Very shy child going to a child minder in September. How to manage it?

[DillyTante]

I'm suffering from extreme Precious Second Born-istis. Dd2 (22mo) is very shy around anyone who isn't me, DH or DD1. She isn't a reserved child, very loud, boisterous and a very good talker, but she is almost selectively mute around other people. When they try and talk to her she just gives them a look of contempt!

Until now DH and I have both worked part time so she has never been looked after by anyone else for longer than an hour. She has occasionally gone for walks or been left with aunties or grandma, but that has taken a long time.

In Septemeber I am going to go back to work an extra day so have arranged for a child minder, who will also do school pick up for DD1.

I'm dreading it TBH. I'm so worried about how she will cope. I can do a settling in session or two, but not sure how that will help.

Any advice on how to manage it? What's the best way to do it for DD2? Any positive stories?

DS2 is exactly like this. He hardly talks outside the home. He started with ds1's childminder in Sept and has been brillliant. He talks to her now and is very confident there. We did a couple of settling in sessions, but tbh he was better when we wernt there. We found sending in photos of days out helped, as the cm would talk to him, and he started off pointing to the photo and then gradually started talking. He also takes something ( different) in each day and our cm starts with ' what have you got there xxxx' to start a conversation.

He did go to nursery aswell and has from 6mths, ( he is 4 now) but hadnt really spoken at nursery before.

Good luck, for ds2 it was the best thing we did

This does seem quite common in second or subsequent DCs where they've had the security and the lead of the older siblings to hide behind - I have a friend with a very similar sounding DC2 and in her case she never really tried to tackle it - those looks of contempt did not go down well with teachers :o.

Remember the CM will have experience of a range of different needs, and will be on your side - just keep the communication going.

Thanks for the replies. Hadn't thought about the security of DD1 thing. We never had any probs putting DD1 in nursery at the same age as she was incredibly sociable and easy going.

I hope she'll be ok. She's not generally clingy with it. If we are at a group (which isnt often tbf) she'll go off and play. She's fine as long as no one talks to her!