How upset is ok for nursery before enough is enough?

[Babysharkdoodoodoooooo]

So AIBU to think its time to say nursery isn't working..? Please be gentle- posted here for more traffic. It may seem trivial but it's caused a huge dispute between DH & I so I need some opinions before I make things worse by continuing arguing my opinion (if I'm wrong!)

Backstory, 13 month old baby has been signed up for nursery as it was the best we looked around and seemed to have nice staff. He's been for several "trial days". The first 2 were for half an hour & he seemed ok. On coming back, he was sat on the lap of one of the nursery staff playing. The third time, when I arrived, he was asleep but gasping how he does when he has gone to sleep crying (I've only ever seen him do it post vaccines previously so must have been very upset prior to falling asleep), third time DH was called to get him early because he was so upset, 4th time DH again called to collect him because he'd been crying solidly for 2 hours.

He's a very sociable baby. Has been looked after by various family members & a nanny without problems.

DH feels he will be fine & should continue going to nursery & doesn't want to pay more for a nanny. As of next week we are both back at work 2 hours from nursery so if upset, we can't get to him as we have done previously. A nanny who provided emergency childcare on a few occasions & whom he has been happy with has just had an opening & offered to take him instead but obviously as a nanny, is considerably more than nursery. DH says it is unnecessary expenditure and he just needs more time to settle. I'm not sure when enough is enough. For reference, he will be at nursery 3 days a week for 12 hours a day although thus far 2 hours is the maximum that's gone by before one of us has been called.

Am I being unreasonable? Does he just need more time to settle in at nursery? The staff say when he's gone, he just lies on the floor crying but when he is with anyone else, he is a highly sociable, happy baby. Friends are telling me the nanny is the right thing to do. I don't want to fight with DH but I want to do the right thing by DS. It's caused a huge fight with DH over the last few days as he is insisting DS remain at nursery & I just hate seeing him so upset.

Wow 12 hours is a long time !
Is it possible to split the days ? DC at nursery for 2 or 3 hours and with nanny for the rest of the day.
that way if there is a issue / emergency at nursery the nanny can pick DC up early.

Sorry if this has already been recommended , I have not had time to read all the post

I would like to add that not particularly wanting my child to have another one on one in my home is something ive thought about, and i am nursery nurse have been a nanny. i agree that the people who think its so awful that the child is in a nursery should just bask in their gloatiness that they wouldn't

I am sure that whatever you choose to do OP will be best for you and your little family.
I have 2 thoughts:
1.Nothing is set in stone and if it isn't right for you now you can rethink in 6 months or a year

1. Personal experience , having someone extra for the children to love and who loves them coming into their home is a lovely thing if you are in that situation.

I believe it’s much less confusing for him to associate his other carer with a different physical environment and not get confused about why she is around sometimes but not other times.

That would be quite funny if it wasn't so sad.

Just for general information (as you're not interested) babies don't get confused by having close, attachment relationships with people who come into their home, ever. Babies simply don't have the capacity to think like that.

If you'd rather your baby didn't get the chance to develop really close bonds with those looking after them in your absence because you're worried about feeling jealous, at least be honest with yourself about that fact

He’s almost 2 Goldmandra. Not a baby.

And jealousy has absolutely no role to play in my opinion. Don’t be so patronising.

He’s almost 2 Goldmandra. Not a baby.

He's even less likely to be confused then

You do care about others' opinions then?

Well Goldmandra since you are obviously a qualified child psychologist perhaps I should take notice of your?

^^ Blimey. I'm with you, Goldmandra.

@Stretchoutandwait it’s very easy to dismiss studies, or even whole swathes of studies summarised in a paper, as you have just done. That paper was relevant and you either haven’t read it, or are being deliberately obtuse. This is my last response as I suspect the latter.

No-one sets out to prove that nursery is harmful for under threes, so I’d be surprised to see a study peer-reviewed or otherwise, that said as much. You have to read around and put two and two together.

Google is your friend - read anything you like on child development that covers childcare environments etc. and you will see that consensus is that while good nurseries can do a lot to make up for poor parenting, but the ideal for a child under three is one good and consistent caregiver. And that’s caregiver. Not mother. So could be father, mother, grandmother or whoever as long as consistent.

TL:DR nurseries are not “bad” per se. They are just not ideal. Google will throw up plenty of studies confirming just this.

I have read it. The studies in it are old and US based. I've also googled extensively and found nothing robust. I've also used far better search engines than Google. Believe me, I didn't send my DC to nursery without careful consideration.

There was a study that demonstrated a modest increase in aggression at 5 and I think 7 for children who attended nursery. However in subsequent follow up this difference disappeared.

There was also a large Norwegian study that demonstrated no impact of nursery attendance on behaviour.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23311645
This was published some 9 years after your "current" review article.

As a scientist nothing annoys me more than people making bold claims and not backing them up with proper data.

I reiterate my point. If there are so many studies, just post a link to one of them.

This is also interesting: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03004430902943959?src=recsys&journalCode=gecd20

Not wanting someone in your home all day is a perfectly valid reason for preferring nursery or a childminder to a nanny.

Nurseries and nannies (and childminders) come in all shapes and sizes. A good nursery will be infinitely preferable to a bad nanny.

However, it is wrong to assert that nurseries are, overall, beneficial versus at home care for children who are not deprived. Look at the studies of language development (I have referenced one good source above, but there are 100s) to understand the issue in depth.

There are also some very interesting data showing that children who attend nursery may have a slightly lower risk of developing leukaemia. This is easily googleable.

The biggest worry I had with nursery was the frequency of illness in the early months. But maybe it was good for the DC after all!

For children who are not deprived, I don't think that nursery is beneficial. However neither do I think it is harmful.

I do think that having a family income which enables us to have a nice home near good schools, to travel and to pay for extracurricular activities is beneficial to the DC.

The leukaemia risk is about exposure to infection, or rather lack thereof. The risks about exposure to infection in under 3s are pretty varied according to the disease.

Nursery can be harmful when it inhibits language development. This is not a given, but it is very common.

I just do not believe that it is common for nursery to inhibit language development. Sorry if I have missed it, but please post evidence of your claim.

The leukaemia study is extremely interesting and not just from a nursery perspective.

As I said earlier, Erika Hoff is a good source of information for early language development if you know nothing about it. There is masses of research into early language development and the predictive nature of vocabulary size at quite young ages (starting school, deep,dung in the country) as a basis for later academic development.

Depending

But what's that to do with nursery? If you cannot post a single study, I cannot take your claim seriously.

Did I know of some single pre-digested easy to read study for novices, I would happily post it! But I don’t know of one. I do have a huge library of my own and have read an awful lot of journal articles and attended plenty of conferences on language development and the inputs that affect it and what measures of environment and output teach us. Try Erika Hoff if you are a beginner.

Nursery does not inhibit language development. Quite the opposite in the case of my DT’s. We live in London but we only speak french and Flemish at home . Full time nursery ensured that DT’s were fluent in English. Although they were slower to speak than their nursery friends who spoke English at home, by the time they started school they had caught up.

Surely its common sense to say that different children will get different things out of being in different settings?? An introverted toddler may find it more secure being at home with a SAHP or a nanny, or a childminder with a small number of children. An extroverted child may love being in a large and stimulating nursery with lots of children and lots of activity. The key is surely to choose a setting where that particular child is actually happy?? Not "oh well, she used to scream and cry but she's stopped crying now and is resigned to going", but where they are HAPPY.
We wouldn't ask an adult to keep going back to a place causing high anxiety, so why should we expect a child to do this? Childcare is supposed to be enjoyable for the child and if the child isn't happy then change the setting ffs.