Best way to do this

[serafinarose]

I'm due to return to work. Ds is 7 months and has never been apart from me. He will be going to nursery 8-5 for 5 days a week.

At the minute he has 3 settling sessions the week before which are a couple of hours each.

Do I
A) put him straight in full time the following week and go back to work
B) ask for a week delay at work and build up his hours over the first week ie. 3hrs, 5hrs, 7hrs, 8hrs, 9hrs

I know these things can depend on the child and fwiw I think he will love nursery. Just wondering about others experience and whether it's better to go straight in to establish the routine, or whether there's any benefit to a more gradual approach.

I could also C) take the first day off so I'm around if there are any issues.

Re-reading my own post I'm leaning towards B)

I would definitely do settling in. If nothing else it will mean you are more relaxed because you aren’t dashing off to work, which will help.

You could also to do partial days for a week e.g 10-3 so that it’s not so long a day but the routine is the same.

DD was just 7 months when I went back to work full time and she started nursery full time. She has only ever spent about 1/2 hours away from me.
she went in full time from the offset and loved it, no tears etc.
Babies have no real concept of time, so really being away from them for 5 hours of the day vs 10 hours makes no difference at all.
it would probably be more for your own piece of mind, DD was my 2nd, my DS had already been to the same nursery so I trusted them implicitly.

(She had only spent 1/2 away from me - it should read)

Hi OP I went back to work full time when DS was about 6.5 months, I did a phased start and built up to full time over a month, this is what we did:

Week 1 - 2 AM settling in sessions a day apart

Week 2 - 1 AM settling in session and 1 full day a day apart

Week 3 - 2 Full consecutive days

Week 4 - 3 Full consecutive days

Week 5 - 4 full days (this is his usual schedule, as he’s with family on day 5)

He settled in really well, much easier than babies that started nursery later. He was still mostly fed to sleep at home so it took a him sleep time to get used to be put down to sleep but the staff were great and let him sleep on them if that was what he needed.

DS is 1 now and has a really lovely time there

Thanks everyone. I do think a lot of it is about my own peace of mind. I'll think about it a bit more and make a decision this weekend.

We had 3 weeks of settling in sessions before going in properly.
I would try add an extra week on for him

Same as others really. I had my start date from work and started settling in about a month beforehand