P just started daycare this week. We were finally lucky/patient/just darn waited long enough for P to get a spot at one of the daycares we were waitlisted at. I believe this one was only about a year and a half wait (unlike some other ones that basically just told me to come back when he was 2).
We were of course worried how he was going to handle the daycare environment given he’s been at home for the first 20 months. We decided to start with the “school day” schedule which gets off at 3 (right after their nap) to ease him into full day later.
Side note: I was a bit surprised by how many schedule variations are available at schools nowadays so it was good to get a sense of the different options and figure out what would work best for us.
We did a couple trial sessions where P came for one of the activities prior to actually starting and things seemed to be pretty good. He’s usually a bit shy to start and also hears less English at home (but we’re confident he’ll pick it right up once he’s there).
Outcome? Maybe I was already prepared for a worst case scenario, but after two days he’s had no tears on drop off so far. Strategy going in was to dump and run. My largest fear was the nap and both days he actually had pretty crappy naps, but he was able to fall asleep which was honestly more than I expected.
We’ll have to see how things progress as times moves on. I am thinking he may actually realize what’s happening and start to protest during drop-offs. I am also keeping an eye out for sniffles and behavior learned from others haha.
