It’s easy to feel guilty about leaving your child in someone else’s care. It can be hard letting your them go for any amount of time, but if you need to leave them in care for most or all of the working week, you can feel neglectful even if they are receiving the best attention.
Some children experience separation anxiety at this point, which increases the guilt factor. However, many enjoy having a change of scene and new toys and friends to play with. You’ll often find that their development suddenly speeds up after starting nursery because they see the other children doing things and copy them.
That’s an important point though: families these days are smaller and communities are less close-knit, so children are less likely to have contact with other children. Nursery can be a valuable way of making up for that. Without it, when they eventually go to school, your children will find it hard that they are no longer the centre of attention, that they have to get along with other kids, and learn to share. They’ll get used to all of that much earlier if they spend some time at nursery – ideally not all of their time, but you may not have much choice in the matter.
But whatever you do, don't spend all your time beating yourself up – do what you have to do.