Is this as common as I’ve heard? Worrying!

[Yukl]

DD starting nursery when she’s 1. I will be back at work. Lots of people have said to expect sleep to completely go wrong once she starts? I’m worrying as my job is very full on and not sure how I will manage.

It didn’t affect their sleep. But dd2 was an appalling sleeper anyway.
They were both pretty much permanently ill for the first 6 months. Thankfully our nursery were sensible and allowed them in with mild illness. Otherwise I think we’d have used up all our annual leave on sick days.
It doesn’t matter when you start them. Even if you wait until preschool or reception they will still get ill

It may affect sleep, they may catch a lot of bugs. My best advice is to make sure the baby's dad shares the night wakings and the days off work for sickness. Don't try and take it all on yourself.

I couldn't get mine to sleep through the night for several years anyway, so no memory at all, through the sleep-deprived haze that was the young years, whether nursery made it worse. I wouldn't have thought so.

Yeah, it was v v bad indeed, sleep and constant illness, sorry!

I don’t remember my sons sleep being affected, if anything he slept better as he’s been so busy all day.

Only in that they get very tired and sometimes fell asleep for the night too early and then did early wake ups.

If you can afford it, start her a month early. Or go back on a phased return.

Sleep was ok at night because they weren’t always able to nap well at nursery. Too many distractions and noise.

just to share a different experience -
my ds was in nursery for 3 years, 1-4. He only had a handful of days off. Combination of being hardy and also the nursery being pragmatic - not playing fast and loose but recognising when a loose stool was teething vs d&v for example and not sending kids home at the first sniffle. Oh, they also dosed calpol after a call to the parent as the first response to the child looking unwell. Judging by comments on here, not every nursery is the same and I was lucky.

re: the sleep, I wouldn’t say nursery made a difference to him but going back to work left me exhausted and less able to cope with him waking. I went through a few years of feeling constantly tired then started co-sleeping. Not for everyone I know but being with me was comforting and I think helped him regulate his temperature. I wish I’d have done it sooner.

Pfft - my DC started at one and it didn't impact sleep at all. We did however come in contact with just about every childhood illness in a continuous stream of snot and vom.

No change to sleep pattern for my daughter- she started at 13 months. Son started childminder at 10 months and again no change to sleep xx

In all honesty you just learn to survive. You wonder how you’ll cope but before you know it, you’re doing it.
Only advice I can give is, don’t go in thinking “I’m going to get 3 hours sleep a night, I’ll have to call in sick, I’ll lose my job etc.” just take each day at a time. There will be good days and bad ones, definitely very snotty ones! But there are millions of parents doing this every day, there’s nothing to be scared of. You won’t know until you try!

Had no effect on sleep for us. And the “always getting germs” didn’t happen for us either. It’s not always the worse case scenario!