Settling baby into nursery

[Eulalia]

Has anyone here put an older child into nursery? I have a place for my child when he turns 2 (in July) and I also have a job interview coming up (full-time). I am concerned because he is so used to being at home that he may take it badly.

Also we plan to have another baby but I am not sure about when to do that. Two kids at nursery would be expensive but I wonder at what age my son could go to a state nursery? Perhaps I should just do the job for a year and give it up or would this just cause a lot of disruption for my son. The job is a starting salary of 15K and the nursery fees are £115 a week. I worked out that it would take up half of my salary. I could actually earn more working in a supermarket in the evenings as I'd have no childcare costs. However obviously this wouldn't be so enjoyable but then again I'd not need to work so many hours to earn it. Does anyone have any thoughts about a minimum figure to make it worthwhile doing full-time work?

My husband is keen for me to get a job and said he would help out with the housework. But in reality would this be the case as he is so used to me doing all of it now. Anyone else had experience of this? Also he is renovating our house so help at the weekends would be miniminal. I forsee myself spending all week working and all weekend doing the housework all for the sake of £100 a week. We could do with the money but are managing to struggle on just now. Am I being too negative. Perhaps I might enjoy the job - should I just think about now rather than trying to plan the future too much? I have awful thoughts too of my son hating nursery and me feeling dreadful. These are not helped by a friend at playgroup who thinks it is "unnatural" leaving kids at nurseries all day. Allright for her as she has a rich husband.

Any thoughts would be helpful as I have such mixed feelings just now. I know I've not got the job yet but I want to be prepared. Thanks.

I am going back to work, 3 days a week, next week. My 6 month old baby has been going to nursery all week this week, for an hour on Monday, 2 hours on Tuesday etc. She seems to be enjoying it (and eating loads of food!) but she's not getting any sleep. At home she was sleeping for an hour after breakfast and a bit longer after lunch - 2-3 hours altogether. She would settle herself fairly quickly in her cot. At nursery they usually get the babies to sleep in a bouncy chair although they do have a separate quieter room with cots. Her keyworker says that she has tried her in the cot and in the bouncer without success. I know that it's early days, but I just hate it when she doesn't sleep. She gets more and more hyperactive and much more difficult to settle at night.

Can anyone put my mind at rest? Will it get better when she gets more used to nursery?

Sunshine, I wouldn't worry too much about it. My daughter's been at nursery for a year now and still sleeps much less there than she does at home. At the weekend she sleeps for 1.5-2 hours in the morning, and about 1.5 hours in the afternoon. At nursery she now sleeps between 1 and 2 hours at lunchtime. When she first went down to one nap, she even sometimes had a nap when she came home. She is very grouchy when she gets home, but there's not really much you can do about it - there's too much going on at nursery for her to sleep in the morning! Also, you'll probably find that your baby will start to sleep longer at nursery the more settled she becomes. (I arrived at nursery every day for a week to find my daughter in tears, but now she cries as we leave - so embarrassing!)

Sunshine, I am sure she will sleep better soon. There is so much to see and do at a good nursery that I think most children there do sleep a bit less than they do at home. From what you say, I would keep encouraging her keyworker to try and get her down in the cot area, as that is bound to be quieter and less stimulating. You will find that when she is doing full days on a regular basis, and in tune with the nursery routine, she will adapt to having one routine for home days and another for nursery days.
Good luck with the return to work.

Thanks Rosy (my daughter's name!) and Marina - that's reassuring. The hardest thing about nursery is accepting that you no longer have control. You can direct the keyworkers to some extent but ultimately they have to do it their way. Baby doesn't really care - it's just me that has to get used to it!

I'm another mum about to send my daughter to nursery ( 3 days a week) and in a flap! I have to go back to work for a full week in mid October before my official maternity leave ends as we have a big launch that they need me to troubleshoot . I have arranged for Harper to go in to nursery for that week , and then I have a couple of weeks off before I start back properly ( beginning November) . Plus I am planning to continue breastfeeding - the nursery is handily next door to work so was plannning to go in at lunchtime. I am struggling to get her to take bottles of expresssed milk - she thinks the bottle is a toy! Am I going to totally confuse her by all of these changes - in fact it sounds like I'm the confused one!

Hi All
I too am getting ready to send my dd to nursery in Jan for 5 days a week (not sure may decrease this depends on work situ) I am very aprehensive about whether I am doing the right thing. My dd was 10 weeks prem so we have all been through alot already and I don't want to have got it wrong and she hates it. I just don't know how to cope as I am feeling strange all the time changing my mind about going back to work. Is this normal?

Hi alicats - I've just gone back to work. I always intended going back when my DD was 6 months, and was looking forward to it at one point! Now I'm back - while I know it's right for me and while I enjoy the company and even the work, leaving DD for full days at nursery has been harder than I expected. Sometimes I think it's te best thing for her - she's learning to be sociable etc, sometimes I feel bad. She seems happy though.

I have to say the nursey gave me unlimited taster session, dp and Iboth stayed with her once and then left her over 4 weeks for longer and longer sessions so by the time she went back I knew that she would eat, drink and sleep there, and that the staff knew her well. That did reassure me a lot.

Don't know if this is any help to you, but yes I'm sure it's normal to find it a difficult decision. I Hope that you manage to nake a decision that you're happy with.

I left my ds at nursery for 5 days a week from 6 months. Although I would have preferred a part-time arrangement, my employers were unwilling to even consider it. I really don't enjoy my job so I have been pretty miserable since returning but hand on heart, I really think ds has got a lot out of being at nursery. At 6 months they are easier to leave than if you leave it until say 8-12 months. We had a settling in period with him and he has never looked back really. The only times he gets upset about us leaving him is if we have been away on holiday and he has gotten used to being with his mummy and daddy 24/7.
He has grown in confidence, and his development has been pretty fast. He is certainly very sociable and enjoys the environment. At the end of the day, this may well be because his personality is well-suited to a nursery setting but we have been really pleased with how its worked out. Do your homework on nurseries carefully but remember that if things don't work out, there are always alternatives. For me, leaving him in a nursery was always going to be easier than interviewing and selecting a nanny/childminder but thats just my personal point of view.
Best of luck. It is certainly good to have some 'me' time after the very intense relationship you have when on maternity leave. But its perfectly normal to feel anxious about whether you have made the right choice.

For what its worth, our no 2 will be joining ds at the same nursery.....

Hiya ninja & LucieB

Many thanks for your comments.

Just to update you I have now sent in my letter to work about working from home & some flexibility, so I await to find out what they say there, fingers crossed .

I feel a bit better than I did before, me and dh are going to talk to the nursey on Wednesday and go through our concerns with them, hopefully they will give us something like a taster session so that we can see how we feel & most importantly whether dd seems happy.

LucieB I totally agree with you about choosing a childminder/nanny I wouldn't have a clue where to start, hence why I chose the nursery option plus I wanted dd to learn to be with other children etc.

Thanks again, Take Care
alicats

Best of luck Alicats. It all tends to work out well in the end. Trust your instincts when looking at nurseries and I do hope that your work are more sympathetic than mine!
I have to say that my ds has benefitted enormously from being at nursery although part-time would have been the ideal solution (for both of us).