Eingewöhnung. Getting used to nursery

Your child has been given a place in a nursery, great! But along with this came a lot of questions, what you need to do first, what documents to provide, how to help your child adjust to daycare, what you need to bring with you, etc. I want to share my experience about the state nursery.

The process for us looked like this:

1. Party to meet parents and teachers at the nursery, food/drinks, friendly atmosphere.
2. Concluding the contract at the day care centre in person. We received a pile of additional documents to read/sign. The teacher marked which of them had to be signed and returned.
3. Signing of additional documents (you can read and sign them at home and return them to the nursery): agreement that the child may eat sweet treats from other children at children's birthday parties; agreement that the child will be given arnica; agreement on what the staff will do if the child is found to have a tick. The following options are possible: the kindergarten staff will remove the tick, call a doctor or call the parents to come and take the child. Agreement that the child can be photographed in the day care centre. You can agree or disagree.
4. You need to bring and show your vaccination booklet and the results of your U-tests. The measles vaccination is compulsory. If the child is 1 year old, there must be one vaccination; if the child is 2 years old, there must be two.
5. The period of adaptation in kindergarten, features:

• Duration 4-6 weeks (on average, but individual exceptions are allowed)
• One of the teachers plays a major role in the child's adaptation process. He or she is sort of in charge and tries to give the child his or her best attention until he or she adapts.
• During the first week, the child is accompanied by a parent (although it can be not only mom or dad, but even grandma, grandpa, aunt, etc.) You should sit and just observe, not participate in the games. Aim to support the child if he/she needs contact. The child can come up to the parent, sit on the parent, hug the parent, etc. The length of visits is short, we came for 1 hour.
• In the second week, if everything goes well, separation begins. The mother says goodbye to the child and leaves the room for a short period of time and then returns. The aim is to let the child know that the mother will come back and pick him up. We started with 10 minutes.
• Gradually increasing the time in the daycare, without the mother, to a full day.

This is roughly what it looks like for a child adapt to nursery. Of course, there may be slight difference as every child is different. Some children need more time, others less. In our nursery, the teachers were very attentive during this period, trying to engage the child in games and activities, make him feel comfortable in the daycare. I am very grateful to them for that!