Daycare is often the first time a toddler has a real separation to process, and the processing does not stay neatly inside the daycare day — it shows up at bedtime, with a babysitter, and following you from room to room at home.
A toddler asking to be held more, wanting the bathroom door open, or protesting a babysitter they used to be fine with is responding to a genuinely new amount of uncertainty in their week. It is a normal response to a real change, not a sign that starting daycare was the wrong call.
Wanting to be carried more than usual. Following you between rooms. A harder bedtime, with more calling out after lights are off. Resistance to handoffs that used to be easy — the other parent, a grandparent, a babysitter who was previously a non-event.
Holding a toddler who is asking to be held, or sitting with them a bit longer at bedtime for a stretch of weeks, does not teach dependence. Withholding comfort a toddler is actively asking for teaches something else entirely: that asking does not work, which tends to produce more insistent asking, not less.
Extra closeness at the times they ask for it, without turning it into a bigger conversation than it needs to be. Keeping the rest of the routine — meals, bedtime order, who does drop-off — as unchanged as possible, so daycare is the only new variable rather than one of several.
For most toddlers this settles over some weeks as the new routine stops being new. If it is instead getting worse after a couple of months, or spreading into new fears that have nothing to do with separation, that is worth raising with your pediatrician rather than waiting it out further.
No — comfort given in response to a real request does not create dependence. What can prolong clinginess is inconsistency: sometimes responding, sometimes pushing her away for asking.
No, it usually just means she has identified you as her secure base for this particular stretch. It can switch, and it is not a comment on the other relationship.
Increased clinginess after a transition is a response to stress, not a skill that has been lost. It tends to resolve with time and consistency, not with a program to reverse it.
Part of our guide to Starting daycare.