Nursery settling session - what do I do?

[birdybirdbird]

My 11 month old has his first settling in session tomorrow. It’s only for 2 hours and they’ve said I should stay tomorrow and then build up leaving over the week. But what exactly do I do?! Do I just sort of treat it like going to a play group and explore the toys with him? Actually knowing that won’t help, I barely took him to any as I hated them! Seems like a stupid question really but I get weirdly anxious about not knowing ‘how things work’.

You should have a member staff (pref key worker) who will sit with u and play with him with u there. But yes you just sit and play with him.

We did ours last week. We stayed with him for 20 minutes or so to make sure he was happy then went downstairs to do paperwork for half an hour. Came back upstairs and he was sitting happily munching on a baguette with all the other babies. Stayed for an hour with him playing but he mostly ignored us and I played with another little girl. Dropping him off this week for 3 hours on his own

Try to treat it like a playgroup in a way but not one where you can do what you like all the time. So if they are inside playing and he wants to go outside then he can’t for example. Until it’s outside time.

Also, don’t pick him up to show him things.

Let him access the toys own his own so if he wants to play with something and he can’t reach it for example let him try or let him figure out he needs to walk round the table.

Try to take a step back. If he’s playing happily then keep quiet. If he leaves to go to a different activity stay where you are.

Great thank you! I’m not too sure how he’ll settle as he’s only ever been with me/DH. I think he’s fairly confident though so 🤞🏻 it’ll be ok. And I’m sure if there are any snacks on offer he’ll be more than happy to see the back of me @popcorndiva!

Thanks @MarigoldGlove they’re good tips about stepping back a bit. I try to encourage independent play at home so will take a similar approach.

Just remember to be happy and smiley. He will probably be looking to you to decide if this place is a good place or not! So try to have happy convo with the staff. Especially his key worker. So he can see that person is a friend. When you go in just start playing with something yourself. Let him be by you as much as he wants and when he wants to wander off also let him. And if at the time he appears to need more settling in sessions don't be afraid to ask for them 😊

Let him be by you as much as he wants and when he wants to wander off also let him.

THIS! You want to be there for reassurance if he needs you, but let him explore and wander on his own as much as he's happy to. I sat back with DD and let her do her own thing - as she was surprisingly keen to just join in on her own. Let him take the lead, but give him whatever attention/closeness he wants.

My dd's nursery when we first moved back to the US when she had just turned 3 had a settling in week. They wanted me to stay the whole day on the first day of the week. After about an hour, dd marched into the director's office (where I was trying to get some work done and most certainly not interacting with dd) and announced in a very firm voice. "Mummy it's time for you to leave now." I had already warned the director that dd would not want me there, but she had insisted that I stay. At that point she finally agreed that I had been excused from the settling in week.
Ironically as dd got older, she wanted me around more rather than less.

The first session, the keyworkers and I were going through the “all about me” sheets while my twins explored. My son went off happily to play with all the toys whereas my daughter stayed closer.. weirdly now she is the confident one now going in to nursery!
Hope
It goes well!

Thanks everyone! Seemed to go well, he was happy to go off and have a crawl about without me and for me to be briefly out of sight. He did seem to be a bit overwhelmed by the noise when other babies were crying and all singing. He’s not really been to many groups though so I guess that’s to be expected and he’ll soon adapt. And I know it ‘will be really good for him and his develop in the long term!

I find it’s one of those you don’t really know how it’s going to go till you’re there. DS didn’t look over at me once and just ran around getting toys out I ended up not having much conversation with anyone bar this little girl (around age 2) who seemed to prefer me more than my own child however drop offs he hated till he was around 17months he doesn’t bat an eyelid now at 21months!