Anyone else feel really sad when child left childminders?

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My son has done a mix of nursery and childminder for over 2 years and he’s 3 now so for various reasons have decided to shift him to just nursery.

Will make life much easier for me only dropping off at one setting etc.

but DS has been so lucky to have a lovely CM and I will genuinely miss her too. She really made my life easier leaving him as a baby when I went back to work in a new job and I’d had postpartum depression.

any positive stories about keeping in touch with CM etc, and children making the move out of CM to nursery as pre schoolers?

I see the CMer that took dc1 to school and dc2 to Nursery quite often, around and about the area. We are also friends on Facebook now.

dc1 is nearly 30.

It is a move to the next stage in life. When you have been happy somewhere, there will be a tinge of sadness, but it is balanced with excitement about the next phase.

That is a really positive view, thank you, I’m just bad at goodbyes!

looking forward to him being able to get the most out of nursery and he has a lovely key worker there. He’s so ready for it and his CM has really helped prepare him for that.

Would you not consider keeping the childminder instead?

As a small business owner she may suffer more for lose of income than the nursery would.

Also hate this notion that a nursery is somehow better than a child minder.

I understand your point, but the spaces fill up for nursery from sept onwards so if I left him with CM now I’d miss the chance to get his extra days for this year.

And it’s another winter of him being dragged on school runs. I’ve got more flexibility on drop off and pick up times with nursery too and they make and provide all his meals on site.

hes also the oldest there now with some other younger children leaving for pre school next year so I want him to benefit from being with kids his own age.

so on balance I’ve done what I think is best for him and my family but he’s had a really good 2+ years there.

at one point I was working FT and dropping him off at 3 different places so this will feel like a bit of a break for me too.