a change of clothes with him. I dont know what to do. And of course the doc. says its normal and will get better with time. I wish I had some advice for you, but I'm in the same boat as you. I will send some :pray,:goodvibes, and :sun your way though.

well hives actually is pretty normal way to react to stress. maybe not that young though but we all react differently. my 6 year old had a really hard time coming back to sea duty. and i just told him that we have been so luck yfor so long to have daddy home for so long, since we came off shore duty. so now its our turn to have daddy go away so someone elses daddy can come home. it wouldn't be fair if someone elses daddy always has to be gone and ours gets to be home all the time? so we have to share daddy with the navy. but he will be back and he will be back quickly for a one month work up i would probably do a paper chain and spray and animal. my DH brought his digital camera with him and his jumpdrive so he can e mail us pictures so when the boys are having a hard time he will e mail a picture of him holding up a sign he made for them. i have it on my background it says I LOVE YOU and I MISS YOU. and he will send one on all the holidays and periodcally just to say he loves them. that has helped a lot for them and me actually maybe make a video of him reading him a bedtime story for every night he is gone or like 7 days worth so every night he gets something different not the same old story. i always explain my DH's job to the boys. daddy has to go because he has to make sure all the wires are right in the engines so the engines will work so the boat can move through the water, i honestly have NO idea if that is right or not he is a GSE so that is as close to it as i am going to get LOL. work ups to me are a lot harder than deployments its the in and outs that suck a deployment you really can get into a routine and they are gone and just gone they don't come home and its easier to cope with then a work up, because one month is long enough to get into a routine without him then he comes home and crashes the routine then is gone again for 2 weeks. i would rather them be gone and just gone then in and out its so much harder on the kids. the other thing we do is since we have two boys they take turns being man of the house. meaning they do daddys chores. not a whole heck of a lot cause daddy doesn't do many chores LOL. my 6 year old can't take out the kitchen trash but he can the little bedroom and bathroom ones so once a week he goes and collects them all and the older one takes out the kitchen one. just a few ideas if he really is still struggling go to fleet and family services they have deployment specialist that have a ton of ideas and counseling for the little ones that can help. hope it gets a little easier for you guys.

I feel for you. It's hard with kids that age. They are to old not to not remember old enough to know what is going on. My kids are older 11 and 8 and have been doing this their entire lives. it's so hard to help them adjust. when they were that age I did a few things. We had a calendar and every night before bed we marked a day off. I had a jar filled with M&M's. However many days he was gone was how many I put in the jar. They ate one every night so they got to see the jar get empty. They can't comprehend(sp) time so seeing a calandar or jar helps young kids to understand. I put pictures all over the place. I still do this when he goes. They couldn't write or email at 4 so they drew pictures and I sent them. I even let them decorate the envelope. I let them help me with packages(still do). I always ask them what they want to send to Daddy and let them do it even if it is insane. One time DD wanted to send a cegar box from the dollar store :screwy You know to this day he still has that damn box.:giggle They didn't have them at the time but I think the daddy dolls are a great thing. They also had pillow cases with his picture on it. Other than that when they would ask why he was gone I would always tell them that daddy has an important job in the military and has to help protect us and other people. When they were toddlers it was daddy is on the big boat in the water.:giggle So sorry this is so long. I hope it makes sense. i am going on my 5th cup of coffee.:hairout

I understand it's hard because he understands that Daddy's leaving, but doesn't understand time well enough to know that he'll eventually be back.

Have you ordered a copy of the Talk Listen Connect DVD from military onesource? I think it will help all three kiddos to understand a little better.

Navy life is hard on the littles. It took DD a long time to understand that just because Daddy went to work, it didn't mean he deployed. For the longest time I'd say Dad's at work, he'll be home later, and she's like no he won't, he's out in the ocean on the boat. She's 3 and has been through 2 deployments and countless workups already.

Once he does deploy, try getting them all involved in putting care packages together.. Each one can write daddy a letter or draw a picture. (This can work on workups too, if you have a scanner and can email him the pics..)DD loved going shopping with me for stuff for daddy's packages.

Good luck! I know you guys will come through just fine!

Good luck. I hope you can find a way for him to understand. (Not having kids, I don't have much advice there.)

However, I will say that I break out in hives with stress, and have since I've been a child. It sucks, and it's annoying at times, but it's not the strangest thing in the world. It's just how some of us react to stress - bodily manifestation and whatnot. So, I hope you can cure him of that, but you might not be able to.

Thank you ladies for the support and ideas....i'm going to try the calendar and jar. I also found some books for children with military moms and dad's. Hopefully this will work. Thank you again ladies.