Hellobee

This summer has been an eventful one at the Carrot patch, with perhaps the most exciting development being that Baby C started a new daycare this week!

The Washington D.C. area is notoriously expensive when it comes to daycare, so when we were choosing Baby C’s daycare as she was still in utero, we debated between a center-based daycare and in-home daycare. Ultimately, we decided that in-home daycare would be our best option while Baby C was an infant, because she really just needed to have her basic needs met. We found a wonderful provider and a very comfortable cost, and Baby C has been there since she was 4 months old. After her first birthday, though, we began looking for a more structured environment for her. Baby C is a very quick learner who loves to explore, and her daycare wasn’t providing a lot of activity beyond just open play.

It took us a year but as of this week, Baby C is attending a new daycare right near our house. They have everything we were looking for in a program – NAECY-accredited (the “gold standard” of daycare regulation, which I admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for), fairly affordable (comparatively speaking, for the area), close to home (which saves us a lengthy commute with a feisty toddler in the car), and most of all, they have a broad range of activities that focus primarily on play, but provide a bit of variety as well – art, cooking, dress-up, outside exploration, and beyond.

Baby C is a fairly social kid, but I worried about this transition. She’s only known the same caretakers since she was 4 months old, and she is used to a group of 4-5 kids at most around her. She’s an only child, and so far, we only have a handful of friends who have kids, so her exposure to other children and general structure, like circle time and other guided activity, is minimal. And then, of course, there’s the age factor. Separation anxiety tends to be most acute in toddlers, so even though Baby C is normally not a clingy kid and we’re hopefully at the sunset of that phase, it’s still something we contend with, even at the daycare she’s been used to.

To facilitate Baby C’s transition, we decided to try a few strategies:

1) Start talking about the new daycare ASAP.

We had a few weeks between the time that we locked in Baby C’s place at the new daycare and when she would start, so as soon as everything was finalized, we started talking to Baby C about “big girl school.” We pointed out various items in books and TV shows, like kids with backpacks, and whenever we’d do activities that she would be doing at the new daycare, like painting, we’d talk about how she would get to do more of that at her new “school.”

2) Make an introduction.

On the Friday before her official start day, I had to drop off some final paperwork, so I asked the director if I could bring Baby C by to introduce her to the group and the teachers. She was absolutely on board, so we came by and explored Baby C’s new classroom, let her play with some toys there, and then took her outside, where the group was at the time, to meet the teachers and kids she would be with. This way, come Monday, she had a point of reference to where she was.

3) Buy a special item to differentiate between old and new daycare. 

Since we had already been talking about “big girl school,” I told Baby C that everyone brings a backpack to the school, something she hadn’t had at her previous daycare. We picked out a small backpack that would house her change of clothes and various items, and a new stuffed puppy that she saw on the shelf at Target and insisted that it had to come to “big girl school” with her. On Monday morning, she was outfitted with both and ready to go.

Big school, big kid!

4) Build in some flexibility.

It’s very hard to predict how kids will adjust to a new environment. Some may transition seamlessly; others sometimes skip meals and/or naps or have a hard time integrating until they find their comfort level. Friends of ours had moved their 3 year old to a new school a few months earlier, and we’d heard a lot of stories from them about the hard time their son was having. Thus, just in case, I decided to take a week of vacation and make no plans so that if Baby C was having a rough time, we could have the flexibility to do a few half days or have me be on site for some time while she adapts. I let her teachers and the center director know that I would be available and flexible all week, and they were very willing to give me updates and recommendations based on how Baby C would do day to day.

5) Don’t sneak out, and don’t linger. 

The morning drop-off is usually a tough time for kids this age, and especially so in new places. We’ve had on-and-off phases of Baby C crying when we would drop her off even at her old daycare, so we expected this to be the case this week. On her first day, Baby C was enthralled by all the fun toys and activities so she went off exploring. Not wanting to distract her, we left the room to put her things in her classroom and heard a hysterical wail a minute later. She wanted to show us what cool things she found and realized we weren’t there.

In the past, Mr. Carrot and I made a concerted effort to let Baby C know that we were leaving, and let a teacher distract her from there. She was always fine a few minutes later, so as hard as it was to hear her upset, we knew it was just a passing thing. By sneaking out, we made her afraid, and experts usually recommend not doing this because it makes the child fearful and less trusting. On the following days, we made sure to let her know that we were leaving and we left quickly. As hard as it is to hear your kid crying, the less you linger the better – it only prolongs what’s going to be upsetting to them anyway, and there is no amount of convincing that will work on a toddler that doesn’t want mom and dad to leave. The faster you leave, the faster they can get distracted and start calming down.

6) Bring familiar items.

Our new daycare recommended that we bring a blanket and a stuffed toy if that was something Baby C responded to. She picked out a new stuffed puppy herself, without any prompting from us, but we decided to bring one of her blankets from home so that she had something comfortable with her. In the early days, also keep that key item nearby. We forgot to grab Baby C’s puppy one day, and when she was upset at drop-off, she asked for it and we didn’t have it nearby. Familiar things will go a long way toward their feeling of security.

7) Revisit the fun.

At the end of each day, we gather all the information from her teachers about their day, and then try to talk to Baby C about what she did throughout the day. Our new daycare provides us a list of activities for the week, and reports on what they ate and how they slept/acted each day, so we have lots of information for discussion. Baby C is still a bit young to recall things in specific detail herself, but with prompting from us about the fun craft that she did or the great lunch she may have had, it creates for a foundation of good memories for her and more stability down the road.

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Thankfully, Baby C appears to have taken to her new daycare very well. Despite rough mornings at dropoff, she gets distracted easily and calms down quickly and has been fine throughout each day. I called and checked in for the first few days, and she had done just fine, so we let her stay for the whole day and followed our usual schedule. Every kid will react differently, and these steps really helped us feel like we were ready for any kind of result.

What tips have you found to be helpful in big transitions like this?