How Daycare is going (Part 1)

I’ve been leading up to the daycare transition for a little while now. The process has started and I’m going to talk about it in small chunks.

Part 1

On his first day before drop-off, I was pretty emotional. I had to try my best to pull it together so I could hype my son up about his new adventure. 

When we walked in, it wasn’t as bad as I envisioned. He seemed pretty excited by all the toys and wanted to go and play with them. I gave him a little wave and let the daycare lady know I would come back for him in a couple of hours. I was so proud of his confidence and willingness to explore. 

He was really excited when I came back and we had a great rest of the day. I thought the crisis was averted, maybe this won’t be so bad. 

The next day, he started crying as soon as we walked through the door. I asked his daycare person what was easier for him for me to do. She suggested leaving and reassured me it was normal for him to be upset and he would turn around and calm down once I left. 

I felt so much guilt over the next few mornings to come. I kept worrying he thought I was abandoning him since this kept happening at drop off. I started to question myself. I was so worried he would start to become less attached or upset with me. 

I would recommend finding a daycare that uses a daycare app if you can. I was able to see throughout the day that my son was having a great time. It really helped reassure me that it was just the initial goodbye that he was having a hard time with. 

I was having a hard time too. The first few days, when I was back at home without him I would randomly panic out of worry about him and not knowing exactly what he was doing in that moment. I was struggling with the separation anxiety too and still will for a while yet I’m sure. 

I’ve had a lot of feelings like I’m forgetting something. I’ve been anxious that I'll let something slip through the cracks since everything’s been out of whack. I’m picking him up around the end of the day and it’s almost time to get ready for bed by the time we get home. It’s such a switch in routine. 

Another gut wrenching part was picking him up one of the days and having the daycare person let me know that he had taken his first steps. I was so emotional that I missed that. I was beating myself up that I didn’t get to see a huge first of his. Something that we had been working on for months. 

What helped console me was reminding myself that he will do it again for me and it will still be the first time I will get to see it and it will still be just as exciting. She did get a few videos of it as well and seeing how excited he was that he did it definitely helped heal the wound. 

We’ve also loved seeing videos of him making new friendships with other kids. He wasn’t really getting that when he was at home with me. We went to baby groups but not for long periods of time. I was with him the whole time too so he kind of clung to me or the toys rather than venture out to socialize. 

At daycare, there was a video of him reaching out to give another child a hug. He has been painting with the other kids, playing outside with them and sharing toys. It was heart melting to see some of the kids pressed up against the window and saying “Mason’s here, he’s back!” 

The daycare person let me know that one of the children has taken a bit of a mother hen role to Mason. He’s the youngest there and she’s always helping him out. We're so glad he's been getting such a warm welcome. In hindsight, it all worked out great that he didn't get that other spot due to his allergies. There's always a greater plan at play.

I think that’s all there is to share for now. Stay tuned for part two where I’ll talk a bit more about how it’s going after actually having started back at work. 

P.s If you are able to start daycare a week or so before returning to work I would highly recommend it and thanks to those of you who recommended it to me. I have had a lot of meltdowns throughout the first week or so and I would have found this transition a lot more difficult if I was already back at work. It was nice to start out with a couple of part-time days as well to ease the separation anxiety as much as one can. I’m really grateful we were able to do it this way.