How to approach key worker leaving nursery to my 15m old?

[Kaitnath]

I’m feeling really emotional. I’ve just seen my 15m old’s keyworker is leaving next week. My daughter goes 3 full days per week and is completely in love with this keyworker, pretends to ring her on her ‘pone’ at weekends and I’ve seen her trying to give her kisses when she gets there of a morning. My daughter has been there since just under 8 months old and she’s almost 16 months so for 8 months this woman has been a huge part of her life. My dad, her grandad works away and she doesn’t understand so she walks around my mums looking for him, calling him and can get quite upset and now I can’t help but get really emotional wondering if she’ll look for her and get upset and I’m not there to comfort her. I know she’d have moved up rooms eventually but they described it as such a slow process where the keyworker would be really involved in making sure she was comfortable and the move wouldn’t happen until she’d built that closeness with the new keyworker. She won’t understand that she’s just gone one day. Any advice? Tips? Please. You might be able to tell, I’m a first time mum so haven’t ever been through anything like this and I don’t want my little girl to be upset.

What have the nursery done so far to transition her to the new key worker?

Aww that's tough, poor little sausage. I'd speak to the key worker & ask what is being done re the transition.

if you can I'd pick her up a bit earlier the first few days and be prepared for some restless nights.

Not a clue. I’ll be asking tomorrow at drop off. They use an app which is how I found out, via a post on there saying she’s leaving next week.

She will be fine. She might ask where she is etc but don’t make a fuss about it. You will likely be more bothered than DD (due to worry) Sounds harsh but she will move on pretty quickly.

It sounds harsh but she will probably forget her! My daughter had a couple of staff that she was really attached to over her nursery years and once they were gone for a while she would just forget. One of them it was like they were joined at the hip! Hopefully someone new will come in who she will fall in love with. I found it was harder for me because these people feel like part of the family and you start to wonder how your toddler can be so fickle. In short, she might be upset for a day or two but try not to bring up the key worker and she will move on.

So we went through this last week actually, but funnily enough, within a week she realised she had made a mistake and came back!! At the time however I was actually on the verge of tears. To lose someone with two decades worth of experience with babies and someone my child was very close to and helped us a lot was hard but like pp have said for babies this young, they don’t remember. It seems harsh and for us it feels like a blow and a big upset but within the week I would bet any baby would move on quickly. Do you know of they have a second key carer? In our nursery they have a primary and secondary carer which softened the blow a little bit because I knew someone else who knew him was still there but like I said, I think it’s more us as parents that take the news worse than the babies and if it’s a good nursery, any of the staff should be enough to provide safety and comfort for your baby.