Opinions please - separation anxiety?

[confusedofengland]

Have posted on Chat, but no answers & I know threads drop off there quickly, so posting on here as would really like some opinions/experiences!

Last Friday, we had a call from DS2's (2.8) nursery asking us to pick him up as he had a cough & was crying for Mummy constantly, didn't want to be consoled by anybody else. So we did that, then he perked up once home for the afternoon. He has been OK but not great all week & we have had a fairly restful week so as not to tire him out. He clearly still has a bad cough, with odd coughing fits day & night, but when he is not coughing or tired from coughing he's fine.

He was up once in the night for about an hour - woken by coughing then took a while to get back to sleep. I am at work today & DH is at home, DS2 got up after I left & seemed a lot more cheerful, just a bit coldy still. So we decided to send him in to nursery. They have just rung us to fetch him again, said he perked up a little after Calpol but has been crying lots sad. So DH has gone straight to fetch him.

I am absolutely fine with nursery ringing & happy that they keep us in the loop like this & look after DS2's best interests. But there is a part of me that wonders whether it is just through illness that DS is so upset or something else? I am having DS3 in February, plus we moved house about a month ago & DS has become very clingy to me in the last month or so. His little face drops when we drive past nursery & he cries when we drop him off, although his keyworker says he is usually fine after breakfast & he is always happy when we pick him up, often not wanting to leave. He was in nursery last Wednesday for 2 hours for the Christmas party & they said he enjoyed it, and also last Thursday all day when they said he was fine, just a little subdued towards the end (coming down with something?).

I do worry now that with the 2-week break from nursery over Christmas, he will be reluctant to go back to nursery at all & will realise that if he cries, Mummy or Daddy will come & pick him up. He has very little speech so can't really vocalise his feelings sad

I really don't know what to do. My Ddad (whom I'm working for) says just to have him at home tomorrow (he's due in nursery again), then enjoy the festive break & worry about the New Year if it comes to it. But I wonder if it's worth chatting to nursery about a strategy in case this is due to separation anxiety - maybe starting at half days then building up to whole days, or similar? So confused & sad for my baby

Does he take a cuddly toy with him to nursery? We went through a period of this about the same age and nursery told my dd2 to take something from nursery home and bring it back next time e.g a small toy to reinforce the link between home and nursery - this really helped. I would ask them for strategies to help you. Does he seem happy with his key worker?

He has taken a doll on a few occasions, I don't know if it's helped or not because up until these last 2 occasions, he has always settled quickly after breakfast. He does seem to like his keyworker (but not as much as Mummy) I guess I just don't know whether he has been so bad the last 2 times because he's been feeling ill (nursery said 'under the weather') or because his separation anxiety has got worse Like I say, on each occasion when we have got home, he's been fine & although not 100% this week, he's not been too poorly.

Nursery sounded pretty stern & fed up when they asked me to fetch him today - as if they thought we shouldn't have brought him in in the first place. But TBH we thought he was OK, perhaps a little tired but that could be sorted with a nap.

I took him to the doctor after picking him up on Friday & she said he did not have a chest infection, so I know that is not a concern at least.