Until age 3, he had been in the care of a single caregiver, at her home with her twins (then age 7). He had been in her care since he was 3 months old and had a strong bond with her and her family. When he began preschool (part time), he had an extremely difficult time and refused to nap there. After an emotionally tense few weeks, he begged me to be able to sleep at “Dee’s” house. He said (at age 3) that he ‘didn’t feel safe’ sleeping at school. We changed his schedule immediately so he would nap at the sitter’s house.
P. also had eye surgery that year to correct malalignment of his eye muscles (one of his eyes drifted severely and could not be corrected with increasingly stronger glasses). His pediatric ophthalmologist said in years of practice, she had never seen a child react as strongly as P. did to his followup care. It took my husband and me, sitting on a screaming P. to put the eye drops in that he needed to prevent infection following the surgery.
