First time going to daycare

hi there,
My son is now 9 months old and I’ve stayed home for him so far. I quit my job and was slowly looking for something new. I applied at one company and got accepted right away. I should be super happy, but I have mixed feelings because my little one now has to go to daycare. It all happened quite fast—I found out about my hours last Friday and they want me to start working on April 2nd. I had already registered him at a daycare center and visited once, but everything else is still new for us. Unfortunately, last week I heard that my mother has colon cancer. She was going to babysit in the afternoons so he’d only need to go to daycare in the mornings, but now I can’t rely on that anymore, and he’ll have to go to daycare full-time.
So I don’t have time to let him adjust gradually; I have to drop him off right when I start working again. I’ll be working 20 hours, and he’ll start with 2.5 days at daycare, and later (once I’m settled in) it’ll be 1.5 days because I’ll work Saturdays and his dad will be home. I’m now wondering if I made the right choice going back to work. The job seems great, but I’m so afraid I’ll be shortchanging my little one and that daycare won’t work out well. He’s very used to calmness and routine, and he has completely different naps, for example, compared to most kids his age. I’m worried he won’t sleep well there, even though he really needs it.
I’d love to hear your experiences.

Hi Sammie,
It’s really a pity that there haven’t been any replies so far.
I had a daycare with my parents for 6 years,
my own little girl is only 4 months old and I haven’t had to leave her alone yet.

But what I would do in your position is try it out for a week.
I’ve seen myself that children of any age adjust much faster than we adults think!
Especially because they just do what all the other children do..
Very often I’ve seen kids really hysterically screaming when mom left, and if they realized the door stayed closed they just went on playing!!
I’ve seen one kid literally shrug his shoulders.. "Ok then.."

I went to pick up a friend's little girl there recently
who said her child always cries at that daycare.
Right before she opened the door I pulled her arm and showed her through the window that she was happily playing.
But as soon as she went inside and saw mom she started crying!! Really crazy to see.

It could even be that the rhythm at home is very different from the daycare and that’s no problem at all because they just switch the button.
So don’t worry too much about sleeping, once they know the rhythm..
And keep the goodbye as short as possible (Although it seems incredibly hard but for the child it’s definitely the best!!)

Wish you lots of success, I can imagine you’re dreading it,
but they don’t have a sense of time and once they start adjusting it’ll definitely be fine!!

Greetings XXX

First time going to daycare

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