If I take DS out of nursery before new baby arrives when would you send him back?

[Hardbackwriter]

I'm 35 weeks pregnant and due to start mat leave in a week and a half. DS (2.5) currently goes to nursery three times a week. Given the current situation I'm considering not sending him once I stop work until the baby comes, to reduce the chances of me catching covid around the time of giving birth. However, I'd want to send him again after the baby arrives. My mum is adamantly against this plan (which is partially to protect her, as she and my dad would have DS when I give birth!) - she thinks if he stops going and then starts again after the baby arrives he'll feel pushed out and that disrupting his routine right now is a bad idea. She thinks if I do that I need to wait much longer to send him back to nursery. Any thoughts? I'm so reluctant to take him out long-term.

Sorry OP, but I have to agree with your mum. I get why you want to take him out but I totally agree that it will be massively disruptive. He will be at home with a new baby and will not be the centre of attention which he will have to get used to, so nursery will give him some normality. Also, you might want to check the nursery policy on taking your child out. At DDs nursery you forfeit your place if you do that and you wont be guaranteed a place when you decide to send them back.

Thank you - maybe it is just too much disruption, especially so much of his normal life and the people he sees outside of nursery are gone. Nursery felt like a negligible risk when I assumed DH would still be working in a secondary school every day until I went into labour - now he's home so it's our only contact outside the house. Which also makes it harder to keep DS home as we have to be quiet as DH does live teaching all day.

Yes, we'd have to pay for the place, which is another reason I was thinking about a few weeks before the baby comes rather than taking him out longer -term.

We are doing this - we are taking our 2 year old out of nursery from now until 2 weeks after baby comes, so could be out of nursery 4-6 weeks. Nursery is also our only contact really and they have had 3 positive cases so far. We don’t feel it is worth the risk at the moment, we don’t want either myself or partner to catch it for the birth. It’s about weighing up the benefits/risks and only you can decide that.

Thanks river - we were thinking about a similar length of time (I say we, DH is also quite opposed but is happy to defer to what makes me feel most comfortable). Six weeks (8 if I went to 42 weeks) isn't much, but then it is a long time to a 2.5 year old! We had quite a tough time with resettling after lockdown (which nursery said was pretty common) which is making me particularly hesitant to take him out. But like you I really don't want to risk either of us being Covid positive for the birth. I was hoping for a home birth but I think that's a pipe dream anyway as I suspect they'll be cancelling them soon. Argh, I just don't know...

I'm due at the start of the summer holidays and DDs nursery is term time only and I'm worried about her feeling the the disruption is baby related (she'll be 2.5). I read somewhere you should make big changes like potty training or starting nursery a few months either side, tbf I did take a while for DD to settle but I'm hoping it won't be as bad because it's not a new thing just a bit of a change.

I wouldn't be taking her out if I had the choice, in fact I'm half thinking of sending her to the holiday club in the sister nursery for a couple days a week to give me a break. They haven't had any cases (that they know of) this whole time so I don't have much reason to worry.