because DH is away in another time zone and my mother is at work and I need to let off steam to SOMEONE...
I'm due back at work February 16 and DD (10 months) is due to start at DS's (generally fab) nursery.
When DS started we settled him in over three weeks -- first day went for an hour and stayed, second day left him for an hour, built up to by the end of the first week leaving him around 11 and picking him up around 4.30 IIRC. Actually a week would probably have been enough to settle him, the rest was more for my piece of mind. I am positive we paid for this settling in period, or at least for most of it, although the nursery administrator tells me that we wouldn't have done.
Back in November we discussed dates and DD was going to start settling in this Monday just gone (Feb 2) and settle in over two weeks. FWIW the starting point for this was that I wanted her to start settling in on Feb 2, then the nursery said that there wouldn't be a charge for the settling-in period and they'd do it over two weeks so the paid place would start Feb 16. Fair enough, I think.
This Monday nursery was open but there was very much a skeleton staff because of the snow, so I didn't even try doing anything about DD. Yesterday when I dropped off DS they told me that they only did one week's settling-in now and so she'd start her first session next monday (Feb 9). OK, I think -- mildly miffed that I had said I wanted her to start settling in Feb 2, two weeks before I went back to work (so that I'd have an extra week to play with if she had any problems) and no one had asked me about changing that (given the choice, I'd have opted to still settle her in this week and just start paying from next week, a week earlier than planned, so that by the time I went back I knew she was definitely happy and settled). But DD's a fairly laid-back little soul and a week will probably be fine.
This morning they give me DD's settling in schedule -- ONE HOUR next Monday, ONE HOUR next Thursday, and ONE HOUR next Friday. So I am supposed to leave her there for three individual hours before putting her in for a full day on the Monday. She would wind up having had no naps at nursery, one lunch and no bottles before starting full time (and it's going to have to be a fairly long day in nursery right from the start because DH is away and so we can't do the one-parent-drops-off, one-parent-picks-up thing). I was just flabbergasted. I thought it must be a mistake to begin with, but apparently it's a new policy recently introduced by the nursery owner/manager (they used to have a separate manager, but she left last autumn). It's clear that the actual hands-on staff don't agree with it.
After I burst into tears the lovely nursery nurse I was talking to moved things around so that DD can come in for an extra three hours at Friday and have a reasonable session. But I am still shocked, and angry, and upset. And a part of me is glad that I burst into tears in front of a group of prospective parents who were being shown around at the time.
Graaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. And I'm sorry if IABU, but I was feeling very wobbly about going back to work anyway and this has just about finished me off. Sniffle.