will cut and paste as it's part of an article. Sorry for length.
How to avoid the sorrow of parting
Mothers going back to work often have an almost overanxious relationship with their child, because they are counting down to their last days together.
Being a parent is about preparing your child for leaving you as an adult. But this move to independence can start from a very early age. So if your child is going to be away from you as a baby, you must be very relaxed about leaving her with a friend for a few hours, with granny or for sleepovers.
If you have done that by the time she gets to nursery, she understands the idea of separation better than children who have been held very close by their anxious mothers, who are living with the guilt of the impending separation.
Once you have decided to go back to work, you must not infuse your child with your emotions. It's difficult. But it's difficult the first day that he goes to school, the first time that he goes camping and the first time that he goes on a bus alone. If you leave in tears, you make it stressful for your child and for the nursery staff.
Don't give the key workers chapter and verse on your child's likes and dislikes.
One of the positives about nursery is that children become adaptable and flexible, so you must expect things to be done differently from home. And that's not a bad thing.
Fifty years ago, children were in and out of other people's houses. It was normal. That was the way communities worked. Every house was different but your parents picked you up at the end of the day, they put you to bed, they loved you and the world was great. Now we have adopted ?zero-risk parenting? and hold on to our children so tightly that we fear any shift from our routine. Instead we risk producing neurotic adults.
As Hillary Clinton said - quoting an old African proverb - ?It takes a village to raise a child?. But we have lost that village, so nurseries have become the modern equivalent. If a child sees that you are relaxed with the staff, there is a consistency in his or her life. If, however, he sees you going in frothing at the mouth because Johnny has been bitten by another boy, he will be anxious - so it's about being relaxed while ensuring that the standards remain your own.
As long as the core relationship with you is consistent - and when at home your energies are devoted to your children - they will probably thrive at nursery.
DR TANYA BYRON