My 17 month old is just starting daycare for the first time. Before now, he's been at home with babysitters and us taking days to work from home. He has never had any separation issues staying with sitters, is super happy and social, loves other kids. So I THOUGHT he'd do fine adjusting to daycare.

Well... yesterday was the first "day" which was really just a trial run, we stayed with him in the classroom for about an hour and then left him for about an hour while we did paperwork. Apparently he pretty much cried the whole time.

Today we came about 8:45, stayed with him about 30 minutes, he sat to have snack about 9:15 with the other kids, fussed when we left but not really cried. He stayed until about 11. The teachers said he would play for a few minutes, but then would start looking around and say "mama" and then would start crying, and pretty much did that the whole time. When I picked him up, a teacher was holding him and I could tell he was upset but not like sobbing. But when he saw me, he started bawling and kept crying while I held him for like 5 more minutes, and kept sniffing and shuddering the whole drive home.

The teacher said she recommends Monday doing 2.5 hours and slowly working up from there to maybe a half day Tuesday and Wednesday next week, she says his reaction is 100% normal and some kids are actually worse.

I guess I expect some tears at drop off, but I was really hoping they would say after a little crying, he played and was happy. I'm really upset that for 2 hours he was wandering around saying "mama" and crying.

I guess I am just looking for reassurance that he will eventually get used to it and not be so upset the whole time he's there? If your LO did this, how long did it take to stop? I'm having so much anxiety and mommy guilt!