2.5 year old now hates nursery

[rhonacorona]

My wee boy has been at nursery since he was 9 mths old, for 4 full days a week and he is now 2.5. Apart from the initial settling in grizzles he has loved it until now. He now screams and wails every morning getting him ready, and screams that he doesn't want to go. He cries all the way in the car, and clings and cries to me or dh at handover. My husband mainly has to do the mornings now as he is much worse with me. He has lots of friends at nursery, who always come to see him when he arrives and try to cuddle him, although the staff sometimes hold them back in case it is making him worse. We have friends who have children in the same class and they are so happy, that it makes me even more upset at our wee ones distress. The staff say he is ok after about an hour of cuddles and comfort and he seems happy when he gets home ( no surprise)We were thinking of moving him to the council nursery that feeds the local primary when he is 3, but that seems an impossibility at the moment. We are just a mess by the time we get to work, as mornings are now so upsetting. What has happened to him.

Is something else wrong? Kids can be incredibly intuitive and if you have other worries bubbling under the surface, he may be picking up on them.

Or his version of the terrible twos maybe?

Well no, No worries at all, tired but happy would sum it up. He did have chicken pox recently but so did most of the nursery. He may be picking up our stress signals in the morning, although I am doing my best to make everything a game from coming down the stairs, to getting dressed. He did have some terrible tantrums just when he turned two, but not in the mornings and these died away quite quickly.

Are you very happy that the nursery is caring for him well? I know it's not PC to say it but I've seen practitioners who are different once the parents are not around (I did do something about it). If you have any doubts can you unexpectedly have a half day and pick him up early so you can see what's going on?

If you don't have any worries and you can just put this down to separation anxiety then think about what he could take with him. A jumper of yours for comfort. A photograph or some favourite toys maybe. Something else of yours that he can 'look after' for you as a reminder that you will be returning may help.

Perhaps you could have a chat with the staff and ask them to talk you through his day in nursery. There may be something which you suddenly realise would be upsetting to him and nobody has cottoned on.

I would also make sure there is extra time for cuddles and attention at home for a while.

It's very hard when the child isn't old enough to express their worries verbally.

I have sneaked in a couple of times and the girls have kept quiet while I have observed. He is usually in the middle of things or "reading" with his friend in story corner. The nursery is actually within my dh's office building so he can see him playing in the garden(with lots of hugs and interaction from the carers), and he knows lots of colleagues with children there. If it wasn't for the fact that we have close friends with children in the same nursery, I would maybe think the staff were a bit off, but many of them have known him since 9 mths, so there has been consistency of care. I think I will go in and ask them to run through his day for clues.

Gosh this doesn't sound like much fun for anyone.
Is he able to tell you why he doesn't like nursery? You could try talking about nursery eg. over a book about nursery (try Amazon, there are several) at bedtime, rather than when you are all flustered in the morning. You could gently try and ask a few questions about parts of his day at nursery (arriving, peg, playing with other children, lunch etc) to see if he can describe to you what he doesn't like? I tried this with my DD when she wasn't a great talker and she was actually able to communicate to me in her own way what the problem was ("Nursery big mummy") and we were able to acknowledge it and talk about how it was big, but also about how there were nice things about nursery too eg. friends, slides etc. This recognised her feelings and didn't try to cover them up, but let her express them and then we chatted about them together.
You mention chicken pox. It can be hard to "get back into" nursery after a break in routine. There might not be anything particular going on at nursery for you to track down, rather, I'd look to your DS to tell you what his feelings are.
Have you looked too at the difference between nursery mornings and non-nursery mornings? Is one much much more rushed? Are there any elements from the non-nursery morning which could be incorporated into the nursery morning eg. cuddles in bed. This worked wonders with my DD- just that bit of attention and love to set her up for the day, rather than just being barked at AAARG WE'RE LATE HURRY UP
Hope this helps.

Well yes weekday mornings are crazy. Even worse now that he wants to choose an outfit himself. Saturday mornings he lounges about playing with his trains before going to tumble tots late morning, which he loves.

Went in to speak to the girls today. They say he is now settling after about 10 minutes, and is then fine for the rest of the day. Full of cuddles for other children and well behaved. They were very honest though and admitted after me pressuring them that he was worse if I dropped him off.

Weird, I guess I will have to put up with dagger in the chest every weekday morning, when he has to go off to nursery with daddy screaming.

Thanks for all your help.

My little boy did this recently too (same age) but unlike yours he hadn't been ill / away from nursery recently and goes to nursery 3 rather than 4 days. We did all gthe things you have tried and spoke to nursery and they said he was fine after we went and nothing that they could think of had precipitated this.

Ds2 is a very good talker but was totally unable to explain why he didn't want to go.

Thankfully after a couple of weeks he just settled down. Still have no idea why it happened but putting it down to one of those things.

Hopefully your ds will settle down soon too

Same here with DS nursery staff did point out many children went through the same thing at a similar age they can just develop a clingy stage. He was fine when I left too. Stopped after a few weeks.

Good luck