Transitioning to work and daycare 1 - schedule advice?

[JessieBird]

Hi everyone - I'm going to post two similar but different questions. Here goes #1. I am going back to work Nov 16 and my 11 mo DS will be going to a small in-home daycare at that time. There will be 3 other children, one exactly his age (to the day!) and two a bit older (walking and not taking morning naps anymore). We can start one week earlier as a transition week. Unfortunately we can't get more transition time because the DCP is only available to start then. We will be able to go for walks with her and her son occasionally between now and then.

My question is about preparing my son for the schedule at daycare. Because the DCP is just getting started, she will be very flexible at first and will develop a schedule that suits all the children, however she does have a rough plan that she'd like to aim for. I also know the other children and know that they are on different schedules from DS already. So I can kind of predict what parts of the day are going to mesh well with DS's current routines and where there will be challenges.

Should I try now to get him onto a schedule that I think will cause the least amount of stress when he starts in daycare? Or, since it will be such a different environment and therefor impossible to predict how it will go, should I just let things sort themselves out when he goes?

Thanks so much for your help!

[caenach]

I'd say if you have some sleep/waking/eating schedule that's VASTLY different than the one that your DCP will be using, you might want to get your LO started in the right direction.

Honestly, I see how my DCP readjusts to accommodate a new child and gradually incorporate them into a routine (and changes her routine around the new circumstances, as well), so I'm sort of in "it will work itself out" camp. There are going to be schedule changes when he starts--even just the changes to what Mommy is doing in the morning and the transport to DC, so he's going to have to incorporate those anyway.



Not much help!

[mrsfrenchy]

I agree with what the PP said. If his schedule is just really really different than the DCP's schedule, then you may want to work on it. But if its just something like normally he naps at 10:30 and she's not planning on putting them down until 12, I wouldn't worry about it. That was the sort of difference between our schedule and the daycare's schedule and it worked out fine. There's so much going on and they want to be part of what the other kids are doing, so it's not really an issue IME.