How to cope with starting nursery

[Wmoejg]

My daughter (8 months old) has started nursery this week, after doing 3 settle in days and she seems to hate it.
She has spent time with many other people and has been a very social baby, although much of the time this has been with me still there. She has however spent every Friday with her grandmother so is happy to be left alone with family.
Anyway, on her first settle she was fine, happy and had a great time. However, the second and third she's refused to eat / drink and has spent much of the time really upset.
I feel like an absolutely horrendous parent and don't want this to have any long term impact on her (attachment?). She has her first full day on Wednesday and I'm absolutely dreading it. Although she does seem to have started to build a relationship with her key worker, it feels like she still is very unsettled with the idea of nursery and I feel like I'm being cruel.
She is supposed to do 2 full days a week with the other 2 with me and the other 1 with my mother. How long does it take for them to adapt? Is it cruel when they're so upset? How can I make this easier?
I'm getting my partner to collect her earlier tomorrow so she's not there for the entire day.

We have no other choice but to send her to nursery for those 2 days as we're both working. Me part time, my partner full time.

Thanks in advance x

If you have to work then she has to be in nursery, it's hard but it's something you all have to push through if there is no other option.

3 not-even-full settling days is really nothing and not long enough to build substantial relationships with key workers, at least not enough to take the place of your relationship with her while she's there. So she's feeling a bit bewildered right now.

Going more frequently and consistently would definitely help since 2 days is so little, but if that's how it is then this can't be helped.

In time she will settle, and eat/drink/sleep/play there. You just have to get through. Where I live the settling in period "officially" lasts a month minimum and that's with going every day. I have a little boy just finishing his settling period and I also work in this area. It's just takes time.
😓

Hang in there it’s tough! Most of the babies in my NCT group have taken a month or two to properly settle in nursery. That’s been the case for us too and my DD has been taking her favourite stuffed toy to help her settle and also using her dummy more than usual (at home only for sleep) but is finally starting to get on better without either. I also think it might be easier to settle with more days at nursery rather than less.

I promise she will settle OP.

I've never felt as horrendous as when ds started nursery, was convinced I was ruining his childhood and he'd never forgive me, but I swear it passes.
3 settling days isn't a lot, it'll take a couple of weeks for her to settle, and in a month you'll wonder why you worried so much when she barely gives you a backwards glance as she goes in.
Nursery is amazing for their development and skills, and 2 days a week isn't much. Its fab that you still get 2 full weekdays with her too.
Hang in there