1 year old seperation anxiety and starting nursey

[Bookwormmama]

From day 1 my little boy has always been really attached to me. Since I’ve had the year off he’s not spent much time away from me, but due to lots of weddings he has spent 3 nights away and every few weeks he will spend half the day with either of grandparents. But now I am worrying I haven’t done enough to get him use to being away from me and since 9 months old his seperation anxiety is getting worse and worse. But until last week we’ve always said it’s ’out of sight, out of mind’ after a little cry he will cheer up. I can’t be in the same room and not right by him that would upset him, but once I’m out of sight he will calm down. But this week has been bad.
Hes starting nursery this following week and I’m back to work the week after. Hes very social as there’s a lot of babies in the family and I’m one of 10 so he has a lot of uncles and aunties. At soft play he’s off, going over to all the parents and kids and is very social. I didn’t think he’d have an issue with nursery as he is so social.
But, he’s now had 4 settling in sessions and while the first 2 went fine, the last 2 he has screamed. And I don’t mean he’s just crying, he is hysterical, he is bright red in the face and can not catch his breath for the entire time and even when I do come back in and get him he’s taking ages to settle back down. I’ve only ever seen him like this when he goes in the car seat in the dark (I think he’s scared of it) other than that he’s never cried in that way.
Now I am so anxious about him going back to the nursery and myself starting work. I know it’s early days and he needs time to settle but he can’t even stay there the full hour and I need to go back to work.
What can I do to help him settle in nursery and with his seperation anxiety? Since his settling in days he’s seemed to have gone even worse. Visiting my parents today I couldn’t even go the toilet and he was hysterical like he was at the nursery and he’s never done that before.
My partner says we should leave him with family for a couple of hours each week, but it’s a bit late in the day as I return to work soon anyway. I did plan to ask family to have him a day or two each week in December to get him use to it but completely forgot and I didn’t think, very naively, that nursery would be a problem.

For info; he will be at nursery 2x a week and with grandparents (partners side) once a week. They would have him for the full 3 days but they do school pick up and sit with their other grandsons until my sil returns home from and she lives half a hour away so he wouldn’t be getting home until 5:30pm and I absolutely want to avoid being away from him that long and he will 100% fall asleep in the car and mess up his whole schedule). My mum still works and looks after my nan and niece once a week each so I can’t ask her.

I won't lie, it's going to be hard. Especially if you haven't done things like have your DP take him out regularly or left him with family at all but he will get used to the new rountine soon enough.

When you're home do things like take him with you if you're going out of the room and play games like peek-a-boo regularly. Being with him in the house will give him a sense of security and playing peek-a-boo will help him understand that you go but come back.

Can your DP take him to visit the DGP for an hour today?

And has he had his 12 month check yet?

Yes he regularly takes him out, he works mon-Friday but since he’s been born he takes him to his parents for a hour every Saturday and Sunday unless we are busy to give me a hour to myself and let them see him. He usually walks their dog too on the visits so he’s with Grand Parents on his own for 20 mins or so. He’s also been left with them for half the day a few times or if we do a big shop and he’s been left with my sister and my parents. But I’d say it’s been once a month he’s been left for more than a hour. He’s stayed out over night while we’ve had weddings to attend 3 times too.
I have been away from him and my partner has looked after him if I’ve been out with friends for the day too a few times.
So while he’s not been left alone as much as some babies (or compared to my other nieces and nephews) it’s not as if he’s never had time away from me.

Yes he has the start of December. There was no concerns raised. He was meeting all his milestones and he was walking by then. While he did have some seperation anxiety, would cry if I left the room he got over it quickly so it was seen as normal development for his age.

@Bookwormmama
Hi- I just wondered how your little boy is getting on with nursery now? My little boy is 19m old and basically word for word we are going through the same! If anything, starting nursery has made him more attached and same as you say he doesn't just cry he is hysterical and will not settle there. I ring up after an hour of dropping off and they say he is still unsettled. Now since he won't even settle with family members if we visit- I leave the room and he goes off like I'm leaving him again. I'm hoping this faze ends very soon! He has been attending nursery for 1 month now I'm wondering how long I leave it before just taking him out of nursery completely as it just feels like it's turned him into a totally different kid which upsets me! X

He’s been brilliant. We done lots of settling in days and delayed his start date by a week. We were doing 2 sessions a day and it seemed like to much at the time and he wasn’t settling. Instead of waiting outside in the waiting room I needed up going in the car and they started calling me in less to settle him. But I was still calling other nurseries to see how long their waiting lists were (no one had availability for this year)
He started on the Tuesday on my first day back at work and lasted 50 mins before they called us to go get him because he was hysterical (my partner took annual leave for this reason). They said to bring him back for 2 hours at 2pm which we did and he seemed fine the last two hours. He went back in on the Thursday and we expected the same again but he lasted all day. He’s been there over a month now and gets better each week.
His clinginess at home peaked but the last week it’s settled more to the point I can leave the room while he’s with his dad and he doesn’t scream for me anymore. He’s still clingy when I’m around and prefers me especially at night but it sort of peaked and then dropped straight down.
The nursery manager did keep saying to me it will get worse and worse and then one day it will just click and that’s exactly what happened for us. Finding a staff member he liked too was a lot of help.

I would say I didn’t call up other than the first week as it would have just made my anxiety worse. They knew if they couldn’t settle him I was happy to come pick him up and I was confident they’d call rather than leaving him crying. But for the first 2-3 weeks they did say he had moments through out the day but they were able to settle him again in 10 mins or so.