3.5 year old not wanting to go to pre-school

[summerlovingvibes]

She's there 3 days a week 9-3 and then the childminder picks her up until we finish work at 5.

She's been going since last September. Since about 2 months in she now says every day she doesn't want to go / tears / upset / gets herself worked up etc.

Every day she comes home happy / excited / chatty / full of beans / saying about all the things she's done / who she has seen etc.

Have spoken to pre-school & child minder. Nothing anyone can identify / when she is there she doesn't mention or appear to be un-happy.

I've tried talking to her about it / have tried giving her lots of notice / tried no notice and just half hour before.

Is this normal? How can I stop the tears when she appears to love it when there?

Also she has a "best friend" who she LOVES who goes there. Talks about this girl all the time.

So I'm just at a loss as to why she doesnt want to go.

Getting stressful / hard work trying to reassure her all the time. She doesn't always manage to eat breakfast because she's upset then we have to go etc.

Is it just a phase? Do I just have to get her to "man up / get on with it" etc or do I pander to this?

How long does it take her to settle once she's there? That's the key for me.

I wish I knew the answer! My daughter is exactly the same and I’m finding it so hard and I feel so guilty when she is upset every morning going in. I’ve spoken to the school and she is happy while she is there and has made some lovely friends that we have met for play dates etc, but there are still tears as soon as she sees her uniform in the morning.

@SuperSange literally walks straight in and doesn't look back. No tears at the door etc.

It's just in the run up to getting out the house in the morning. Once she's in the car she's ok really.

If that's the case I'd not give it another thought tbh.

@UsernamePain obviously not glad you're in the same position, but nice to know I'm not alone!

I don't know if it's just she'd rather be at home with me (although im at work so not actually just at home). They do SO many more interesting activities than I'd ever be able to imagine to do here!

One thing I wasn't sure of is the uniform. Some children wear it and some don't. I get her to wear a "uniform" t-shirt just so she doesn't get her clothes grubby, but her friend doesn't wear a uniform. So I have wondered if it's that or not / if I should try without?

@SuperSange thanks, that's reassuring. It's just working out how much energy I spend in the mornings trying to comfort her and make it better (whilst then getting late etc) or if I need to get a bit more matter of fact / tough about it.

DS1 was like this, he's now almost 5 and I think he's just a bit rubbish at the transition of leaving the house! Once we're out it's fine, but unless it's something like a birthday party he'll try any tactic to delay.

What helped us was having a very clear routine that included some playtime. We do up, breakfast, toilet, dressed, play time. Then an alarm goes off and it's time to leave the house. The alarm was the game changer for us. I think it must make have made it seem like it wasn't a decision I could control maybe? I didn't find consoling did much as there wasn't actually a reason he didn't want to go.

Oh, and snails. He got really fascinated with snails so every morning we tried to spot snails on the walk in, which was a pretty exciting reason to leave the house.

Definitely a phase. My dd is 3 years 4 months and does 2 full days a week. She is exactly the same atm and has been going there for 2 years straight!

i wrote an extremely similar post today - it’s been absolute scenes the past week and I have failed twice to get her there.
She’s also 3.5 and I’m hoping this is just a case of needing to settle after Christmas break again!

@Merrow good idea, we do have a very solid structure if the morning and perhaps I need to just get her up a bit earlier (although she hates being woken) but to give her some play time. Might try the idea of an alarm as well. Thanks for suggestion.

@YellowWiggle reassuring to know! Will put it down to just a phase then :)