Ishaan's first month at school

After seeing Ishaan play happily for 1 hour for the first 2-3 days at his new school (Montessori Way), we were hoping that Ishaan would have no problem when he starts full time. June 27 thru July 1st ( 9 to 3) was his first full week at school. I decided to work from home that week since the school is very near our place - so, in case there were any issues, I can go and pick-up Ishaan very quickly.

Our hopes were soon shattered. The first day I go to drop off Ishaan, he didn't want to let go of me. He cried. I stayed there for some time, but then on teacher's suggestion I left. I felt very bad, but hoped he would stop crying as the activities resume and he got busy. I called a couple of hours later and he was still crying.
I picked him up around 3:00. He was happy to see me, but he was in bad shape due to lot of crying. He had fallen asleep due to weariness from crying, but didn't really eat well or do anything else.

Communication was also a big issue since Ishaan only spoke and understood Gujarati. The teachers at Montessori Way asked me for translation of few words and sentences so that it would help them in communication. Despite their effort, the crying continued.

The same thing continued the 2nd day. Infact, he had now started resisting at home while getting ready too.

Since I was picking him up around 3:00, I had told Ishaan that I will come to pick him up right after he wakes up. So, then he wanted to go to sleep by 10:00 am so that I would pick him up sooner. On the 3rd day, the teacher let him sleep early and then I got a call around 1:00 asking to pick him up since he had woken up from sleep and was crying and disturbing other kids who were sleeping. I really didn't like that approach since I wondered why can't the teacher just take him to other room or outside - but I think they were understaffed that day.

The next day they tried to keep him awake till 11:00 am but because of crying, he was tried and so almost falling asleep while eating.

The struggle continued for the entire week. Ishaan also started waking up in the middle of the night and crying in his sleep uncontrollably - nothing could calm him for quite some time (in fact he did that when we went camping over the july 4th long weekend and woke everyone up at 2:00 am). We didn't really know how to deal with this.

We had started thinking of other options - either I take a leave of absence for few months (although we would be in a similar situation after few months) OR try out Bright Horizon or ask Binduben if she could help.

At the end of first week, I asked his teacher what she thought - if we should continue or withdraw. She said she hasn't seen any kid who has cried so much - so much that he doesn't even stop .. So, its hard for them as well to focus with a kid crying all the time - but she was hopeful and suggested that we try out for few more days. She said it will be the same thing elsewhere and the moving around is not good for the kid either.

Ishaan loves cars. So, I bought some hot wheels die-cast cars and gave it to the teacher and asked her to give 1 to Ishaan everyday as a bribe, hoping that it would help him to like/adjust to the new environment. The teacher did that. While Ishaan liked getting the car and it would calm him down temporarily, the struggle continued for most part in the 2nd week as well.

Here are few incidents from next couple of weeks as I remember them :

One of our friend (Shilpi Desai) used to drop off her son in the same school at 9:00 and pick him up at noon. So, I would call her at noon to ask if Ishaan was crying. Somedays, he was crying, other days he was not, but still sad.

One day when Shilpi went to pick up Rishaan, the teachers requested if she could talk to him in Gujarati and ask him to eat his lunch. So, Shilpi told him in Gujarati that if he doesn't eat his lunch, they will give it to the other kids. Ishaan didn't like the idea of giving away his food to other kids - so he started eating :)

One day he was resisting and crying really hard when I was walking him from car to this school building. One of the parents actually came to help and they carried Ishaan to the class door for me. Then while I waited outside to see if he had calmed down, I almost cried, but the parent advised that it was not a good idea to wait outside and that she had been through that as well.

One of the later days, when Shilpi was picking up Rishaan, Ishaan went to her and asked why is my mumma not coming to pick me up early ? It broke my heart when I heard that - making it seem more likely that I might take some time off to spend with Ishaan.

However, 3 weeks later, his resistance starting slowing down. While he wasn't very happy when I left him at school, he wasn't crying.

After almost 1 month of trying, Ishaan was feeling comfortable in school. He wasn't crying or resisting. He had also started picking up some English. His sleep crying at night had also become rare (and we had found a way to calm him down by asking some questions that he could answer and get distracted). We were happy and relieved that we survived the 1 month struggle period.

Now my fear is that we will be taking 2 week vacation to go to NY and Toronto in later half of August. Will Ishaan be able to adjust after we get back? I am keeping my fingers crossed.