My 20-month-old daughter started nursery last week. We only had one 30-minute settling session, and that was in an empty room with just me, my child, and the two teachers who will be with her. It went fine because I was there with her.
The nursery doesn’t allow any more settling sessions with me. Instead, her time is meant to increase gradually from 30 minutes on her own up to a full morning (4 hours). The problem is that as soon as she sees her teacher, she becomes hysterical—crying and trying to run away. I’ve tried to calm her down and explain that it will be fun, but it doesn’t work; she’s simply afraid to go inside.
The teacher expects me to hand her over while she’s crying, which I did once, and I felt terrible about it. She ended up crying the whole session time (45 minutes)by the door, calling for me. I heard it because there's the room inside where parents can stay during the nursery time. What worries me is that the teacher doing the drop-offs didn’t really try to engage with her or distract her—just took her in while she was upset.
I should add this isn’t a mainstream nursery with lots of children and staff. There are only five children in the group, with two teachers, and we’re paying privately (they don’t accept funded hours).
Do you think it’s normal to be expected to hand a crying toddler over like this? I’m worried it will just make her protest even more and refuse to go in at all.