Dad picking up from childcare

[Greengiraffe1]

I'm hoping that someone will have some advice on what to do.

Our daughter, 18 months, goes to a childminder 3 afternoons and 1 full day a week. And then to my mum's for 1 afternoon.
We both work full time. I work evenings, so get the mornings with LO getting ready, sometimes going out, or going to my mum's for lunch.
She is absolutely fine with me in the mornings.

When it comes to pick up time with dad, she will cry at the door and say no to going home with daddy. Once the door is shut and they are on their way home she is absolutely fine and happy to be with him.

Our childminder questioned it today, which I totally get she needs to do, in case there was anything untoward happening. But both my partner and I think that it's just because when he picks her up it means that play time is ending and she is going home to wind down and go to bed. He has said that he will sit and play with her for a bit before he gets her ready for bed. Oh, and getting her ready for bed means pjs on, cuddling on the sofa and watching encanto! So it's not even like that's a bad thing for her.

How can we help our daughter to realise that the initial bit of getting out the door isn't a bad thing? That daddy picking up is exciting and she wants to go home with him?

I don't want her to always think that daddy means home and bed. Maybe he should take her to the park for a bit before they go home? She gets picked up at 6pm.

You’re overthinking it. At that age my DD used to try to hide from us when we picked her up from daycare, didn’t matter who was on pick up duty, she was just having fun playing and didn’t want to stop. We used to laugh about it and say that at least we knew she was happy there!

I honestly don't think it's got anything to do with bed time and evening routine. I think your CM is overreacting a bit although I know you can't ever be careful enough and she has a duty of care. So I do get it BUT kids do this though, she should know.

My toddler DS will kick off sometimes without any apparent reason when I'm picking him up from nursery and not Daddy (Daddy rarely does, mind you, as he works FT & me PT). I look after him 80% of the time and still he will talk mostly about Daddy in nursery and about things they do together and I'm kind of forgotten It's a phase kids go through, they just voice their preference, asserting themselves to see what happens. DS screams & cries every time when going into to nursery but we are sent pictures & videos within minutes of drop off, showing him happily eating his breakfast and playing. Same like your DS calming down in the car, once on the way home.

I once refused the go home from nursery with my grandma and I adored the bones of her! She tells me regularly, to this day, how embarrassed she was - but I was only tiny and it was definitely nothing personal!

There's nothing wrong with your bed time routine and I honestly don't believe you need to change anything around that.

My daughter has done this to her dad. Didn´t want to leave with him. Would start crying and kick up a major fuss. He was actually quite upset by it as he was saying to me he didn´t understand why she did it to him and not to me. The teacher at nursery told him it is probably that she has this idea in her head that she is going to see ME in no time and then he turns up and she is disappointed and just hasn´t got the vocabulary to express it so hence the meltdown. They grow out of that eventually, it is a phase. My daughter is 3.5 now and sometimes goes this route but seldom. Now we remind her to speak, Oh im sad mummy didn´t come as I wanted to tell her x...she is much better now she can speak