Parenting

My kid has been going to daycare 3 days a week since he was 4 months old and we had to get back to work. There was no need to get him used to it. We just brought him. Mum had a harder time adjusting than he did 😄

Drop child off at daycare.

Child may cry. Child may be sad for a short time. Child is not in any actual danger and will get over it. Repeat the next day. Next day, child cries less. Child is sad for shorter amount of time. Child is still not in any actual danger. Repeat the next day.

Your kids are going to cry sometimes. That's life. You can not protect them from everything, and trying to will cause more long-term emotional damage than just having them learn early on that things can not always be absolutely perfect

Gradually over a few days? Not over weeks or months, no.

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.

My pov: working in a kindergarten in Finland.

It's really up to the parents but very few took advantage of the option to stay with their kids the whole time for weeks on end.

Anyhow, most of the time, however clingy and teary the kid is, they come around a few minutes after the parent left and start having a good time.
Parents need to be told this, encouraged to let go just like the kids.
And then it depends how the parents react when they pick their kid up: do they fuss, do they have a bad conscience, do they even ask the kid if it was sad, in other words, do they enforce and even reward the clinging, or do they encourage them to take their first steps into independence?

I'm not saying it isn't hard for kids, going to kindergarten for the first time. Social pressure, stress. But it's harder if parents are very protective and/or the kid had very little contact with other kids until then.

No idea what the situation is like where you live, but I'd go mad if I had 10 kids + 10 parents during the whole day for a whole week.

edit: hmm, this is also age dependent. I was working with kids 3 and up.

In Poland my mom brought us to the Kindergarten one day and me and my younger sister had to stay there because she had to go to work. My sister was allowed to visit me if she felt lonely but other than that there was nothing extra.

In Germany we stayed a couple of hours with my step daughter the first day and after that she just stayed there alone without problems.

Here in Korea I brought my son the first day and he stayed only for one hour, next day for three hours and after that 6 hours.

In Australia you do a visit and stay in the centre to check out out with your child. Next visit is short, and you leave your child for maybe 1 hour. If all good next time usually a half day out two, and then full days. My daughter has been 1 day a week since 3 months old (though is also in sessional Kinder now 3 days a week x 5 hours). Here there is reasonably well funded early learning, but the sector does have some major issues. I've been very happy with my centre and my daughter is happy enough there, though she prefers sessional Kinder.

I‘m just doing it with our second Child in Germany, around here we‘re more at two to three weeks. But that‘s from staying there with the child all the way to child stays there alone and also naps and eats there. But Both our children love it so it was probably quite easy for us.

Talked to them about it 🤷‍♂️? They love it, not sure what else you'd actually do.