Nearly four year old distressed at nursery drop off

[milkyman]

He likes nursery and settles after my dh leaves. He is terrible when dh leaves - holds his arm and legs, screams etc... Any suggestions?

Drop and run! In, distract with toy/activity and head straight for the door! They settle so much faster if it isn't protracted as much as it feels heart breaking

Is he new to nursery? How often does he go?

Sounds very much like our DS. Our nursery were brilliant and not only reassured us it was quite normal and not to feel bad as they are used to dealing with it they wanted to help.

They suggested (and followed through) that his favourite teacher would meet him at the class door, with a toy of interest to him, either his favourite or something they were convinced he would like, I would physically hand him over. DS would be excited to see Anthony and the physically handing him over (like you would a relative to say hello for example) made him feel like he had been accepted/acknowledged by the new carer, rather than being thrown in to a room with several other children and possibly feeling alone and unsure if he was meant to seek me out to look after him or who to go.

It worked really really well.

He goes three days a week now as has been going since eleven months.

We do more or less as sugarplum and this works most of the time with my 4 1/2 year old.
It does actually help also if I come to pick up a little early and have a good chat with his carers, see what he's been making, he can show me his toys. It means he knows that I know what he's been doing IYSWIM. So not hanging around at drop off but spending time with him at pickup.
I have DD to pick up in another room at nursery and a couple of times I've come early to pick him up, play for a bit then pick her up. He's insisted I go away and get her first so he can keep on playing!

Dreading school though... he's been for 2 settling sessions and he was fine at the first one but needed a lot of distraction at the 2nd.

My eldest did this. We kept him in a nursery for 4/5 months and every time we dropped off he was hysterical.

One day I just thought 'enough is enough'. I took him out of nursery and put him in a new one. One which was more relaxed, had a small group (6) children and he settled on the second day-never cried again.

Would changing nurseries be an option.?

Ds has done this on and off for the 3 years he's been in creche. He goes in phases with no rhyme or reason. He has been fine for months, and this week has started up again. It's agonising, so you and your dp have my full sympathy. Like others have said, drop with a cheery goodbye and distraction seems to work best. Ds loves being carried in, and that makes it worse, so I'm back to giving him a "job" of putting his coat away while I quickly tell the teacher anything she needs to know, then I'm off as quickly as possible to hide around the corner and try not to cry

Must be the season for it as my DD 2.3 has stated doing this too! She's been at her nursery for over 12 months now and goes full time. Transitioned fine to the toddler room in March and has settled into that room well. But she has started to get upset at drop off if her key worker isn't there for any reason. It's all a bit of a nightmare as we have tears and everything! DD knows all the other nursery staff really well so it's just her attachment to her key worker that appears to be very strong! DD is due to move to the next group in her room in September as they have a new wave of children transitioning so she's going to have a new key worker in the next 4 weeks so no doubt it will get worse before it gets better!
Hoping it's just another phase...