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AIBU?

Really anxious about my son starting nursery

7 replies

AnxietyForever · 27/12/2019 21:14

My hours go up in January meaning my son will have to attend nursery for 1 day a week, he's going to be 2 in Feb. My mum looks after him at the moment for either 1 or 2 days a week.
However he's not a very confident boy, he doesn't like to be without me, DH or my mum. I have a older child who was not like this. I'm worried he won't settle.
Not AIBU but any words of wisdom to help me settle my thoughts?

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Trafalger · 27/12/2019 21:17

He will struggle to settle at 1 day a week. A lot of childcare settings dont like to take them for only 1 day due to this. Make it a minimum of 2 preferably 3 and he will be ok. It will take a while to settle but he really will soon settle.

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WaterSheep · 27/12/2019 21:20

Settling into a nursery with just one day a week will be very difficult. I'm surprised the nursery allow just the one day. Learning routines and making friends will be much harder with such a huge gap between days

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moodolph · 27/12/2019 21:25

Yes agree with others. I tried one day, couldn't get passed a half day. She's now in two mornings. Still wouldn't cope with one full day.

In addition, the illness has been horrendous. She goes, gets sick, misses the second session, repeat. I need to look at more days or taking her out. Really hard to manage in my experience for minimal hours.

Benefits great, when she's there. Confidence, eating, very settled for the times she's there.

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Thoughtlessinengland · 27/12/2019 21:30

Super surprised the nursery agreed to one day a week. He will find it near impossible to settle and you’ll invariably conclude “nursery just isn’t working out for him”. He will never have the chance to settle because his little brain won’t work out the narrative from one Monday to next Monday to again next Monday to create a gradually buildings up picture of settlement. You’d need more days to create anything close to getting settled. How will he bond with his key person, develop attachments with the key person and other children if he doesn’t see them 6 days a week?!

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partysong · 27/12/2019 21:37

Childminder?

My son hated nursery but settled relatively quickly at a childminder (and did one day a week for the first year)

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AnxietyForever · 27/12/2019 22:15

Some good points, I might look into 2 days a week. I really want him to settle and I think 2 days sounds fair a help him.

I'm hoping he really likes it and it's just be worrying

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LionelRitchieStoleMyNotebook · 27/12/2019 23:21

DS is one and does one day a week, he absolutely loves it. I cannot tell you how many socks he loses there though. It does exhaust him so I'm glad it's only one day. We did what the nursery called a run up, to settle him; one hour on Monday, two hours Tuesday, both with me there for some of the time, half day Wednesday , 5 hours Thursday, full day Friday. From the week after he did his one full day a week (9:30 ish until five), we did ask this before I went back to work so I was in hand in case I needed to collect him but I didn't.

He went to the Christmas party there on his non nursery day and when I drop him off there he holds his arms out for his key worker. He does nap there but not as well as at home (FOMO), so I'm glad it's only one day and I'm off work the day after. He's an only and likely to stay that way so I think it's good for him to interact regularly with other children. People said to me one day a week would be hard for him to settle but it really didn't take long, he's only been there since October and has a couple of little friends he always plays with and the nursery have said he gets on well with everyone. He eats loads there and the workers all fuss over him which he loves. Sometimes he doesn't notice me arrive which is nice because I see how genuinely engaged he is and he brought home a Christmas card he'd made which was just lovely (even if he did have more paint on his clothes and hair than on the paper) .

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