How long did it take your child to settle

[MotherOfDragon20]

In the process of settling in my 11 month old DD into nursery. To say it isn’t going well would be an understatement! she’s had 8 settle in days over the past 5 weeks and she’s just hysterical every time. She’s yet to last longer than an hour and half before I get a phone call to pick her up. I’m so surprised by this because she’s such a social baby, LOVES other babies and children, at her happiest at soft plays and baby classes so I know it’s not about the atmosphere/noise being too overwhelming. She’s never been a particularly clingy baby and goes to family members with no problem so I just (naively) assumed she would settle in and love it!

I’m returning to work in 2 weeks, the plan for for her to properly start 2 weeks ago so that she was in and settled and happy for me returning to work but obviously this hasn’t gone to plan. How long did it take you babies to settle? At the moment it seems like she will never be happy there.

My first a year!!!

My second 2 weeks!!

Literally the first time she went. All babies are different though. Hope things ease soon

I think it depends on how often they are in the nursery and how much fuss you do saying good bye when you drop them off.

DS really struggled when he was going to one nursery for 2 days a week, but settled down very quickly when he was doing 3-4 days in a row.
I found that a quick good bye was much better for DS than trying to reason for longer with him because at the end of the day… he was too young to understand that I needed to go to work or that his tears (only form of negotiation for young kids) were not going to change the things.

Some babies can take a while to settle. How many days will she be doing when you go back to work?

Does she have a keyperson, if so, how is that relationship developing? I'm a nursery nurse, the keyperson plays a key role in those early days.