Advice and opinions gratefully received

[VJG123]

Hello,
I would really appreciate people's views and advice on the problem I am having settling my little boy into nursery. He's 9 months and has attended 3 settling in sessions so far and just seems to be getting more stressed every time he goes. He screams nonstop when I am not in the room with him; he screamed and cried for nearly 2 hours on friday and only stopped for a few minutes when they allowed me into the room. I ended up taking him home early against their advice. He's normally an easy going child who rarely cries at home but is showing signs of separation anxiety. As a result of these nursery sessions he has now stopped sleeping through and is currently waking every 1-3 hours crying over night and won't settle without breastfeeding.

The nursery staff try to reassure me by telling me this is normal and that another little boy has been crying for the past 4 days continuously but he stopped on day 5 -apparently this is supposed to reassure me?!
The babies are supposed to have key workers but my DS hasn't been assigned one yet and the staff seem to change too often; I only recognised 1 member of staff last time. The staff don't seem particularly warm or affectionate and on friday the 4 staff seemed to just sit on the floor in the baby room leaving them to play independently rather than interacting with them. The nursery gets excellent Ofsted reports and I have had recommendations from other mums in the area whose babies had no problems settling in.

My questions for anyone who would be kind enough to post are:
Is it normal (or appropriate) to leave a 9 month old baby to cry for 4 days straight to enable settling in
Am I just being an over-protective mother?
How can I facilitate his settling in period?
Is it normal for nursery staff to not interact much with the babies? I had presumed they would be more caring and affectionate towards the babies and encourage a bond to develop between the child and staff when they are settling in but maybe I am wrong in my assumptions.

I now have the stress of having to consider a nanny or possibly changing nurseries but I am supposed to be returning to work in a month so I am running out of time.
Thank you!

[Hoviscat]

I feel for you! My 2yo took a very long time to settle and it is heartbreaking

Re the staff I would say you should trust your instincts. I don't think it is 'normal' or appropriate to leave a baby to cry for days on end to settle.

The thing that gave me the greatest confidence with my son's nursery was that they called me back to come and collect him when he wasn't happy in the first few days. In the end we spent 3 weeks gradually extending his days at nursery. He was older than your DS so I guess that might change how you deal with it, but ultimately you need to have confidence that they are putting his needs first.