Need help with a very cross 31/4 year old who has just started nursery

[nickysan]

Really don't know what to do next with my little girl. She has just started nursery, 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Her first adventure away from mummy for more than an hour with grandma or papa at the park. I have held off as long as possible to put her in nursery but I really do need now to do some work and bring some money in and I did think she was just about ready as she is very sociable and loves other children and the idea of being a big girl and going to nursery. It has gone pretty smoothly, less than a minute of tears for the first three days when it came time to say goodbye to me and the staff tell me she is very happy the whole time she is there. I am very happy with my choice of nursery so I have no worries about the quality of care. But she seems really angry with me when she comes home, telling me to go away, hitting me, today she was literally throwing herself at me in fury, throwing stuff around, spitting and screaming in my face. I really need some ideas to help her and me, I try my best to be understanding, offering to cuddle her, telling her I know she's angry with me, that being a big girl and going to nursery without me is hard and that I love her very much but I can't let her hit me like this and if she can't stop I will go in the other room for a while, when I say this, or try to get up to leave, she falls apart even further but if I stay she just carry's on hitting me as hard as she can, I am really stuck and sad that she feels like this, I usually end up in tears in the middle of it all, I just really don't know what to do, she ends up letting me hold her after a while of screaming at me and falls asleep in my arms, which is not helping really because she sleeps through till around 6pm and then is not ready to go to bed proper till half nine or so which means she is waking up in the morning and tired again within an hour but doesn't want a nap before nursery.......... and so we repeat the process the next day. Any suggestions or ideas gratefully received, from a very sad and worried mummy. Thanks

[pianojazzgirl]

She sounds tired.  Does she take a nap at nursery?  If so do they wake her up (and can you ask them to let her sleep as long as possible instead?).  The first few weeks of preschool are exhausting.  It's a big transition.  It sounds like she is coming home tired (= emotional and unable to cope) and is having a meltdown and then falling asleep for a long while.  If you can't increase the nap time at nursery I'd try not letting her nap as long after nursery.  On non-nursery days (ie. days where she will not be napping till 6pm) try for an early-as-possible bedtime. 

It is super common for kids to hold it together for the length of the (pre)school day, and by the time they are home they just can't hold it together any longer.  Then their most trusted person (mom, dad) gets the brunt of their strong emotions.  I wouldn't read any more than that into it.  It sounds like you are feeling guilty, and feeling like she is mad *at you* for leaving her at nursery.  I bet it is more a general feeling of stress at coping with the school-day, as well as increased tiredness, and she is taking everything out on her mum - the person she feels the most comfortable with.  In your post you said that you said that you validate her emotions by saying she is mad at you and being at nursery is hard.  I might try a little different tack.  Yes, give voice to her strong feelings, but perhaps stop confirming and reconfirming that "nursery is hard".  It's kind of a tricky balance, but you might just want to be careful about repeating that idea so much that you give it more strength than it deserves (ie. she gets into a mental loop of "yes!  nursery is HARD..... I'm not able to deal with nursery").  I guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to find a way to show her that *you* are confident that she is able to cope with nursery.  Not sure if I'm making sense (I'm so tired!).

ETA just re-read your OP and it seems like she is *not* getting a nap at nursery.  If that is the case I think I would work hard on getting into a routine of pre-nursery nap.  It will likely mean waking her up earlier in the morning and/or not letting her nap more than v. short time if she falls asleep after nursery (thus enabling an earlier bedtime).  Even though she needs the sleep, and you likely want to let her sleep in as long as possible, I bet in the long run (and it probably wouldn't even take that long) she would benefit greatly from getting on an earlier schedule and having a nap before nursery.  I know the first week after dd starts school is tough.  She suddenly has to be woken up about 2 hrs earlier than she normally wakes up in the summer.  It makes for a tired, sometimes grumpy girl, but it really never takes more than a week (usually less) before she's ready to go to bed at night at an appropriately early bedtime.

[nickysan]

thanks pianojazzgirl for your insightful reply, I must admit as Ive been mulling it over I have been wondering if it is actually that much to do with nursery/seperation and more just an exhaustion issue. It's a bit more shuffling around for my dd to get used to but I have managed to shift her nursery session to mornings 5 days a week which is what we were wanting in the first place but it wasn't available and we had to take what we could get but luckily now a space has come up. I am hoping that it will work better for her, if she does have a crash after nursery it will be at midday and a good time for a nap or she may well cope better and not nap and we can have a gentle or busy afternoon whatever she seems able to manage. I'm hoping that it will work better for her. And yes I do have to just give her time and let her feel what ever is going on for her without misnaming it or taking it personally and feeling that I must be doing a terrible job to have a dd in this terrible state. Thanks again for your ideas, i'll let you know how it's going. xx

[pianojazzgirl]

Oh good - I hope switching to mornings will make the whole napping situation much easier.

Be gentle with yourself mama.

I'll watch for an update.  :)

[nickysan]

Two days in and no improvement, she is just freaking out at every opportunity, today within minutes of being home from nursery she was screaming because her shoes weren't in the right place, then because I wouldn't give her boob in the hallway on the floor, I said i would give her boob on the sofa in the front room, then because I wouldn't let her kick me in the face and stomach, then because i wouldn't get her drink carton when she screamed at me to get her drink now (it was perfectly within her reach).....it's just one thing after another for about an hour until she eventually falls asleep in my arms. I am sooooo at my wits end, I don't know whether I am doing the right thing refusing to give her boob in a position thats uncomfortable for me, whether I should just tolerate her pinching and biting and keep her in my arms, I don't know how to make her stop, we have ended up with her chasing me round the house trying to attack me physically, should I just not try to remove myself. Today we spent about 20mins her trying to bite me, me with my hand on her chest trying to keep her back it's really really awful. I never thought it would be like this, I can't work out where it has gone so wrong, i just don't know what to do. I spend time playing with her, make believe games, running jumping , the park, we co-sleep, she still has boob when she wants I never let her 'cry it out' or did 'sleep training' I thought I was doing it all so right and now she is being just awful. I know it's because she can't help herself but right now I can't see the wood for the trees. I wish there was a magic sleep button I could just press and we could avoid all this awfulness. A bit of background is that I am separated from her father who developed a massive gambling habit, she sees him about 3 times a week when we get together as a family as she hasn't wanted to go with him without me and we havn't pushed the issue as I guess we are both hoping that if he can get some help for his gambling we might be able to reconcile, we havn't told her that we are separated we just say that papa is at work as he has always worked shifts so it's quite usual for him not to be around at bedtime or in the morning. I do know that she misses him though, she often asks where is papa, when is he coming, I wonder if she feels some underlying thing that it's my fault that he is not here and is angry with me over that...... I don't know, anyway, any advice welcome. thanks xx

[LynnS6]

A couple of things: Your daughter knows that something is up with you and her father. What I see is a horribly anxious child trying to get her terrible feelings out. I think you need to tell her, in words that she can understand, that papa is living somewhere else right now because he has some grown-up problems to work on. You're sad, and you understand that she's sad and misses her papa. Kids don't think that it's your fault that papa's gone missing, they often think it's THEIR fault. So she might have massive guilt and anxiety that something SHE did made papa go away. At 3, she can't reason her way out of that. You're her safe person, and she's taking all that rage and anxiety out on you.

And then she's started nursery school. That's another big stressor in her life. So, she's got 2 major upheavals in her life. Does she need to be at nursery school? Could you keep her home for a week and see if her behavior improves? If it does, and you're able to stay home full time with her, then I'd do that. If she has to be in nursery school because you need to work to keep house and home together, then you're going to have to weather the storm. Is there anyone where you live who could do some play therapy/family with her? With the added information about the separation, her extreme reactions make sense, but it might be more than you can solve alone.

I don't know whether I am doing the right thing refusing to give her boob in a position thats uncomfortable for me, whether I should just tolerate her pinching and biting and keep her in my arms, I don't know how to make her stop, we have ended up with her chasing me round the house trying to attack me physically, should I just not try to remove myself. Today we spent about 20mins her trying to bite me, me with my hand on her chest trying to keep her back it's really really awful.

You are doing the right thing. Right now her world has been rocked to the core. She needs to know that there are some boundaries that will always be there for her to be safe.

Honestly, I would go into my room, close the door and let her beat on the door. Tell her what you're doing, that you need to keep yourself safe. When she's calmed down a bit, then offer a cuddle. My kids couldn't be cuddled in the middle of a tantrum, they had to get it out of their systems. AFTER the tantrum they needed the cuddle, so don't deny her that.

Finally, be gentle with yourself. Your job is not to prevent her from crying. She needs to cry. Your job is to help her deal with some very very big emotions. That's a huge job, and one that you may not be able to do alone. It's OK to reach out for help. If you can find acceptable ways for her to express her negative emotions, you'll go a long ways to helping her mental health as an older child and adult.

[leftcoast_trillium]

I'm so sorry you're having such a hard time. I was going to chime in with my 2 cents and then I got to the part where you talk about being separated from your partner and her asking about where her papa was and that kind of complicates things.

I can tell you that it takes them a while to adjust to going to another place outside their home (like a month or so in our case). And the crankies when they get home are really hard not to feel guilty about...but I try to see it as they've had a really horribley hard time at "work" and it used up all of their coping skills so when they get home, they're kind of done. I can relate! (Except we don't get to be done as parents...).

It certainly is not ok for her to physically harm you and if you can't do it for yourself then do it for her. You don't want her to grow up thinking that it's ok to be harmed phsyically by people who love you/are family. I am all about the gentle approach, but that doesn't mean being a doormat to your child! They need to feel like the adults are in control and that there are boundries to their world, that everything is not all up to them (because that is too heavy a burden for a little person).

I'm in a camp that thinks you should be as truthful as possible with your child, but then I have issues about honesty and owning stuff. I also don't think they can handle the truth presented to them in the same way as adults, you need to find a balance between protecting their childhood and repsecting them as little people enough to be honest with them. Is there a way that you and her papa can come up with a party line that acknowledges the situation and provides reassurence at the same time?

For example, we had to unexpectidly fire our nanny when her care for our son deteriorated in some fast and awful ways. Our son was 20 months at the time and pretty verbal. We didn't want to be dishonest with him and just have one of his primary caregivers up and disappear with no acknowledgement but at the same time, we didn't want to give him a lot of details that he coudn't handle (and shouldn't have to). So we agreed to tell him "Nxxxx used to be your nanny, but she needed to find another job. Mama and Papa are still here, and will always be your Mama and Papa. We will always be here to take care of you." We had to tell him this probably 10 times a day for a while. And it got so that he would start it, and he wanted us to finish it. I think hearing the same thing over and over really comforted him.

Hang in there, she knows you love her, don't doubt that.

[nickysan]

thanks for your comments guys,

I guess I'm thinking that this has more to do with nursery than the separation as that happened nine months ago and we haven't had any of this behavior until now, although I thought that perhaps she has some abandonment fears that are resonating with what she feels about papa that is making nursery all the harder. We have said to her that papa doesn't sleep at home with us right now because he has a special place to sleep near his work but we see him lots and he still loves us. Which seems all I can manage right now, I guess I'm afraid of telling her that I don't love him any more and thats why he is not here, partly because I don't know if thats true and partly because I don't want her to feel that love is something that can change. I want her to feel that love is permanent. I guess I am hoping that like many family's sometimes papa is away working will be ok for her and still leave room for him to come back without confusing her if he manages to resolve his gambling addiction. Also her questions about papa have evolved from 'where is papa' to 'is papa at work mummy' and I always tell her which day we will see him and it's usually no later than tomorrow.

I'm struggling with the walking away thing because it really seems to press her buttons, it almost seems as though that is what it is about, when she is close to me she is violent to me and pushing me away, telling me to go, but when I go she is desperate saying 'don't go mummy please don't go' it's like she needs to know that I will be there no matter what. I know I need to show her that hurting me is not ok but walking away from a child who is frantic and desperate for you not to leave her is awful almost more awful that being hit by her. I have actually called the health visitor who is coming thursday to offer some help, not sure that I'm gonna get much from it, they are probably gonna tell me to get her out of my bed and off the boob but maybe they will have some strategies that I will be comfortable with.

I'm gonna look into the play therapy I don't know much about it or who provides it but maybe it will help us through, as yes, I'm not in a position to stay home anymore I need to keep the wolves from the door and luckily I can work for myself so even this couple of hours a day I can manage to do a bit of work.

Thanks again for all your comments and advice.

[nickysan]

there has been a small development, yesterday she woke up from her nap in a bad mood, within a minute or two she started crying and then carried on big body wracking sobs in my arms for about 20 mins, she didn't say anything, didn't say what it was about, there were no words, I just held her in silence until she was finished, then she just sat up in a great mood and played happily for the rest of the evening and woke up again happily this morning. Just goes to show the power of a good cry, I was tempted to ask her about it but restrained myself, I guess it doesn't matter if I don't know, she may not even be able to put it into words. I guess there might be more to come, i'll see how it goes after nursery today. Wish I knew how to let her get to that point right from the start instead of being in this big battle with her. Any tips or advice welcome.