3 things you need to know if your child is going to kindergarten

Were you able to find a place in kindergarten for your little Jean-Marcel 1ᵉʳ named? Hooray, pop the champagne, you were lucky. Well, now that it’s all over, that you know he can be kept full-time and you can go back to work with a lighter head, there are two or three more things you should know before you get carried away. away too fast.

In the first year, he is likely to get sick often

All parents who have had a child at nursery school will tell you: ask your paediatrician for a loyalty card in the first year, because you risk seeing him often, very often. Gastroenteritis, angina, otitis, bronchiolitis, colds that last from September to June, chicken pox and hands, foot and mouth disease… This is the fate of children who live in a community.

If some parents, as rare as unicorns, can tell you “oh no, my little Marie-Cystite was not sick in her first year of kindergarten, you don’t have to believe everything you read”, know that either they are lying out loud , or they have a short memory, or they are the happy parents of a bionic child with concrete immune defenses and probably no human DNA. Yes, she is disingenuous, but I criticized the equivalent of a minimum wage at the pediatrician last year, so let me be a little grumpy.

For the structure it is a bit of a “baby factory”

Who says collective nursery, says community. So far it is not difficult to figure it out. But what we can hardly imagine, until we have experienced it, is that a nursery full of children is also diapers changed faster than its shadow, meals swallowed in chains, naps together, multiple seizures following one another, all under the supervision and the patience of the nursery assistants who deserve a big salary increase given the difficulties of their work.

Clearly, if you want your little Pierre-Henri to be looked after by only one person who can give him all the attention he deserves and wrap him in his warm arms with no regrets, I’m sorry to tell you that the collective crèche is not ideal . . There, even if the auxiliaries do what they can with the means they have, the children are not “like at home”. They experience the harsh law of the jungle, they have to learn to wait their turn, and it’s not always easy.

You will definitely get stressed, welcome to parenthood

Did you think that placing your little Mireille-Louise in a daycare would guarantee you the peace of mind you deserve by entrusting your child? On the contrary. You will discover fear, the real one. The fear when you see the nursery number displayed on your mobile phone screen, immediately imagining the worst, i.e. a new burn of the gastrointestinal tract when the last one was only 3 weeks ago, or a fever peak of 40°C which involves having to find a pediatrician in the evening when there are no places available on Doctolib or worse: transfer to hospital because another child pushed you from the top of the slide.

It was always little Marie-Cystite, the one who had never been ill in her life, according to her parents. Brief. Let’s try not to panic too soon: Generally, when the daycare calls you in the middle of the day, it’s true that it’s often to warn you that your child’s illness is starting. But it can also be just to tell you that you forgot to sign a document, or to let you know that the nursery has a parents’ tea party the following Friday and that we would like you to bring along a bottle of orange juice. organic, orange juice, for piecere.

Or, another option is a phone call to advise you that your child will not be able to be cared for in two weeks due to a teaching day, leaving you to find another way of caring for that day. . However, between the days when he can’t go to kindergarten because he’s sick, the days he can’t go because there’s a strike, and the pedagogical days 3-4 times a year, get organized and get the number of a babysitter who can help you extra. Either that, or you put all your days off work, to do everything but rest and keep your precious bacon. Fantastic, right? NO.

Despite everything, here you are in a new world of permanent stress because you have entrusted your child to someone other than yourself. It’s normal, it will calm down over time, but it’s true that from now on you risk going crazy at the slightest spike in fever, the start of diarrhea or unexpected calls. It’s normal, welcome to Daronnerie, this sweet world that we hadn’t necessarily imagined before setting foot there.

Do you like our articles? You will love our newsletters! Sign up for free on this page.