Yi Zhao and her husband Yufei Luo have barely slept since their 18-month-old daughter Chloe Luo became stranded in China because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The parents, from Ngunnawal, are asking the federal government to help reunite them with their daughter, who is staying indoors with her great aunt at an apartment in Hubei province.
They sent Chloe to stay with her grandmother in Suizhou, Hubei province so she could avoid the bushfire smoke smothering Canberra.
About nine days after she arrived in Suizhou on January 11 with her grandmother, news of coronavirus infections began spreading. Since then, Chloe has stayed inside.
Australian government officials told Mr Yufei and Ms Yi their daughter, an Australian citizen, couldn't join either of the two flights returning people from Hubei province to Australia.
The officials said she was too young to fly alone and the family members who could accompany her were not Australian citizens or permanent residents.
The couple speak to Chloe each day using FaceTime, and while she is healthy and seems happy, the toddler has stopped asking to go out.
"She just stopped asking because maybe she knows she cannot go outside any more. So I feel sad," Ms Yi said.
"Every time she picks up the phone, she says 'mama, papa', because she said we live in the phone. So that's a very hard part for me."
The situation grew harder for the family when Chloe's grandmother got a cold - not coronavirus - and was told to stay in hospital for 10 days, stopping her from looking after the toddler.
Chloe is in the care of her great aunt, Li Jiang, in a small apartment. The building's residents give a list of food they need to someone tasked with bringing it back to the ground floor for pick-up.
Caring for a toddler without help is hard for Chloe's great aunt and she's been on the phone to the couple asking for advice, having not looked after her before.
Ms Li is running low on formula and nappies for Chloe, items in short supply in Suizhou.
"For us, we haven't gone to sleep for the last couple of weeks, and I'm losing weight because I'm feeling really bad, because I just feel like we cannot do anything," Ms Yi said.
The couple asked to join Australian government officials on the journey to Hubei province so they could pick up Chloe and accompany her back, but were refused and told it was too dangerous.
"I know the risk, but it's my daughter. If it's a risk, I still would like to take it. I want to stay with my daughter," Ms Yi said.
"This is [her] first time away. Our plan was we just wanted to send her back to have a good happy Chinese New Year, and a better environment, and then come back to start her new life to go to childcare. But everything just happened."
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Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government was not planning further assisted departure flights.
"There are complexities in cases where a child is unaccompanied for their entire journey to Australia and potentially a period of quarantine," she said.
"Children in this situation should remain with their family and friends while China's travel restrictions for Hubei are in place and follow the advice of local authorities."
Ms Yi said hearing the government would not bring any more Australians back on another flight made her feel angry.
"My daughter's a citizen and my husband and me have stayed here more than 10 years, we work hard," she said.
"My daughter is in danger in China. You have a responsibility to get her back."
