Creche Potentially Not Going Well - What To Do?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

So our 12 month old had very first experience of creche this week. She went on Monday for an hour and by all accounts it was OK. She went again today and it is a disaster, bawling her eyes out even though Mam was still there and not being able to be soothed. I have a fear that creche isn't going to be a possibility. She has low muscle tone and apparently one of the effects of this is that they can be very fearful and cautious children.

I'm afraid that creche might not work out for her at all. Has anyone experienced this? I know a childminder is a possibility, though I'm a little concerned with that as well as currently she's not a fan of anyone being near her other than Mum and Dad.

shesty

To my mind, there's two sides to this.Firstly, it's only been two days.She's at a particularly clingy age (in my experience).So it may resolve itself over time.Two days is very short.

The other side is that we went with a minder because a creche would simply have been too much for our first.She is super outgoing, friendly etc, but she is very switched on, takes absolutely everything in, and spending an entire day in a creche with a bunch of kids ....she would have been completely overwhelmed (and therefore totally nuts, because that's how she expresses it) by the time evening came.It would have been detrimental to her, the minder's is a calmer, quieter environment with less input, less going on, more outdoor unstructured play and she can go have her own quiet time at the TV or on the sofa if she needs to have a rest(which she does, but she's a bit older now, so she knows better whem to stop....mostly).She is just that type of child.When you think about it, small children can handle playdates of maybe 45 mins to an hour realistically.Some handle longer ones better (my child was not one of those), others don't.So a whole day in a room with a bunch of kids, when you can't talk and express yourself properly (since they are so small) is probably very overwhelming for some children.

I do understand creches are a necessity of life and plenty of kids do just fine in them.But I guess you know your own child.You could give it another few tries and if it's not working out, maybe it's time to look at other options.Don't worry about socialising her or anything, that all comes with time and age.If she's not happy in the creche, you will be quite stressed, and it's hard enough to leave them anyway without feeling like that.

annoyedgal

It's a very stressful time. They are quite aware at 12 months too so it may take sometime for her to settle.
My little one was 10 months starting and was devastated as had never left me before. To be honest it was 2 weeks before he fully settled but the worst was over after a week.

Can you do a settling in period over a few days consecutively and build it up slowly? Our guy loves it now and even though we moved him, he settled the second time so much quicker.

I would definitely give it more time however a child minder is also a great option if you find someone you like are happy with. Either way it's a tough time so be good to yourselves and good luck.

Kintarō Hattori

annoyedgal wrote: »

It's a very stressful time. They are quite aware at 12 months too so it may take sometime for her to settle.
My little one was 10 months starting and was devastated as had never left me before. To be honest it was 2 weeks before he fully settled but the worst was over after a week.

Can you do a settling in period over a few days consecutively and build it up slowly? Our guy loves it now and even though we moved him, he settled the second time so much quicker.

I would definitely give it more time however a child minder is also a great option if you find someone you like are happy with. Either way it's a tough time so be good to yourselves and good luck.

That's what this week was supposed to be about. She went for an hour on Monday and it wasn't too bad. She was supposed to be there yesterday but was recovering after have a reaction to her 12 month vaccinations. So she was there for a while today with Mam but was bawling even though Mam was there with her.

annoyedgal

It's a very stressful time. They are quite aware at 12 months too so it may take sometime for her to settle.
My little one was 10 months starting and was devastated as had never left me before. To be honest it was 2 weeks before he fully settled but the worst was over after a week.

Can you do a settling in period over a few days consecutively and build it up slowly? Our guy loves it now and even though we moved him, he settled the second time so much quicker.

I would definitely give it more time however a child minder is also a great option if you find someone you like are happy with. Either way it's a tough time so be good to yourselves and good luck.

Cakerbaker

It took our guy who was 12 months a good 2 weeks to settle in. Even then he’d cry when we dropped him off for a good while after that though the staff would send a pic a few mins later of him happy out! It’s big change, new people, new surroundings and a new routine all at once.

What seemed to help was one girl in particular took him under her wing and he was happy in her care. Then he got used to the others as time passed. He’s now over 2 and there’s still mornings he doesn’t want to go in though they’re usually the days he doesn’t want to leave when we pick him up!

appledrop

You can't just write off the creche because you child cried on second day. As other posters have said when they are a little bit later starting creche they are more likely to be upset leaving mammy or daddy but this is going to be like this even if child minder. My little boy went at 7 mths + has never had an issue. Loves creche. Sometimes parent remaining in room doesn't help. We had a settling in week + over week extended time + I also removed myself from room for a while + went to staff room. If staff couldn't settle him they could come + get me but he was fine. Give it at least a month before making any decision.

Wexy86

I started my then 15 months old in Jan for 2 days a week in Jan, just to mix. By god she sobbed for the first month, it’s a big adjustment. I slowly built up the time and made sure she was never one of the last kids lefts. After about 6 weeks she loved it, waving me off and off she goes. She’ll have the odd day where she doesn’t want to go which is totally normal. You need to give it a few more weeks with a gradual approach before deciding it’s not for you. And if it’s not a minder might be best way to go.

Cakerbaker

Just to warn from my experience that a minder may not be any better / may be worse so consider that before leaving your place in crèche. We had our guy with a minder for 6 weeks before crèche. She was lovely, I really liked her and way of doing things, she had 2 of her own kids, it seemed perfect. But he just didn’t settle there. Would be frantic leaving when we were leaving in the morning, she often had to ring us to pick him up early. It got to the stage it was obvious he just wasn’t going to settle there so we took the decision to try crèche. The 2 weeks it took to settle him in crèche were a dream compared to his time at the childminders.

It is hard, you have to leave them, they’re upset cos you’re leaving them somewhere different, it takes time for them to get used to this new place and new people and you’ve to try to judge how unhappy for how long is ok. So just to say I know it’s tough, it may not be as easy as you thought I’d be but it will work out once you find what works for you, it’ll just take a bit of time for baby to adjust to and be happy with whatever you go with, it won’t be instant.

fits

One of my boys didn’t settle with a busy Childminder. We switched and he was much happier with the new one. Give the crèche a chance. But don’t be afraid to change if it’s not right for the little one.

jlm29

A friend of mine went through three childminders and two crèches before her little boy settled in crèche. He was very clingy and cautious, but the minders didn’t suit him, and neither did the first crèche they tried. I’d give it a bit longer, but be researching options, just in case!

angeldelight

Funnily enough I think mammy being there would make it harder for them to settle - they can pick up so easily on anxieties etc even when we try and hide them.

Our Creche had a totally different settling in policy which was stay for longer periods from the start as the owner had found that much less stressful for the kids over the many years she has been running it so our 16 month olds first day was 5/6 hours or so... she loved it! I was amazed when they sent me a pic of her fast asleep dead on nap time just went down with the other kids no bother, and she had refused to sleep anywhere else we’d ever tried her!

I’d give it a bit longer, could still be feeling not 100% after the vaccinations too

sillysocks

angeldelight wrote: »

Funnily enough I think mammy being there would make it harder for them to settle - they can pick up so easily on anxieties etc even when we try and hide them.

Agree with this.... my one and a half year old still gives out a bit when I go to leave the childminders in the morning. I know she enjoys it and is fine a minute after I’m gone and it’s definitely a case of out of sight out of mind.
Might be worth trying your wife to even go to another part of the cre even if she doesn’t want to leave altogether and see how the baby goes on it’s own.

Neyite

Give it a couple of weeks to properly assess it.

Bawling for mammy is totally normal for the first few days- even couple of weeks but they do get distracted quickly (usually) by some new toy or the other children.

The creche will tell you if your child is taking longer than the norm to settle in.

Kintarō Hattori

Neyite wrote: »

Give it a couple of weeks to properly assess it.

Bawling for mammy is totally normal for the first few days- even couple of weeks but they do get distracted quickly (usually) by some new toy or the other children.

The creche will tell you if your child is taking longer than the norm to settle in.

We were talking about this for the last day or two and we've taken the decision to not put her in the creche just yet. I know they require time to settle in but we both feel that really, emotionally, she's not ready for it. Bare in mind that we mentioned she has low muscle tone, kids with this can be more anxious, fretful than normal and combined with the fact she's not crawling/walking yet we think it's just too much for her.
It has gotten to the stage that when someone walked into the room she panics and looks to 'climb' you, turning inside out and bawling. She'd end up randomly crying at home, such as when having dinner and sometimes when going for a nap, to the point that she was inconsolable.

I'd be somewhat more emotionally hardened or logical perhaps than Mam but no-one knows your own child better than yourself and we don't think she was having a typical reaction to creche, we feel it was more severe than it should have been. We're not ruling it out completely, more so that we're delaying it until we feel she'll be better able to cope.

Neyite

You know her best, and your instincts are to be trusted - if you can hold off on creché by all means do. I think most of us would.

Liam McPoyle

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

We were talking about this for the last day or two and we've taken the decision to not put her in the creche just yet. I know they require time to settle in but we both feel that really, emotionally, she's not ready for it. Bare in mind that we mentioned she has low muscle tone, kids with this can be more anxious, fretful than normal and combined with the fact she's not crawling/walking yet we think it's just too much for her.
It has gotten to the stage that when someone walked into the room she panics and looks to 'climb' you, turning inside out and bawling. She'd end up randomly crying at home, such as when having dinner and sometimes when going for a nap, to the point that she was inconsolable.

I'd be somewhat more emotionally hardened or logical perhaps than Mam but no-one knows your own child better than yourself and we don't think she was having a typical reaction to creche, we feel it was more severe than it should have been. We're not ruling it out completely, more so that we're delaying it until we feel she'll be better able to cope.

Our little man had/has low muscle tone too, was diagnosed around 10 months old. He too took a bit of adjusting when it comes to child care. We went with a child minder and for the first week he cried at drop off and pick up. For approx weeks 2 to 3 he cried at drop off. After that there was the occasional wobble but now at just gone 14 months there isn't a bother on him and there are mornings when he will put the arms out to go to the minder.

In terms of the LMT, have you been doing physio with her?

When our guy was diagnosed he was commando crawling and could sit up unaided but we would have always left cushions behind him as he tended to topple over if he over stretched or leaned back too much.

In the last 4 months he has come on leaps and bounds. He is now bombing around the place on all 4's as opposed to the commando crawl, can sit for as long as you like unaided and without cushions around him and is now pulling himself up into a standing position.

One of the concerns that was raised following the diagnosis of LMT was his development so he has had a raft of tests and assessments with that. It was agreed that he would benefit from some speech and language therapy so we had our first session of that a couple of weeks ago. We also had a consultation with a doctor in the Beacon the other day, i cant recall her name at the moment as I'm in work but she is seemingly the top developmental specialist in the country, at €300 for the initial consult she would want to be tbf, and she said she doesn't think we have anything to be worrying about.

She basically said to keep up the physio and the S & L therapy and come back to her in 6 months. We asked her about the walking and she said dont worry about it in any way. She said that once he is making progress ie he has gone from commando - crawling - pulling himself up, so the walking will follow naturally and in its own good time.

We do feel that he has benefited from being with the minder as with babies its very much a case of monkey see monkey do. The group our lad is with are all older than him so we do think that he has been copying them with the crawling and that has helped.

Obviously you know your own child best and its heartbreaking to see them upset but sometimes it is necessary, how was she when you or your o/h left her as in did she settle down alright once ye were out of sight?

fits

My twin with similar issues also had the severe reaction to first minder. I think you are right to delay it. There was a world of difference between my chap at eleven and fourteen months. He is eighteen months now. Not walking yet but not far off.

shesty

If she's not happy, you won't be happy.No need to justify it, it's your child and entirely your decision.

jamesbondings

I would say stick with it. I am not joking when I say our little lad screamed and cried for a week straight when he first attended childcare.... It was so bad the child minder actually said if it doesnt get any better over the coming weeks we may have to reconsider even sending him!
Sure enough after a day or so in the second week he calmed right down. He has been there over a year now and even asks on the weekend to go over!

It was very tough leaving him. But, they have to adapt. They will eventually. Tough it out all will be OK.