Toddler pre school morning nightmare

[AlexisP90]

DS 3.5 has been at nursery since 6 months.

He changed nurseries when he was 2, and we have just moved so hes now at a new pre school.

He has never really liked nursery. Tears in the morning, tears dropping him off. They say hes fine when we leave and hes happy at pick up... but its still so hard.

His new pre school is wonderful. Hes been there a few weeks now and hes happy at pick up.

My issue is getting him there in the morning is an absolute nightmare. He screams, cries and point blank refuses to go. Im exhausted from the absolute struggle to get him ready and out the door in time.

It was the same at his old nursery but a little easier to put him in the buggy and get him there.

Again, hes always happy at pick up and the staff say hes fine when I leave and settles after about 30 minutes.

Any advice welcome! I try to make it super positive in the mornings about going but its breaking my heart.

He starts school next September so I feel like even if I could keep him at home (would be hard around work but with family possible just) im not really doing him any favours by doing that anyway.

He's upset every morning getting ready and 30mins every morning at school? And this had been for a year and a half?

I'd have taken him out of nursery after a few weeks if he hadn't settled. That sounds miserable. My eldest was hard to settle but we did 1 hour sessions for 2 weeks and he then went in fine.

Could you do a couple of weeks of afternoons to switch it up and break the habit of upset morning?

How is he on non preschool mornings?

We did all this at his old nursery. We changed from full time to 4 days then 3 days and the same thing. We stayed with him for a few afternoon sessions there and he was fine.

Its literally just the going that seems to be a nightmare. They never call me, hes happy at pick up and they say hes had a great day.

Non school mornings hes fine. It seems he just prefers to be at home which i get but its not possible and not helping him settle for school.

We used to have a "no going back upstairs" rule when my two were preschool (though it was the logistics rather than getting them out of the house that was the problem. We even put bags in the car the night before. Getting ready on time = Cbeebies until whatever time (we had a cutoff of Octonauts finishing). This might not help you get out of the house but it might distract him from complaining about it?

True... good idea. At the moment we do no TV in the morning which obviously adds to the level of complaining.

Might try your idea though.

Our routine until about Y3 (DD was in Y1 at that point, DS in Y3) was dressed and teeth upstairs, shoes kept downstairs, down for breakfast, when that's done and your shoes are on (and other relevant items e.g. water bottle/reading book/sunscreen in the summer are sorted - bags in the car wasn't needed any more at school age because they were better at going out and/or we were walking) then you can watch TV. It goes off after X programme (we have a Google plug so it would go off from my phone) and out we go. If necessary stand between child and the rest of the house/the stairs so they can't bolt upstairs.