Passing The Baton

Written by Chloe Dawson for her blog, Every Mum Ever.

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Time for nursery!!

Throughout December, we started having trouble with Harry’s bedtime and he completed his transformation from sweet, shy boy into the actual Crown Prince of Tantrums and All Evil. Needless to say, it’s was bloody exhausting and I just had nothing left to give to my husband, family, free time at home. I was starting to become very anxious again and was back in that place where I felt I’d done everything wrong with my parenting choices. Then we were told that Harry’s speech wasn’t coming along as it maybe could be which led to me being on amber alert for any areas he was ‘behind’. He isn’t behind, but I can only say that now that it’s all in my rear view mirror and the all-encompassing panic-fog has lifted.

I racked my brains for ways I could help him and help myself. I kept feeling defeated and like I needed breaks from him as he was becoming a challenge to parent. Nothing seemed to please him and he was always tired and didn’t eat much. He was really picking up on my frustration and stress so we just wound each other up in vicious and ever decreasing circles.

Then my parents suggested nursery. It had crossed my mind before but I thought it wouldn’t be a part of our lives until I was working or we had another baby at home. I did some research into how it could help a toddler’s development and I was pleased with what I read so we made an appointment to look around the nursery in our town. Impressed, we got him enrolled and his start date was Thursday 4th of January. I felt terrified, excited and trepidatious all at once but the 4th rolled around with a new rucksack and coat to start his education career with.

At home, Harry is reserved and struggles to verbalise his wants. He is even a bit, dare I say, spoiled at times. So I was worried that he’d struggle and I wouldn’t be able to leave him, making the whole thing a disaster. I pictured us both crying, and me sitting in the reception for the entirety of the 3 hour session. Nope!! We got there at 9, we watched him play for a while so he could get acclimatised, the whole time feeling my heart thudding and palpitating. Although he kept to the sidelines at first, he soon joined in. Especially when he saw the pet guinea pigs and exclaimed “Pig!!” (animals are his favourite thing ever).

After 20 minutes or so it was time for registration so we made our exit to wait in the reception area. I waited and waited for the bomb to drop but it just didn’t. The nursery manager and helpers kept coming out to tell me that everything was ok, so I just sat there in a disbelieving haze. This just wasn’t like the child I’ve known for 2 years. After another half an hour with no incident, we were told we could go, there obviously weren’t any problems. Wow, I thought. But I bet tomorrow will be bad when he realises that it’s not just a one-off. So this afternoon, it was the same again. I took him to find something fun to do, then I retreated after 5 minutes with a goodbye kiss. Again I sat in the reception waiting for them to call me back in but nothing of the sort happened. By 1.35 pm I was sitting on my sofa at home in disbelief.

I’m hoping it isn’t beginners luck and he won’t suddenly decide he can’t live without me for a couple of hours. I think it’s showing me that he really is ready for this big step. I’ve been a stay at home parent with him for a solid almost 2 years so it would have been understandable if I’d had to peel him off my leg and offer bribes at the first few sessions but no! There is nobody more surprised than me and now that I can see the bigger picture, maybe I wasn’t giving him enough credit or independence to progress.

He’s been going for 2 weeks now and he’s really leapt forward in terms of his speech, his manners and his ability to play both independently and in a group. In a lot of ways he’s like a different child so there is no doubt in my mind that this is the best thing we’ve ever done for him. It’s been tough on me going from being his sole carer during the day and having to hand the reins over, but we’re both so much happier. He actually misses me now and we look forward to and love our 2 full days together.