To not want to send DD to nursery

[AnotherSmother]

My maternity leave is rapidly coming to an end and we're due to start settling in sessions for DD at nursery soon but I really don't want to send her.

All I want to do is march into work and quit my job. The thought of leaving her all day in nursery makes me cry every time.

Please tell me this is normal and will get better!

Thank you everyone for sharing. It's made me feel loads better.

We agreed that the fees will be coming out of my wage but that's because DH is taking on more of my outgoings so we will be sharing the cost but in a different way.

We'll give it a go and I hope she enjoys it. I've got a feeling it's going to be more upsetting for me than it is for her!

DM worked in and then managed a nursery for 15 years, I've recently chosen DSs nursery and had a little wobble. DM said in nearly twenty years she can count on her fingers the number of children who didn't settle in, and they either had other needs and later diagnoses or something significant at home, domestic or child abuse, recent bereavement of a parent etc. We're lucky that work are allowing us both to consolidate hours and grandparents are covering two days, so it's only one day at nursery. I'm confident he'll love it. We don't intend on having any more children so it's important for him to interact and socialise from a young age and having started KIT days, I'm looking forward to getting back to my career and exercising my brain!

OP just wanted to say good luck. I found it so hard at first esp with my first. Not going back to work unfortunately wasn’t an option, but I couldn’t bare the thought of leaving him.
But his confidence has grown so much at nursery. It’s an amazing setting and I couldn’t say enough good things about his nursery and the wonderful intelligent and caring staff. They truely have nurtured him and helped him develop into a very self assured, socially adjusted little person. My second settled much easier. Both of them are just as attached to mummy and daddy as they were before, so please don’t think it will alter attachment. I have a friend who is a consultant in child psychiatry and I even asked her advice on this, and she told me that a child care setting would have to be consistently really terrible to damage a child’s attachment.
My advice would be, choose a setting you are really comfortable with, with staff you trust, so you don’t worry about a thing when they are there.
And if the first few weeks are tough (they probably will be), don’t let it put you off. I literally wept after drop off for the first week, but very quickly things improved. You can do this OP!

I haven’t gone back to work yet but I’ve been doing KIt days and I’ve also been putting my dd into nursery to allow her to get used to the new environment. She loves it and has developed so much in such a short space of time.

She loves her nursery nurses, their menu is fantastic and she’s only got to share her key worker with one person.

Honestly OP you’ll be fine

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. It really helps. I keep worrying I'm not going to be able to handle the first few weeks of her being upset (I'm assuming she will be!) she may make this easier than I expect. I've been told to just give her a kiss and a cuddle then leave. If I stay I know I'll make her worse if she's crying. It's our first settling in session on Thursday.