Help, My 3 Yr Old Is Miserable at New Daycare

I feel for you, it is so hard to force yourself to go to work when you know your kid missing you bad. A couple of books we read to prepare for a daycare switch:

'Adam's Daycare' and 'Llama Llama Misses Mama'.

Maybe you could ask the teacher if there is anyone she seems to connect with or would be good for her to be friends with, and meet that parent and ask them for a playdate outside of school. If you reach out and let that parent know you kid is having a hard time adjusting, I'm sure they would do anything to help, I know I would. We have all been there at some point.

Stay positive and encouraging. If you coddle and let her know you are feeling guilty or sad or panicked, she will sense that. A lot of "you'll be ok, you are such a great kid I know you will find some friends", and "you're doing a great job at ____ and ____, you'll feel more comfortable in no time at all", and "I'm so proud of you for ____"

GOOD LUCK and hang in there.

Try to find some time to check out who is going there and see if you can't get her to meet a few girls that are in her class.......talk to her too.....tell her how proud you are of her and how many new people she has the opportunity to meet......

Give her some time......and ask the teacher for some advice on how to get her involved........the teacher should be trying to help her get involved anyway, but ask....

Good luck and take care.

From what I now understand, your daughter should be adjusted to the new daycare by now. Please think about moving her. We just had to move our son because he was picking up bad behavior and one of his teachers told him his mommy didn't love him when he was bad! Of course, the school and teacher say that's not how she said it, but the fact remains, that's what his 4 year old mind heard :( From my experience, I think there's something going on with her daycare that is not good for her and this is her way of dealing with it. We moved our son to a new preschool and he's doing very well. The class is smaller and the teachers have been there a long time. Do you know what the teacher turn around is at your daughter's new daycare?

Put her in pre school five days a week-my kids loved preschool so much-they wanted to stay for extended day, learned to read when they were three-and cried when it was time to go home-embarrassing. Perhaps you could invite a little girl from daycare over to play and that would break the ice.

I'm with JoAnn C. How about making an unannounced visit to the daycare on your lunch break or something so you can peek in and see what's going on? If the facility looks down on that it's a major red flag. You need to see what kind of environment your daughter is in and why it's bothering her, and see if it's something the staff can help out with or if the facility is just not for your daughter. If she likes preschool can you enroll her in a 5-day program at the facility? If not, you need to get her out of that daycare and take her to another facility or maybe find someone who does childcare in their home or better yet could come to yours to babysit. It sounds like the daycare may be too crowded and "busy" or hectic. A quieter environment with less kids and more one-on-one attention from the provider might be better for your daughter.

From my experience with my son -- I would say that something is going on at daycare. He is also an outgoing kid and the times we thought he just needed to adjust -- it turned out that he was being bullied or one of the instructors was yelling angrily at him. At three, she may have trouble expressing what is going on -- but if you sit down with her and talk a lot with her about it, she may give you a clue. You may want to think about switching daycares.

Please don't leave your daughter in a miserable situation. Find another daycare. Perhaps you can find a 5 day a week preschool? If not, find a different daycare for the days she doesn't have preschool. This is obviously not the place for her.