I was very nervous before Charlie started daycare, so I talked to several local parents who had made the transition from full-time nanny to full-time daycare with similarly aged children.  I heard stories of kids crying so hard that their parents were called to come pick them up.  Another kid cried every.single.day for 7 weeks straight and then just when his parents were going to pull him out permanently, he decided that he loved daycare.  I feared Charlie would cry every day and the daycare would suggest we pull him out.  I feared Charlie wouldn’t nap at daycare because he was so used to sleeping in his own crib with blackout shades and a white noise machine.  I feared he wouldn’t eat enough because he’s always been a very picky eater.  I feared he would like being with his nanny much better than he’d like daycare, but we’d already committed to a one year nonrefundable contract.  The first week, I second guessed our decision to send Charlie to daycare as I left him crying with arms outstretched towards me every morning.  But it turns out all my fears were unfounded because this is Charlie’s fourth week of full-time daycare, and I think it’s safe to say that he’s thriving.

The first week he cried pretty hard at drop-off and sat in his stroller every day, watching the other kids play.  Because Charlie doesn’t have a lovey, his stroller provided a sense of comfort for him.  The second week he still cried every day, but for maybe 5 minutes or so after we left.  He asked to sit in his stroller every day, but the teachers convinced him not to, and he hasn’t sat in it since.  He was definitely clingier than usual, but overall seemed pretty much his happy self at home.  The third week he was still crying and whining, but sometimes it was as short as 10 seconds after we left.  We knew he liked daycare because he walked in by himself happily (whereas he would cry when we just got near it the first week).   He only got sad when he knew it was time for us to leave.  By the fourth week Charlie was still a little sad when we left, but he wasn’t crying at all anymore.  He would just wave and say,” Bye bye Dada.  Bye bye Mommy.”

As far as sleeping, Charlie has been an excellent napper since day 1 at daycare, which was the biggest surprise of all.  I’ve protected his sleep so much his entire life, and here he was so adaptable that he was able to sleep on a cot for the first time in a room full of other children with no problem.  The daycare teachers told me that they’ve never had a problem with a child not napping in their 10+ years because they see all the other kids sleeping, and just understand what to do.  Still I thought that it would take him at least a week to sort out his sleep, but he’s been taking 2 hour naps every day.  If he wakes up early, the teachers tell him to go back to sleep, and he does!  How can I get him to do that for me?!

A lot of parents told me that their child’s napping and eating problems got fixed at daycare, so I was really hoping that Charlie would become a better eater because he always eats much better when he’s around other kids. Charlie has his good days where he finishes almost his entire bento box, and some days where he only eats half of it.  But he’s eating 3 solid meals and 4 bottles a day (we still have to get him to quit his bottle addiction), so he’s getting enough calories.

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When we decided to enroll Charlie in daycare, he was in the midst of a language explosion.  I expected his linguistic acquisition to increase in daycare based on what other parents told me, but it’s far surpassed my expectations.  By the end of the second week, Charlie knew the names of the 9 other students and 2 teachers.  That skill has translated into his real life and he’s able to remember someone’s name after meeting them once, as well as all his favorite Sesame Street characters.  Previously he only knew the color brown, which he called “coffee,” but by week 3 of daycare he knew red, blue, yellow, orange, green, purple and black.  He really understands the use of I, me, my, mine and Charlie’s, and has become big into possessives – Grandma’s glasses, Henry’s stroller, Rebecca’s baby.  His vocabulary consisted mostly of nouns, but now he’s picked up so many new verbs and adjective.  He mostly spoke in 2-3 word sentences, but now he regularly uses 4, even 5 word sentences.  He stopped using baby speak like “baba” and “wawa” and uses the real words milk and water instead.

As far as personality changes, Charlie has become very empathetic whenever anyone cries perhaps because he cried so much the first two weeks.  He says “baby is crying” whenever he sees a baby cry.  When he threw a toy in the bathtub and Mr. Bee pretended to cry, Charlie was kind of traumatized!

Charlie loves the daily art projects and brings home a “masterpiece” every day.  The teachers say he loves dance time, and is very verbal and outgoing.  I wondered if that was a nice way of them saying that Charlie was very rambunctious ;-), and they said that he’s up there with the 3 oldest kids in daycare (1/3 are younger than Charlie, 1/3 are the same age, and 1/3 are older).

Though Charlie was well socialized because he had so many playdates and daily adventures when he was with his nanny, I think 21 months was the perfect time to send him to daycare.  I thought he was too young to handle full-time and initially wanted to send him part-time, but he is so happy there.  He loves the teachers, he loves the other students and he is learning so much. I  can’t wait to see how much more he grows in the coming months!

A couple of tips we learned about dropping your child off in the beginning:

– The transition is usually harder on the parent than it is the child.
– Staying longer isn’t going to help your child because if they’re going to cry, they’re going to cry, and they usually stop crying shortly after you leave.
– If you act sad about leaving, your child will sense it.  So put on a smile and let them know that daycare is fun!

Does your child love daycare?  Do you plan to send your child to daycare or preschool at some point?