Daycare: Week #1

On Thursday, we left Tristan at daycare for around 4 1/2 hours. He was calm lying on one of the staff's lap when I arrived to pick him up. At least he wasn't crying for a change. I was told that he had a preference for one of the staff there and had been clinging to her the whole time. She would only pick him up if he stopped crying and after a few times, he understood. He cried on and off that day and fell asleep on the comfy cozy area early that day for 40 minutes. It's good that he actually slept this time even though it was not in the crib room. He didn't eat any of his main food and only ate some fruit and baby cookies. He didn't even drink all of his milk. He was pretty much starving when we got home that day. I fed him a bunch of different things when we got home and he had no problem eating them.

On Friday, Tristan had a much better day. We left him there all day for the first time and Jean-Louis and I both went to pick him up. I expected another bad day since he was screaming, crying, and kicking when I left him that morning. That was partly my fault though since I lingered around way too long talking to one of the staff members about his food and sleep. I packed him yummy food because I wanted him to eat well. I made salmon and cream cheese sandwich bites for him so it's not surprising he ate everything! He also ate all of his fruit and all of his pasta. He drank all of his milk too. The staff there told us that he played more and would wonder around and look outside a lot. He apparently likes to help with laundry since he did it both Thursday and Friday. They even made him laugh playing peekaboo :) If that wasn't good enough, they finally got him to sleep in the crib room at the scheduled nap time with all the other babies. He slept around 35 minutes. What an excellent report! Yes, Thursday seemed horrible but Friday sounded great. What an amazing difference.

It's been three days now since he has been at daycare without us and we're already seeing the impact of it at home. He is definitely going through separation anxiety with me. When I am out of sight, he flips out. He never used to do that. I guess he is scared that I may not come back since I am the one that leaves him at daycare. It's definitely hard to see. When he is really distressed, like when he is tired, he doesn't even want to be with Jean-Louis. When I left the room to go shower last night, he reacted the exact same way when I left him at daycare: stomping his feet in terror and crying. Jean-Louis said it didn't last long though.

Other changes since introducing daycare:

• His bedtime is now moved down to 8:30 or 8:45PM, instead of 9PM
• We now bathe him every day, instead of every other day
• His dinner is now given 30 minutes or 1 hour earlier than usual
• We change his clothes every day now
• He signs baby all the time (because there are so many babies at daycare!)
• He snacks more on puffs, and cookies (only the baby ones that we provide)
• He waves goodbye now