3 Solutions Peaceful Daycare Drop Offs for Babies and Toddlers
Daycare or preschool drop offs can be hard for everyone, mom and kid! Here are three solutions for more respectful, peaceful drop offs sure to start helping almost immediately.
We recently starting sending our son to daycare. Joy and sadness for me and for him! We had a wonderful routine each day. Long naps, easy night times with full nights of sleep, regular meal times, lots of open exploration and self directed play for my son. He was an overall happy baby. 
Anyway, I’ve never done routine well, though I was thrilled I was able to do it for him as it made a world of difference (days off of routine were his most cranky/fussy/just not right days). Some women thrive as stay at home mamas, I was becoming depressed at the lack of stimulation. At 10 months, I think we both needed to “see other people.” He’s super social and loves interactions with adults and kids. It seemed clear that more time with a nanny in our house wasn’t what he needed, though for other kids it’s better, just trust your intuition on this. There was a bigger world out there to explore. In comes daycare…
I thought he’d do pretty well. Since I’d been working part time starting when he was 6 weeks old, he’d been cared for by numerous friends, a regular nanny and he’d gotten comfortable with the daycare at the gym. He’d occasionally cry a little bit upon my leaving, but seemed quite happy to interact with another friend.
Well, daycare drop offs were tear filled…oh dear god don’t leave me here. Since I’d been on the other side of the tears as a nanny, and knew most kids/babies stopped crying shortly after mom left, I knew he’d be ok, but oh it tugged at my heart.
I talked about the routine of the day before we left each day, as I know that babies understand what we say from a really young age. It dawned on me I was only telling him the basics (today you are going to daycare, I’ll pick you up at the end of the day), not going into detail. He needed more detail.
Here’s what worked for us:
1. Before you leave your house, while your child is eating or another calm activity, tell him about the details of the morning. They are always listening, even if they don’t appear to be. “After you finish eating, we will get you dressed for the day, I will get your food together, we will pack it all up and go to the car to head to daycare (preschool). At daycare you will see your friends (name a few as he will recognize the names, Ferran loves hearing his friends names) and the staff (name a few). You will stay there until later in the day, then I will come to pick you up and bring you home to see daddy (I add the names of our dogs too).”
2. The next step is to take a moment outside of daycare to explain more details. This gives a little more transition time for your child and helps us as parents be a little more mindful during drop off too. “We are here at daycare. I’m going to hold you (or walk with you) into the room. I’ll keep holding you (or your hand) as we say hi to your friends (name them again) and your teachers. We will put your bag down and I’ll give you a hug, say goodbye and leave. Then I’ll come back to pick you up later in the day at 5pm. We will go home together to see (whoever will be home).
When you say goodbye, reflect to him “Yes, you are sad I’m leaving. You don’t want me to leave. I’ll be back to pick you up tonight. I love you.” Then leave. Don’t draw it out if he’s crying, it just escalates it. I know from being on the other side as a nanny!
3. This is a great tool for any kid, especially sensitive kids as they are really affected by all the energies of kids/staff at daycare. Before going into the daycare, tell your child to put a bubble of light around themselves. Let them pick a color. I ask my son what color he wants his bubble and the first color that pops in my head, I assume was the one he picked.
This bubble of light is a tool many people across the world use as a buffer for other’s energies. I use it daily, so can you. Explain he can put his bubble of light around any time during the day to help him be in his “safe zone”. Take a moment to imagine your child that bubble of light, happy, peaceful. When you imagine it, that will help your child be able to do the same. They read our thought pictures- that’s why kids are so intuitive.
Our daycare drop offs started immediately being more calm and within a week, much reduced tears (of course the tears are ok, letting him expressing his sadness is important, but less tears are always nice). Kids thrive off of predictability. This helps them predict what will happen since you explained it. They feel much less anxious about the surprise of the drop off and about “what the heck is happening and when will you be back?!?!”
This is actually wonderful to use for any transitions that your child finds difficult. Actually, it helps us as moms with the transition too. When we feel more relaxed and confident, so do our kids!
