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@cake2017: it will get better! Just be consistent with drop off, loving but don’t stay forever and prolong the inevitable! My kids have been in daycare forever but sometimes when we switch rooms we have about a week of fussiness at drop off and then it gets better. I know it is hard! ️

Sorry, it's hard. My LO has gone through phases where he cried more or less, but usually when he does cry he's done before I leave the building. It may take a couple of weeks to adjust.

Patience! I'm sorry, it's so hard. I've been through it multiple times with both of my kids. It just takes time for them to acclimate and become familiar with new faces & surroundings! Give it a week or two and stick to a routine and the crying should stop!

My son started daycare when he was almost 17 months, so a similar age. He LOVED people, had very little separation anxiety, so I wasn't worried at all about his transition. Well, he cried his eyes out and it was terrible (at first) and I felt so guilty. I cried as much as he did, I think.

BUT - he adjusted fairly quickly although there was still crying at drop off for a while. But it usually was over before we were out of the building, like someone else said. Honestly for months I called nearly every day about 15-20 minutes after drop off to check on him and they would always say he cried for about 2 minutes then started playing and has been totally happy since.

At that age, I think they do SO MUCH better once they "bond" with their teachers/caregivers. In my son's toddler class when he started, they had 4 main "teachers". He quickly became very attached to one particular teacher, Ms. "M" and once he felt comfortable to her, as long as Ms. "M" was there, he would happily go to her!

Your daycare should encourage you to call as often as you need for update and the teachers should be more than happy to talk to you and tell you what's going on with the transition. If they are not, then to me that's a big red flag.

My son's transition to the 2 year old class was similarly horrible but it improved within a few weeks.

@cake2017: it will get better but it can take a week or two before he stops crying. The best thing is to make the drop off short without extended goodbyes. It feels unnatural walking away from your crying child by trying to comfort him just makes it harder.

It will get easier and actually the shorter the goodbyes the better. Don’t prolong the inevitable or “reward” the crying (I hate using that word because it sounds so negative and it’s natural to comfort your crying child, but if they figure out that you’ll keep hugging as long as they are crying, it just drags it out).
So, my son is mostly good when dropped off at school but there will be an odd day here and there where he’ll just cling to me and cry - maybe had a bad night sleep or whatever. I just kiss and hug once and say that I’ll see him at the end of the day and we’ll do xyz and then I book it out of there, don’t look back. The teacher always tells me that within a minute or two he was fine and happy the rest of the day. This has been true since 18 months when we started school, to now at 4yo.

And to share a more extreme story, there was a boy in my sons 18mo class who literally clawed and kicked and screamed bloody murder at drop off. Like you’d think he was being kidnapped. But after a month or two he was fine and happily waved goodbye. And he was a very extreme case so I think most kids will adjust way before that.