First Week of Daycare

Forgetting that the his teachers were standing right behind me, I said to Soren with my most excited tone of voice, "You survived your first week of daycare!"  They chuckled at my attempt to be positive, but for my brave little boy, it was a big week. 

Monday's drop-off went a little better than I had expected.  Oliver shed a few last-minute tears and Soren didn't even cry.  I blew it though when I walked past Soren's classroom and couldn't resist one little peak.  The window to the classroom door was covered in decorations and I bent down and peered through a narrow, uncovered section of the window and he saw me and burst out crying!  As the assistant teacher tried comforting him, my cover was blown when I heard the lead teacher call out to her, "He saw his mom!" 

The second morning Soren cried as I brought him into his classroom and by the third morning, he would cry as soon as I pulled up in front of the daycare center.  Oliver also grew progressively clingier at drop-off as the week went on.  While his adjustment has been easier than Soren's, I think he can take only so many new things at one time and learning about a class field trip or special music class caused him a lot of fretting.  We can leave notes for the teachers at drop-off and Oliver requested I write his teacher to let her know he was worried about music class.  She reported back that in typical Oliver fashion, he didn't want to participate at first, only watch, and chose to sit on his teacher's lap instead.  Once he had enough time to survey the scene, he eventually joined the other kids and enjoyed the rest of class.

Transitions are hard times of day for the kids, whether it's getting ready for nap time, going to a new activity or seeing other parents arrive to pick of their kids.  Not only is Soren learning to nap in a new place, but without his pacifier, which means his naps have been short or non-existent and he comes home wipes and ready for an early bedtime. 

And for all the tears that have been shed this week, the kids have overall liked their daycare.  Their teachers are full of reports of all the activities they enjoyed and stories of them laughing and playing with the kids and teachers.  Soren one of his teachers unprompted and in a game he learned from his dad and grandpa, ran up to another teacher, tickled her and ran away laughing.   

As for my transition to the new routine of the kids going to daycare, it's gone better than I thought.  I'm actually getting to work earlier than I did with the nanny. I worried about getting them out of the house in time in the morning, but I realized much of my morning routine is still the same.  Even when we had a nanny, most days I had the kids dressed and fed by the time she arrived.  Since daycare provides breakfast, I just feed them a "breakfast snack" while I get ready and then we head out the door for the short drive to daycare.  Our evening routine is more challenging though than it had been since dinners will require more preplanning and prep and that will take time to figure out.  And since Chris will be doing pick-up, he'll have more responsibilities for dinner than he's ever had.