DD is 3.2, more or less, and has been in nursery three days a weeks since she was six months old. It's a lovely nursery, and she has always been absolutely fine there - quite contented as a baby and obviously happy as she got older and more expressive.
However this stopped a couple of months ago. She moved from the room between toddlers and pre-school, which has children from just over two years until their third birthday, up to pre-school. There are a number of issues with this - it's upstairs, whereas toddlers and the next room up are downstairs, and they are all dropped off in the one room, so she'd been dropped off in the same room from 15 months to 3 years; the staff:child ratio is 1:8 rather than 1:4; the room covers age 3 to school age, so some of the children can be up to 18 months older than her; having had a disproportionate number of girls in her age group up until now, suddenly there are a lot more boys (and they are BIG!) These are all legit things which I don't have a problem with (can hardly complain about local demographics after all) but have made a difference to her settling.
The other thing, which nursery now realise was a mistake, was that while she had 'settling-in' trips to pre-school with at least one other child, she was sent up to start properly two days before her best little mate, and was bereft until she turned up on the Thursday. They have two days in common, and to be fair, DD doesn't seem to be any better or worse ont he day her friend isn't it.
The first week was horrendous - the first day she had been crying on and off all day and had bruised eyes by hometime. It's better now, but she is still not happy - another mum asked how she was getting on yesterday, so I turned to her and asked if she liked pre-school, and she just shook her head. She is reluctant to go in the morning, although okay, if subdued when we get there. The staff say she is fine during the day, and I've seen photos of her doing fun stuff and looking happy. She was even okay going back after a week off with chicken pox ... but things are still not quite right. She's also latched on to the idea of school from somewhere, and is incredibly anxious about going to school, and doesn't get it when we tell her it's a LONG time off.
I suppose I just wonder if anyone else's child has been through a similar period, and if it got better on its own? Or if anyone has any tips on how to get her enthusiasm for nursery back? We've just started the process for getting her into school in September 2008, and it's such a lovely school and will be an amazing new phase in her life, I'm just afraid that she will carry on these negatives feelings all the way through the rest of nursery and into school.