After I wrote this post on the first week of school, things started to go downhill for Little Piñata at daycare. The problem is probably related to separation anxiety, over-tiredness, and it’s just a two day a week program so he never gets a chance for it to really become routine to him.

Before he even started I was quite nervous about how he would do since he was having some issues in the church nursery, which is only for an hour a week. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the first couple of weeks he did great! He didn’t eat a lot of lunch and he was tired and needed his lovey/paci a lot, but we were ok with that. He seemed to enjoy playing in the sandbox outside and meeting new kids to play with. But a couple of weeks into the school year things started getting ugly. Part of the problem is that he is used to 2 naps at home, but they only do one nap at noon. This means that he’s used to going down for a nap by 10:30am at home, but he has to wait until noon at school. This makes for an especially cranky 1.5 hours before he can lie down. I have tried on so many occasions to remedy this by doing just one nap with him at home, but within 2-3 days he gets overtired, starts waking up all night inconsolable and stops sleeping well for that one nap.

I think another issue is that he’s learned that I’m right around the corner. It’s impossible to know for sure, but I imagine that knowing that his mom is so near but not with him when he’s sad must be hard. This is also the worst part for me. Since he’s quite the high pitched screamer, I can hear him crying and screaming throughout the day. Of course, this prevents me from being able to focus on my own students and it takes everything in me to keep from running down the hall to comfort him! His teacher says that he’s upset, crying or screaming about 80% of the time they’re awake. Ugh. In the first couple of weeks, having his lovey/paci kept him calm and comforted when he got sad. But, apparently it’s no longer working. We’re told he can be ok for a few minutes at a time if he’s really distracted, but he then gets upset and starts crying again and says “momma” over and over.

ADVERTISEMENT

Right now we have absolutely no idea what to do about this situation. On the days he goes to school we give him an early bedtime, but he has interrupted night sleep, so I know there’s a component of over-tiredness going on right now. We have talked and done trouble-shooting with his teacher, but there’s nothing we can do about the school schedule. Since he’s at the same place I work, moving to another center wouldn’t help or be useful. It’s also frustrating because the program is open just on Mondays and Wednesdays so he can never really “get used to it” since he’s still home 4/7 days of the week (and at my parents’ house once a week).

All that to say, this post has absolutely no advice in it, nor do I think there is any particularly helpful advice to be given. I think this may be one of the times in parenting where things just aren’t working and you have to push through and give it time. We have an amount of time in our head that we’re willing to continue with this before we re-evaluate everything and decide if we need to do something completely different. But for now we will give Little Piñata a bit more time to adjust and will hope that within a month or two he will be ready to do just one nap at home too, and that will help his tiredness at school. The truth is that this phase can’t last forever. Either Little Piñata will get used to daycare or a point will come when we realize he just can’t do it right n

Ow. I really hope it goes the positive route! It’s so miserable knowing your sweet child is so upset for so many hours in a day!


This is the sweet, smiling child at home! So sad to hear him cry at school!

Has anyone else had such a difficult transition to daycare or childcare? How long did it take your little one to finally transition and be comfortable there?