Tips for pre-school/nursery settling

timovo · 2024-04-28T08:45:01+00:00

My little boy turned 3 in march and got a 30 hour place at our local school nursery. He is familiar with the school as we drop his older brother there everyday. He started just after the Easter holidays and was phased in during the first week, an hour, then 2 hours etc. This week just gone he was full days, it started fine but when I collected him on Wednesday they said he had been upset during the day. Then on Thursday and Friday drop of was awful, he cried and cried and 'eventually' settled (I didn't get any phone calls) The first thing he says when he wakes up is "I don't want to go to nursery". He has started shouting in his sleep "I want my mum, I want to go home" and is dreaming about not wanting to be there. It's waking him up What can I do? I work FT so I can't just take him out/reduce his hours. I feel awful leaving him

Original poster

timovo · 28/04/2024 12:32

Anyone?

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hockityponktas · 28/04/2024 12:55

A week isn’t really a long time to settle, I would give it quite a few more weeks before I worried about it. It’s really normal to be ok the first couple of days and realise that it’s an ongoing thing and not feel so enthusiastic about it!

A quick positive drop off, make sure a staff member knows he’s struggling and get them to take him off you. Long drawn out goodbyes and coming in to settle them rarely work. Encourage walking to the preschool door and walking in (not being carried by you) big cuddle and a kiss and cheerful “bye have a lovely time!”

focus on the positives when he says he doesn’t want to go. Remind him of all the fun things there are to do at pre-school. For every negative come back with a positive. Acknowledge his feelings, “I know it makes you feel a bit sad being away from Mummy, but you’re such a grown up boy now like (insert name) and I’ll collect you soon after lunch”

ask the preschool staff if there’s anything that seems to be triggering it, eg tired/overstimulated by the afternoon, boisterous play by others, not yet knowing the rules and boundaries etc, not yet making little playmates. you can then phrase these things positively to him and help to switch his thinking around on it.

do they have a photo app with updates? Look through and catch him doing something fun on there and focus on that.

Give him some skills to cope, eg if he misses you draw a little star/heart on his hand that he can touch. If he’s tired/overwhelmed is there a quiet area he can go to-tell him to ask his teachers if he can have some quiet time. if he’s scared of boisterous play remind him he can say “no, stop” and tell a teacher. If he doesn’t know the rules/boundaries and has been reminded and this has upset him, put a positive spin on it- “oh well now you know it’s not ok to play wrestling you’ll know not to do it tomorrow- what are you going to play instead?”

Original poster

timovo · 28/04/2024 14:49

hockityponktas · 28/04/2024 12:55

A week isn’t really a long time to settle, I would give it quite a few more weeks before I worried about it. It’s really normal to be ok the first couple of days and realise that it’s an ongoing thing and not feel so enthusiastic about it!

A quick positive drop off, make sure a staff member knows he’s struggling and get them to take him off you. Long drawn out goodbyes and coming in to settle them rarely work. Encourage walking to the preschool door and walking in (not being carried by you) big cuddle and a kiss and cheerful “bye have a lovely time!”

focus on the positives when he says he doesn’t want to go. Remind him of all the fun things there are to do at pre-school. For every negative come back with a positive. Acknowledge his feelings, “I know it makes you feel a bit sad being away from Mummy, but you’re such a grown up boy now like (insert name) and I’ll collect you soon after lunch”

ask the preschool staff if there’s anything that seems to be triggering it, eg tired/overstimulated by the afternoon, boisterous play by others, not yet knowing the rules and boundaries etc, not yet making little playmates. you can then phrase these things positively to him and help to switch his thinking around on it.

do they have a photo app with updates? Look through and catch him doing something fun on there and focus on that.

Give him some skills to cope, eg if he misses you draw a little star/heart on his hand that he can touch. If he’s tired/overwhelmed is there a quiet area he can go to-tell him to ask his teachers if he can have some quiet time. if he’s scared of boisterous play remind him he can say “no, stop” and tell a teacher. If he doesn’t know the rules/boundaries and has been reminded and this has upset him, put a positive spin on it- “oh well now you know it’s not ok to play wrestling you’ll know not to do it tomorrow- what are you going to play instead?”

I absolutely LOVE the drawing on the hand idea. I think I am going to see if he can take his little cuddly bunny in tomorrow too to see if that helps

I've also just ordered "the invisible string" book to see if that will ease his separation anxiety a bit as it's always been a bit of an issue @hockityponktas

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