Transitioning into daycare

This month, Tristan starts daycare. It has been two weeks since we did our gradual entry week so yesterday, I decided to do another gradual entry day. It went alright but he was a bit fussier than usual. We stayed for 2 1/2 hours. Today, we did another gradual entry day but this time we tried a nap after lunch. It was a fail so we left after that :( We stayed 3 hours.

We didn't want to suddenly drop Tristan off all day long and scare him. I'm lucky to be in the position where I am not working full time right now and I can spend my time transitioning him into daycare. Tomorrow, I will actually leave him there without me for a few hours and see how it goes. If all goes well, the day after that, I'll leave him there even longer and hopefully by Friday, we will be able to leave him there almost a full day. A full day right now would probably be from 10AM to 4PM.

Tristan and another girl are the two new babies starting daycare this month. The new girl's mom was there yesterday just like I was. Today, the new girl was left alone so it was a tough time for her. I couldn't help but observe her while I was there. She cried on and off the whole time. Her eyes were constantly red and the staff had to take turns carrying her pretty much the whole time too. Tristan will probably be like that when I leave him for the first time. I kind of hope not though. Some of the staff there thinks Tristan will be easy but I just don't know about that. The new girl at least was able to fall asleep during nap time today. Tristan was the only one having trouble so we had to take him out. I did hear that the new girl had been up since 5:30AM though.

Today when we arrived, the kids were doing crafts so Tristan joined in. He has never drawn with paper and crayons or paint. He didn't show much interest and actually fussed since he was confined to the highchair. I think that will take some getting used to. He doesn't know what to do really and ended up getting most of the paint on his fingers. He was more fascinated with the paint on his fingers than painting on the paper.

Nap time didn't go so well at all. I'm used to the crying-it-out method but Tristan is probably scared since he doesn't know where he is. Today, I also think he wasn't quite that tired yet. The problem is, if enough of the kids are tired, they all have to go down together. If he doesn't take the 12:30PM nap, he has to wait for the 3:30PM. All the kids are placed in the same room, each with their own crib. The sound machine is on playing wave sounds while they sleep. They all go down crying (in most cases) and eventually drift off to sleep. As they wake up, they are taken out one by one. I imagine that is pretty much standard for the infant room daycare. All the babies crying in their cribs must have scared Tristan today, which could explain why he couldn't sleep. He didn't show any signs of tiredness so it may have been too early too. I have a feeling he won't be able to take naps at daycare this week. Maybe they will need to save his nap time for 3:30PM when he is super tired. The problem is he normally sleeps just 20 minutes and that won't be enough. One of the staff members suggest I bring him something familiar like a cuddly. He's not attached to any of his stuff toys so I guess I will bring him a pillow. He likes the pillow and the purpose of it is simply to bring a familiar smell to the room. I'm crossing my fingers it will help soothe him.