Nursery difficulties

Eldest toddler 2y2m is having difficulties in nursery since arrival of youngest (11 weeks old). They've said difficulties listening, getting up during story time, hitting and grabbing toys. I suspect that there have been difficulties listening with one bad day at the last pick up. Toddler has lots of one to one time with both parents (my partner wfh) as well as shared time with baby. Toddler has next to no screen time. I worry that toddler going back to same environment, they'll fall back into same behaviours. We've started social stories and reading books about 'hands are for helping, not hitting'. We don't see inappropriate behaviour at play dates - any toy grabbing from any toddler is squashed and dealt with quickly. Toddler is also fairly new to this room (moved last month). Any similar situations or advice hugely appreciated. So anxious about toddler going back to nursery and continuing to have a rough time.

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I have a similar age gap with my toddler and newborn, and we were told about needing to discuss sharing and “kind hands” etc. I was horrified as she’s never hit at home, on a play date or soft play and shares really willingly if you ask her to. Same as your toddler, she’s also moved up to the toddler room recently. After a bit of probing with the nursery team, it turns they all do it and it’s a constant conversation with all the children. I suspect your little one has seen others doing it and it’s a learned behaviour. I made sure we’re using the same strategies as nursery in terms of language and consequences. It seems to have been pretty short lived but we still talk about “kind hands” and sharing with our friends at nursery.

We have a really similar situation! My first is 21 months now and has had a really hard time at nursery with biting in particular. We’ve done everything we can at home (same with the books, Time to Be Kind, Teeth are not for Biting, etc.), gotten him bibs with a chew toy on the end, and even told nursery how we’ve been handling it at home. We nipped it in the bud really quick but they still struggle with him. At the end of the day we realized it’s his nursery that’s actually the problem. They have major staffing issues so the teachers in his room and his ‘key worker’ have changed more times than I can count, and they keep sending him home for no reason. For example saying he has a temp but he absolutely doesn’t. We’re moving him to a new nursery, fancy Montessori one where all the teachers are mums themselves. I think he just needs more love & care for the behavior to improve.

We’ve not had this yet but sometimes I think they forget at that age they are still babies with next to no impulse control so whilst I absolutely agree that we should be trying to encourage gentle behaviour and sharing there’s no need to drag parents over coals if they do have slips in behaviour 🙃 Honestly I think it’s just a developmental stage where they’re learning social boundaries and as long as we try to support them to be kind and gentle then I think we have to ride the wave x

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