3 year old now hates nursery - desperate dad needs advice

[Gajstar]

Hi all. First time poster and desperate dad here. Always have had a very sensitive son. Chose the most convenient nursery for us, and for the most part he has been fairly ok with it. However this summer has been awful . The staff were on a skeleton rota, there was no consistency , he was having trouble with a bigger boy with obvious behavioural problems (I think he had been hit a few times) and all this coincided with my wife going back to work full time (he was previously there for 3 half days , now 3 full days) . To further complicate things our little 1 year old has also started at the same nursery , and touch wood he has settled in remarkably well .

Now our 3 year old gets very upset in the mornings and the night before he goes in. He tells us in his very gentle way that he doesn’t want to go in . We gently push him to tell us why and it’s clear he doesn’t like it there. As I do the drop off in the morning is really quite heart wrenching taking him in and when my wife picks him up they tell her he’s had a sad day .

It’s obvious that he has outgrown his nursery (I’m not gloating, but he is a bit more mentally developed than the other children and I don’t think they push him intellectually at the nursery ) . Come January he can go to pre school and can go with my wife to her school (she works in a school) .

The question is what do we do until then? Suck it up ? Find a new nursery ( but then will have to re settle my 1 year old ), find a nanny for 4 months ?

I’m really at a loss, and my wife and I talk about it every night but still are not sure .

I’m sorry if I have not used all the right terms etc but would welcome your collective wisdom

I live in Croydon ( south London) if that means something .

Thank you all and have a great day

Sorry I should have also mentioned that we have already had a meeting with the manager at the nursery and have implemented changes but unfortunately no duchess

He’s 3. He’s not so mentally developed he’s outgrown nursery and even, if you don’t think they’re pushing him intellectually (at 3?!) it’s about socially developing him too.

Does he actually not like it, or is he just not liking it at the point when you leave and he’s fine for the rest of the day?

Either way, I’d leave him where he is for the rest of the term if he’s going to pre-school in January. If he’s unsettled moving him now to move him again in 8 weeks isn’t going to help.

Thanks so much for the message . Sorry that came across really caustic of me. He’s not superior in any way. He’s just very different to the other children and the methods they use there aren’t really for him.

And he is miserable the whole day . He spends the whole day asking them to “call daddy “ . They then pretend to call me!!! He probably has a complex about me !

But thanks so much for the advice . If we were to move him now he would move to a nursery with a pre school and would hopefully stay there

As hard as it is to see them unhappy I would leave him there until Christmas seeing as he's leaving anyway. There's no point in changing him just for a couple of months, it'd probably take him that long to settle in somewhere.

If he wasn't leaving at Christmas then I would've suggested looking for a childminder instead. 3 out of my 4 children went to nursery but my youngest has a different personality and I felt a child minder environment would be better for him. I was right, we've never had any upset going in.

I'm a bit concerned they pretend to call you? Do you mean a roll play and he is joining in (which is ok) or do they pretend to go off and call you and say you said you cant come. That seems a bit off.
I xont think moving him would work for such a short time unless maybe a home based nanny. Maybe some sort of visual timetable so he knows whats happening andvhow long till mum comes. Nursery should help with that.

This is really sad :( I think it’s worse when they’re older as a child is normally settled by this point. What has the nursery said about the situation? In an ideal world, it would be best to wait until he can start at his mums school but it’s awful he is sad. Have you considered that he may be the same if you move him and it’s not just the nursery?