To be worried about my baby at nursery?

[TheBerry]

My 1yo has recently started nursery and goes all day three days a week.

He’s a very active, adventurous boy, and the first couple of times seemed very excited to be at nursery because of all the new toys and activities.

However, now he’s learned that I leave him there, he absolutely HOWLS and clings to me every time I drop him off. Apparently he always has a great day when I’ve gone, eats well, sleeps well (and he naps at home much better since he started too), but I’ve just noticed a change in his behaviour.

He seems more clingy generally and I think he’s scared we’re just going to leave him with random people. I’m worried about him! He’s been going for three weeks and seems to be getting more and more unsettled while he’s home.

I was an incredibly sensitive child, quite fragile really, and I have tonnes of very vivid memories from around 3+ and being left at playgroup and feeling absolutely terrified and bereft. I really struggled at school too and I don’t think these experiences did me any good or built character.

I’m worried he might be like me, and I’m damaging him!

Or is this normal??

Brilliant advice!

@JadedLondon
The majority of children start at 1 when Mothers return to work. Personally, having worked in nurseries I don’t think it’s damaging at all. In fact, the children that have spent the time in nursery compared to ones that haven’t are usually so advanced in many ways. Better social skills, communication etc. This could just be because generally these children also come from more middle class families with professional parents (the ones I work with anyway) but having worked in a private nursery with children often spending a few years there, and a preschool where they often started at 3/4- there was a huge difference and the nursery kids had a massive advantage.

Personally, I do not think a nanny or CM is necessarily better either. I don’t like the idea of it just being one person from a safeguarding point of view. I also like the community feel you get from a good nursery amongst other parents. It’s a nice way of making friends.

Please ignore all these ignorant comments about using childcare more widely. You are doing what you need to do. 3 weeks isn’t very long, it’s a period of adjustment and it’s reassuring he’s happy whilst there. I’m very surprised you remember anything about pre school or school, I certainly don’t.

In fact, the children that have spent the time in nursery compared to ones that haven’t are usually so advanced in many ways. Better social skills, communication etc. This could just be because generally these children also come from more middle class families with professional parents (the ones I work with anyway) but having worked in a private nursery with children often spending a few years there, and a preschool where they often started at 3/4- there was a huge difference and the nursery kids had a massive advantage

It depends on your point of comparison.
Children with professional middle class parents are going to have better social and communication skills whether they go to nursery or stay at home. However, children with professional middle class parents who have a SAHP have significantly better communication skills than those who attend nursery. Most SAHPs in this situation tend to be professionals who can afford to choose to stay at home. Their children's social skills among their peers tend to be less good than the nursery cohort, but their social skills generally are better, as they are exposed to a far wider range of people than the children who are only really exposed to other very small children. I was a teacher before I had children and I could always tell the difference. By the same token, a child from a low-achieving, chaotic family would be far better off at nursery.
Unfortunately, caring for small children in nurseries isn't a highly paid or 'high status' job (it should be both), so the people caring for them tend themselves to have poorer social and language skills. I wouldn't want my children to have spent long days with people who weren't particularly bright or well educated or well spoken. Someone will flame me for this, but it's true.

My baby started nursery at 9 months. At around 13 or 14 months he became clingy for a few weeks i read that is a common age for seperation anxiety. Is your little one similar age?

@MinnieTruck I moved my child to a child minder aged 3 (school nursery am then childminder pm) I couldnt have done it at first because i needed to know the person or have personal recommendation for someone in order to leave him. Also at 3 he could communicate. I chose a nursery as easier to trust when multiple adults around, also more reliable if staff unwell. Just an extra considerarion for nursery over childminder/nanny. It is a very difficult and personal choice.

It’s very early days. My son was 1 when he started and it’s a difficult age to start (with DD I only took 9 months Mat leave for this reason). But after 3wks they said he was the happiest baby there and loved going to nursery. He’s 19 now and at Uni, he barely remembers even being at nursery. I think mine have got so much more benefit from me working than any so called damage. I’ve kept in touch with a lot of parents from his time there, all flying in life, at uni’s or in good jobs. None are damaged and some (with better memories) talk fondly about their time there. Some even go back to visit regularly as some of the same staff are there.

Just keep going OP, I wouldn’t pay heed to talk of damaging your child. I’m sure there’s research out there about the ‘damage’ caused by not socialising much at an early age etc. I chose a nursery over a childminder (nanny out of the question) because there were a lot of people around, and I knew of one childminder who was terrible and I did report her. I won’t go into details as it’s quite upsetting some of it but it made me realise nursery was my first choice.

Thanks everyone, I do think the nursery we’ve found is very good. It has a really homey vibe (not massive and industrial-looking like some nurseries) and there are home-cooked meals every day and a lovely little sleep room with cots and beds. There are lots of nice walks and they do loads of activities which DS loves - he actually gets bored at home a lot of the time.

I do believe that he enjoys his day once he’s there, and he seems fond of his keyworker… but I also think he hates being left by us and finds that confusing and maybe feels abandoned???

I thought he wasn’t overly sensitive like me, he seems more energetic and robust and sensible, typical little boy really, but maybe I’m wrong.

I also don’t really know any other babies so I do think nursery is good for socialising. I’ve read so many studies for and against nursery so idk 🤷🏻‍♀️

At any rate with work I don’t really have a choice but to try it for a bit longer. Hopefully it’s normal like some people say and he’ll learn that mummy and daddy will always come to get him and always love him!

How long do most people’s babies take to settle??

If he just doesn’t, perhaps I’ll have to try to find a childminder.

Really, you don’t remember school even?

I know preschool is quite early to remember, but I’ve a lot of memories from that time too. Nothing before 3 I don’t think. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a very happy little girl… it got better, though!

I think aged around one is a tricky age to start nursery. Mine went at 2.5 years and had no issues at all settling. She did a phased transition over one week and I stayed the first couple of days. She was always happy to go in at drop off and never resisted. My friends who had dc who started at 10 months or younger were also fine. But 12-16m they tend to be more aware and have separation anxiety. The staff will have seen it all before though so if you're happy with the quality of the nursery it will all work out fine.

We had this problem too with our little one about the same age. I read somewhere that it was better to warn them about an upcoming thing they find upsetting, so they don’t expect it to happen at any moment. Now we show our baby a photo of the childminder before we take him each morning. It’s really helped. He still cries on drop off at the childminder (but less so), but doesn’t cry every time we put him in the car or I leave the room at a friend’s house etc. I’m sure nursery staff would be happy for you to take a photo of them if you explain the reason. Hope that helps!

It’s only true if you generalise every single nursery because it isn’t the case for the nursery I use which is a reason why it’s so popular. The nursery staff are educated and highly qualified except the few who are still studying, they are also incredibly passionate about early childhood education since they obviously aren’t in it for the money.

The studies are also very mixed, you can also find studies that say girls who grow up going to nursery are actually more likely to have a higher paying job than girls who grow up with a SAHM.

Great thank you I’ll try it!

My son went to a childminder at 8 months old (8:30-6:30 5 days per week) and then we got a place in nursery and he started there at 17 months. My daughter was then priority for a place in the same nursery and started full time at 8 months after a two week settling in period.

My son had more difficulty settling into the nursery than he did adjusting to going to the childminder, even though when he started at nursery he had already been looked after by someone else for the best part of a year. The childminder had a much more homely environment with just one other child so she was able to baby him a lot more. But I don't think he was very stimulated and he didn't walk until he was 16 months, just a month before he started at nursery.

When he started at nursery he used to cry a lot at drop off, and for a while he would cry if he happened to see me arriving at pickup. (What I mean is he would be fine, playing with the other children, not crying, and then he would see me through the window and then see me disappear in through the door and in the minute or so it would take me to get upstairs he would start crying.) I think nursery was a lot more to get used to with so many other children, and three or four different people caring for them rather than just one. That said, he made enormous progress with all his milestones in the first year that he was there, he did loads more activities than he did with the childminder, and by the end of the year he had formed a strong attachment to all the teachers and was having so much fun at the end of each day that sometimes I had to bribe him to get him to leave the toys and his friends.

My daughter has started nursery at a much younger age and she seems to be adjusting to it much more quickly. I've also noticed significant leaps in her progress in just a few weeks, she's suddenly eating a lot more and is much more mobile.

There are pros and cons to different settings but overall I much prefer the nursery and feel it is setting them up to be much more confident and autonomous when they start school. Obviously I miss them during the day and they are clearly delighted to see me and go home when I come to pick them up after work, but I don't feel that being at nursery is doing them any harm.

Mumsnet is very anti nursery and anti mothers of young children working full time. I think that because nursery in the UK is so expensive (I am in France) fewer people are able to afford it and so fewer people use them, and more women stay at home either because they can't afford to work or they feel it's not worth it given the cost of childcare. This makes being a SAHM much more culturally normal in the UK than it is in other countries, and so nurseries are a lot more frowned upon. This is entirely cultural. If nurseries were damaging then countries where most children go to nursery full time from before the age of one would be full of damaged and emotionally stunted children and adults. I don't see any evidence of this.

@JadedLondon I do agree with most of this, and I have worked in many nurseries. There is more at play than just nursery and SAHP. But on the whole I don’t think nursery is a bad thing at all.
I also somewhat agree about nursery staff although most of the ones I have worked with have been lovely and in nursery It’s more about being nurtured than educated so the carers background and education shouldn’t really matter. It also benefits them to experience a wider range of people.