Daycare dilema

Hi there

My son is 20 months old and has been going to day care since he was 12
mths. He goes for 3 days a week from 10am - 4pm. The last 3 weeks he
has become very clingy and doesn't want me to leave. He has never been
clingy before in any situation unless he is sick. He doesn't sleep
very well at day care so I'm not sure if he is worried about nap time.
He is only clingy going to day care. If I leave the room in a
different situation (around at a friends, etc) he is fine. He knows
the staff well at daycare.

Sidheag McCormack...

Has he recently been ill, does he have a cold, or has anything else
happened to make him feel under par in some way? We find that our son, who
is generally very happy at nursery, will have trouble being left in the
morning for a while under such circumstances; then becomes fine again once
he's fully well/settled.

I just don't know what to do. I'm sending him for his own benefit as
they do so many cool things and there is a high staff to child ratio.
He used to love going there. Over the last weeks I've left him and
he's got over me going but stayed a bit grisly over the day. Today I
took him back home with me. He was so upset and everytime I gave him
to someone else or put him down he got so upset.

Sidheag McCormack...

One thing I will say is that multiple attempts to give him to someone else
or put him down ("everytime") is probably a mistake, I think. I'd say there
are basically three options: (a) stay with him until he calms down and
you're pretty sure he'll be OK when you leave - and then *do* leave,
whether or not he cries when you do so - or (b) just leave him crying, or
(c) aim for (a), but observe that he's not reaching a state where you feel
confident leaving him, so just take him home (and I think that should
really be exceptional - it's really a situation where you've reached "oops,
shouldn't have started from here"). That is, don't appear uncertain of what
to do, by repeatedly looking as though you're about to leave him and then
not doing so.

Am I creating a spoilt child? Do I drop him off say "bye" and run or

Chookie...

I doubt it.

do I drop him off and run away when he's not looking? Or do not send

Chookie...

Definitely don't run when he's not looking; it's unkind and dishonest. Some
people think it makes the child more anxious because they never know when you
are going to disappear.

Have a ritual goodbye, where you always do things in the same order eg say
goodbye and tell him to have an enjoyable day, hug and kiss, then wave to him

Nikki...

You also might like the book "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn. It is a
story about a little raccoon that didn't want to leave his mama to go to
school. My kids liked it although I'll admit it didn't make much difference
when Luke was really not into going to daycare. I was just gentle and did
the ritual goodbye and left.

from the door.

Your day care providers should be able to give you advice on handling this.

him until he's older? I don't know what to do.

Sidheag McCormack...

Mmm. If he's staying noticeably grisly over the day, that's a bit different
from what we've seen from our son. If he's not his usual self from about 10
minutes after we leave, then it does seem to mean he's feeling unwell. The
"being unsettled" pattern is that he cries on being left and is then his
usual self a few minutes later. Do you have more information about exactly
what he's like during the day? Do the staff think he's unwell (teething?),
or are there specific situations he doesn't like, or what? When you took
him home today, was he fine with you for the rest of the day, or was he
also a bit grisly with you, which would strongly suggest he's not feeling
quite well?

If you do decide to carry on taking him, I'd advise against the "run off
when he's not looking" approach, but there are several options. This is
hearsay since it's DH who takes Colin, not me, but DH has a variety of
techniques which seem to have in common that they allow a bit of reluctance
on Colin's part and involve some distraction - being tickled (at just the
right moment, no good doing that if he's already crying, I'd think!), or
immediately distracted with a request to do something; allowing the
drop-off process to take longer than it might if it were going smoothly,
anyway. Other people find that it works best to just do it as fast as
possible, the say goodbye and run approach.

On the few occasions when I've been the one to take Colin in the morning
(which is in itself disruptive, of course, and only happens if DH is away)
then what I find helps is if I talk to him all the way there about what's
going to happen, in detail - "when we get there you'll take off your coat
and I'll take you into the playroom and ..... and I'll go to work and work
all day and you'll stay at nursery and play, and in the afternoon I'll come
and fetch you". Repeat repeat repeat!

Has anyone got any links to research about daycare for under twos?

Sidheag McCormack...

It's not quite clear what the research question would be? Are you hoping
for research specifically on how to do separation, or on more generally
whether daycare is good for a 20 month old child? There's no very clear
answer to the latter, AIUI - the one thing everyone's agreed on is that it
matters that the daycare be high quality (as it sounds as though yours is).
Personally, my feeling is that high quality daycare is a good thing for a
20 month old child, but you really have to balance it for your own child,
taking the rest of your family situation into account.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003

an588...

I did a web search and found this page,
which summarizes some research and gives some
references:

Generally, it suggests that daycare is bad for young
children's emotional development. Intuitively, I would
think this would tend to apply especially (or only?)
when the child is unhappy about separating from the parents.

Thanks for listening,
Camille