Transition from Nanny to Early Education

FlMarriedCpl

Ok.

So for the past year our daughter has had a nanny watch over her, but unfortunately, the nanny has to go back to her own country and won't be back for a while.

She was quite cheap since she was related to my wife, and we found that other nannies are quite expensive per week. We went back and forth and after not being able to really find a nanny we liked, we started looking at early educational schools like KLA. It's not really a day care and the class sizes are small. After the tour it seemed like a great fit.

My main question is, how long will it take her to transition to this environment. It's eating us up that we are going to be taking her there and dropping her off after she's been so use to just being at home with a nanny but we know it was really our only option.

We know she will be upset and cry but has anyone else had this experience and what was it like. She'll be 1 in a couple weeks and she's ALMOST walking but not quite there.

Also, since she's been with a nanny, her social life is pretty much zilch so i think it will be good for her, even though i'm sure she might get more sick...and she's never been sick.

Again, anyone been thru this type of transition...i just hope it doesn't traumatize her..even though she's so young. 

designer303

We made the same transition about 3 months ago, Ds was a little bit older than your DD, but DS did very well- he loves school.  There is always a little bit of crying when we leave him in the morning, but I hear him stop even before I get to the door to leave.  I would reccomend if the center will allow it that you ease the transition.  Start by taking DD only for an hour or so and stay at the school with her the whole hour, then, I would take her one other day where you go with her and stay for an hour but then leaver her there for an hour or a little longer.  We did this with DS and the school administrator had us do this, because she said it would show DS that we were comfortable with where he was spending his time and allowed him to adjust to the new enviroment while having us around to comfort.  Finally the first week we dropped off I would go and spend about 20 mins sitting with DS and playing before I would leave for the day.  Also you are correct about the getting sick, DS was sick pretty much the whole first month he was at school.  So time the start date when you don't have much going on (if you can) and know that you probably need back-up care or the ability to stay home some during your DD's first or so of school.  I was not this smart and started Ds a week before we supposed to go visit DH's family and it was the worst trip on record.  This was our experience, hope it helps and good luck!!!