Starting nursery is one of the biggest transitions a small child goes through, and it happens at an age when they have very few words for how they feel. If your child has gone quiet, clingy or unusually wobbly in the weeks before they start, nothing has gone wrong. Their body is doing exactly what it should: noticing that change is coming and asking you for reassurance.
You do not need to prepare them with worksheets or drills. What helps most is predictability, small doses of practice, and a parent who sounds steady even when they do not feel it.
Here is a four-week countdown you can start whenever you are — even if you only have four days.
Four weeks out, the goal is simply to make the word "nursery" ordinary. Not exciting, not scary — ordinary.
Mention it in passing while you are doing something else. "That's the road to your nursery." "Your nursery has a sandpit like this one." Children absorb far more from these throwaway comments than from a sit-down conversation, and there is no pressure to respond.
Avoid over-selling it. When we say "you're going to LOVE it, it's going to be AMAZING," a child who then feels nervous on day one thinks something is wrong with them. Try instead: "Some bits will be fun and some bits might feel strange at first. Both are okay."
Words you can use: "In a few weeks you'll go to nursery. I'll take you, and I'll come back for you."
Separation is a skill, and like all skills it is built in small pieces. This week, look for the small goodbyes that already happen in your day and make them slightly more deliberate.
Leave the room and call back, "I'm in the kitchen, back in a minute." Let a grandparent, trusted friend or other parent take them to the park while you stay home. Keep the goodbyes short and the returns warm and matter-of-fact — you want them to learn *you always come back*, not *goodbyes are dramatic events*.
Play hide and seek. It sounds trivial, but for a young child, hide and seek is rehearsal for the whole idea that something can disappear and reappear safely.
Small children cannot hold a sequence in their heads, so they experience each step of a new morning as a surprise. A visual routine removes that.
Draw or print four or five pictures: wake up, breakfast, get dressed, shoes, nursery. Stick them at their eye level. Walk through it each morning even before nursery starts, so that by the first day the routine already feels familiar.
A simple reward chart works well here too — not as a bribe, but as a way of showing progress your child can actually see. Our free printables include a seven-day chart you can use for getting dressed or shoes-on practice, and there are more in the reward charts collection.
This is also the week to shift bedtime, if it has slipped over the summer. Move it earlier in ten-minute steps rather than one big jump — a child who is asked to sleep 45 minutes earlier overnight will simply lie awake and get frustrated.
In the final week, make it physical.
Walk or drive the route to nursery. Stand outside. Point at the door they will go through. If the setting offers a settling-in visit, take it, and stay relaxed and boring while you are there — your child will read your body language before they read the room.
Pack the bag together. Let them choose which water bottle. Let them put their own spare clothes in. A child who has handled the bag feels a small amount of ownership over the day, and ownership is the opposite of fear.
Read stories about starting somewhere new. Stories are the safest way for a child to rehearse a big feeling, because it is happening to someone else. Our free story books and educational storybook PDFs include gentle titles about bravery, new places and coming home again.
Keep it short. Say the same goodbye you have practised, hand them over, and go. A drawn-out goodbye does not reduce distress — it extends it, because the child stays in the in-between state where they can still hope you will stay.
Words you can use: "I'm going now. I'll be back after snack time. Have a good morning."
Then walk away, even if they cry. Most children settle within a few minutes of the parent leaving, and your key worker will tell you honestly if that is not the case.
That is common and it is not a sign of failure. Some children need three days, some need six weeks. What matters is the trend: is it shorter each time? Does the setting tell you they settle after you go? Are they eating and sleeping reasonably at home?
If the crying is getting worse rather than better after several weeks, or they are distressed at home in ways they were not before, talk to the key worker and your health visitor. That is not overreacting — that is using the people whose job it is to help.
How far in advance should I tell my child they're starting nursery?
For under-threes, two to three weeks is plenty. Longer than that and the waiting itself becomes the worry. For four- and five-year-olds you can start a little earlier.
Should I stay for the first session if they're upset?
Follow the setting's guidance. Generally a short, confident goodbye helps more than a long stay, because staying teaches your child that enough crying keeps you there.
My child was fine, then started crying in week three. Why?
This is extremely common. The novelty wears off and the reality lands. Keep the routine identical and it usually passes within a week or two.
Is it worth doing "school readiness" work at home?
Not academic work. Practise the practical things: coats, shoes, opening a lunch box, asking an adult for help, and using the toilet independently. Those are what actually make a child feel capable.
You are not sending your child away. You are widening the circle of people who care about them, and you are still the centre of it.