Does Anyone Take Their Child to Childcare in Pyjamas?

DD2 is a complete nightmare to get dressed in the morning. Tears, tantrums, running up and down the house. No matter how much time I allow it never seems to be enough for the school/childcare run. I get up by 7am every day and we are still touch and go to make school at 9am largely due to DD2 being a complete pain in the mornings.

I'm currently looking for a job. It's likely that my commute will be upwards of an hour each way and ideally, to miss traffic I'd like to leave by about 7.15am.

The thought of coping with DD2 chucking meltdowns at 6.30am about getting dressed is stressing me out a little bit.

I guess the contingency plan could be to take her to childcare in her pyjamas and with a change of clothes obviously. I hate that idea because it looks like I'm too lazy to do it myself and expect the childcare workers to do it. But I know some mornings that would mean the difference between me being late and frazzled or on time and calm.

So is this reasonably common?

I think if you explained to the childcare your reason why she was coming in her pj's it would make a huge difference and they could probably talk her into getting dressed herself in the morning ;)

So no, I don't think there is anything wrong with it, I'm sure lots of people have the same issue. Mine have all been through the stage where they don't want to get dressed - DD1 is nearly 5 and still has her moments!

No. Never.

We used to have some kids turn up in PJs when I worked in child care. I don't know anyone who did it as a regular thing but if you chatted to them about it and they were expecting it it wouldn't be a big deal surely. I never had an issue dressing a child out of their PJs.

I have. DD was flat out refusing to get changed. I had no time left. DS was most distressed because, in his words "but it's not pyjama day mum". But I explained to the carer as soon as we got there & by the time I left, DD was already nodding to the carer who was asking if she wanted to change into her clothes. They told me it happens quite regularly. DD only did it once.

ETA: It's taken a while but we now have our morning routine down pat. Up at 7am. They can only watch TV if they are dressed and it goes off at 7.35. If they don't eat their breakfast, they go hungry. Morning tea is at 9am anyway so it's not for long. We are out the door by 8am. Any later & I'm late for work. I have everything ready the night before. Lunch is packed into lunchboxes and in the fridge. Kindy bags are restocked with nappies and clothes or whatever they need and near the door. All I have to do is get them dressed, fed, clean teeth, sunscreen. If I can get up before them, I get myself ready first otherwise I find it hard as they need me to do just about everything it's hard to get myself ready as well. Sometimes they object but I don't let them get away with it. If they refuse to do something, I give them a chance and if they still refuse, I do it for them regardless of their tantrums. They know what they have to do and I can only be patient for so long. I tried a reward chart with DS but no success.

I have if we have to get there really early - usually because I have a work conference an hour away. On a day like that I let daycare know in advance, I get her up and straight in the car, we get to daycare about 6:30 and they give her breakfast and into a change of clothes. They're the ones who recommended it for days like that.

our child care encourage the mums who do early drop offs to take kids in their pjs.

i, like you, avoid it as much as possible because i feel bad that its one extra thing for them to do when i could do it at home, and i voiced this to our room leader who basically said i was crazy and to bring DD in her pjs every day to make our mornings easier!

occasionally i did drop her off in pjs, but only on mornings when we had slept in or were running late, it was such a big help!

now she is 2.5 and toilet trained she likes to go to the loo before we go so she always gets dressed, but i wouldnt hesitate to do it even now if i needed to

I guess it depends on what time you're taking them there.

I've never done it myself and don't believe it should be the carer's responsibility to get my child ready in the mornings, however I drop DS2 off at 8:30am and he only goes once a week anyway.

I guess if you were dropping your children off between 6:30 and 7:30 then it would be quite reasonable, but any time after that I think it's the parent's job to have their child ready to go in the mornings. If that means getting up half an hour earlier, or putting up with tantrums, then so be it. But that's just me :)

I haven't but I would say that DD 4 always seems to know when really needs to hurry and does but doesn't if not necessary iYKWIM so when I wasn't working or when mum takes can often take from 7:00 to 9:00 to be ready but when I am dropping off can be ready by 7:15. They like having breakfast at daycare so that is an incentive too, earlier they are ready the more foundations, dogs cats etc they get to stop and look at too, which helps.

OK, I think I have a bit of a plan. If DD2 was anything like DD1 this would be easy but she's not. Every single thing is a struggle. Getting her to sleep is a struggle - generally she's not asleep till 9pm which means I'm not getting lunches/bags/uniforms/my stuff ready until the morning. So I get up at 6.30am to do that. DD1 gets up around 7am and we get her sorted before getting DD2 up at 8am. If I get DD2 up earlier she's a complete nightmare. Holding my leg while I'm doing porridge, not eating breakfast, not getting dressed and generally disrupting everything.

So the core problem, I think, is getting DD2 asleep earlier. So today's she's going for a massive walk and we're going to break this cycle.

I'll also start stickers as rewards for getting dressed, letting me brush her hair (another isseeeew) and eating breakfast.

Thanks guys - I'll see if I can get a few of these things sorted out. It will make my life easier whether or not I get a job and have to start dropping her off at childcare at 7am. Eeeeek.

This might sound really bad but it works for us - when I went back to work 4 days a week, dd was 18mths old and I had an hour commute. I would dress her in her clothes for the day before bed and she just had to get jacket & shoes in. When I went back full time 6 months later we continued it. Most nights we still do and she will be 4 next month - if she wanted to wear pjs to bed we talked about getting dressed when mummy says etc. I'm on mat leave now for 12mths and will use this time to work on her ability to get ready in the morning in a timely fashion - but when I go back to work bubba will probably be dressed in the clothes for the next day

tk1999 - don't worry that thought has crossed my mind too! For us, that would just mean a tantrum at bedtime, there's no way DD2 would wear anything other than pyjamas at bedtime. She's ultra fussy. And as for those who say put up with the tantrum, I'm not a pushover but getting a screaming, kicking toddler dressed is impossible and there's only so much I can physically force her to do something given that I'm not meant to lift her (dodgy back, pelvis etc.).

She's just quite tricky. Adorable but tricky. Her latest bedtime trick is to refuse to have covers on her. It's really cold here. She just wants me to get into bed with her so that she can lie on top of me and demands "warm me up".

I haven't done the pjs thing, but one thing that may help is having breakfast there. On days we were running late, or if DD1 slept in I would get her up and dressed and straight in the car and she would eat her breakfast (that I supplied) there. She would be dropped off around 7:20 each morning. There were always tons of kids eating there.

I cheat, cos they go to daycare in comfy play clothes, I will sometimes dress them in their daycare clothes for bed, so in the morning, when they get up, all they have to do is have breakfast, put on their shoes and go.

- Just read the above posts - I am glad I am not the only one who does this!! =D

Well I will upset a lot of people!

I return to work in a few weeks. Dh will be doing drop offs (usually very early) and we will be dropping the baby off in pjs a lot. If he can manage to get her dressed, great. If not, the carers are more than happy to change her after her morning nap. They prefer it if it makes the morning less stressful for dd2 who already has major separation anxiety issues.

Doing this also means maximum sleeping time for dd2 which we all agree is paramount given the issues we have had.

I would prefer he took both girls clothed and ready for the day but dd1 requires you to pretty much stand there and repeat 200 times that she needs to get dressed. So unless dd2 is awake when I leave at 6am, she will most likely arrive in her pjs. For this year anyway.

We have some families do this, especially if they are in really early. We don't mind, especially in winter and the mornings are cold.

I have done so when DD1 was younger. Just went through that stage of her not wanting to get changed. One carer was a bit miffed (I had issues with her anyway) and the others were fine. I suspect it would similar at our current centre, some of those carers can work magic on getting the girls to do things ;)

I have with other times taken DD1 somewhere in her PJ's, then changed her once we got there as it made it all so much easier.

I think as long as the carers are ok with it it should be fine. It's their job to care for the children and if that means changing clothes so be it. When I had trouble getting DS to clean his teeth, they encouraged me to bring his toothbrush in and they would help him there. I would always try at home but sometimes time constraints and unco-operative toddlers meant it was either take it in or go without cleaning his teeth. Having that option is such a sanity saver even if you only use it occassionally. All of the carers at our daycare are incredibly helpful and love the kids to bits. They are always willing to do whatever is needed for each individual child.

Good luck Fiona