Where I live, Germany, it is very common to spend weeks, sometimes even months, trying to slowly get a child used to going to day care. In my home country, the Netherlands, this wasn't really a thing when I was younger and, from what I've learned from people with young children there, isn't common even today. That got me thinking.
Are there many differences between countries when it comes to day care and specifically getting your children to go to day care in the first place?
We're currently getting our second child used to day care. For our first child the entire process took six weeks and represented the Idea trajectory - nobody was ill, she liked going there, she liked eating there and she didn't make a fuss when it was time to sleep there. Still, this represents a significant investment of time (and therefore money) for any working parent. Sometimes it seems really absurd and impractical. I get the impression that the entire day care system in Germany revolves around the idea that mothers don't work or, if they do, it's only ever part time.
How does this look like in other countries? I've linked an article (in German, but translation services are available) about the system we're stuck with here, if anyone wants to dive deeper.
In Germany, my kid had one or two weeks of slowly getting used to the kindergarten. We were a bit pushing for a faster track and the kid had a blast from day 1 (they were 4 months when they started on going 5 days a week, 6h/day). We were encouraged to stay with the kid only the first day or two.
France was even quicker: the whole process lasted 3 days (a visit of an hour with parent, 3 hours, 4 hours with nap, full day) at 18 months.
I heard from a friend in Austria that the process took a full month and a half! And it was considered quick. My friend was going out of his mind juggling everything.