Settling in nursery

[Usedtobechilled]

Please someone tell me it gets better 😫

We're on our 3rd week of settling and if anything my LO is worse.
At first we could at least sit down, now he's upset when we walk in the door. He cried for almost 2 hours this morning and I picked him up at lunch.
There are small glimmers of progress, he will eat in nursery and after the first 2 hours cried on and off so had times where he was happy.

Are there some babies that never settle?

How old is LO? The biggest thing I'd be looking for here are how the nursery is responding, both to him and to you. Are they supportive about it and are they working with you to look for ways to help him? How happy are you feeling about the nursery overall?

Both my DDs were somewhat difficult settles, particularly DD1. It took weeks before she would eat at nursery, shortened days, etc. Throughout all of that, I never got a hint off the staff that this was a problem, that she was putting strain on the staff, anything like that. They treated it very much as par for the course, she was a tiny child (13 months) going through an enormous change, and it was their job, together with us as her parents, to help her through it. They were also proactive about observing her and looking at what unsettled her or when she was happy and also asked me for ideas. I know for me, the way they were helping both of us through it made me much more confident that it would be a good place for her once she got used to other people and other children (we were coming out of lockdown; other children were terrifying) – and it has been, we've long since entered the phase of me calling 'bye DD1!' as she dashes into the garden without a backward glance.

He's just turned 9 months so he's got a lot going on with crawling, standing etc.
The nursery have been brilliant tbh, they are very much like, some babies take longer and we'll get there. I think it's more I feel terrible for them having to deal with him crying for so long and it makes me sad because he's such a great baby but this seems to be a massive hurdle for him and our progress is minimal. He will eat and he has napped (although not for long) in nursery which is good, it's the drop off that's the main problem and the crying for so long.
I've asked if there is anything I can do on my end but they seem to be sure it's just a matter of time. I'm just worried they're being polite 😕

DS1 was like this but it does get better. We took a gentle approach with him and it took about 6 weeks to get him to a full day. Very supportive nursery too and taking cues from him. Each time he went in there would be a small improvement and they didn't push him too much. One thing we had which was useful was a little booklet with photos of the staff in his room and pictures of the baby room that we could show him at home, maybe worth a try? Even now at 3.5 he is still one to take a while to warm up to different people and environments, whereas his brother didn't even notice when I left on his first day at nursery!