Sudden Change In Behavior

[AvgBob]

Andrew, our son is 4 1/2 years old.  He has been going to daycare since he was 1 year old.  He has up to three weeks ago enjoyed daycare.  Three weeks ago we promoted him to stop sucking his thumb to get stickers at the end of each day.  He then was sick with the flu, he vomited in the park where the other daycare children were playing.  He stayed home with his grandparents for two days.  Ever since then he has had problems at daycare.  He has bad drop offs, he needs a teacher to sit next to him for over an hour at a time at various times of day.  For a while he refused to go outside to the park with the other kids.  He cries saying he wants his mommy.  At home I get the same reaction, often when he wakes up, he says he wants his mommy and it takes a while for him to snap out of it.

We replaced the thumb sucking reward with a reward for putting toys away at home.  We told him we will wait till he is older to practice stopping thumb sucking, just in case it is related to the new behavior.  He now sucks his thumb but not very frequently.

We adjusted our schedule a couple days ago so his mom to spend more time with him in the evenings.  I (dad) try to cook and clean and take care of our 1 year old to accommodate.  

He claims to be sad all the time at school, yet I see him playing with the other kids and he looks happy at that time.  I’ve noticed the crying his more like whining at times.  

Andrew’s mom is guilt ridden for being a working mom and is considering quitting her job.  We are meeting with the daycare to discuss strategy; however they have not provided any advice up to this point.  The daycare seems very good, and all the children are well behaved.  The only thing I dislike about the daycare is that Andrew has been in the same room for 18 months and I think he would be getting board with the same toys and people.  He scheduled to remain in that room for another 8 months.  If you ask him, he is not excited about the prospect of a new school or kinder garden.  

Andrew is a shy child and would do anything for our approval and the approval of his instructors.  Lately, he is easily upset.  His instructors are very careful of the tone and words they use, so as to not upset him.  He says he is scared of being sad at school.  We have tried role playing and other methods to try to find out if there is anything specific bothering him.  It seems as though he just wants his mommy.

I would like to know what else we can try to do.  I want my son most of all to be a generally happy child, and want to avoid issues with him adapting to kinder garden.  
Thank you,
Andrew’s Dad

[AvgBob]

He's been feeling much better for the past week, but the last week has been the worst at daycare.  We've taken him out of daycare yesterday, and remains at home today, we are trying to come up with a temporary plan before we can implement something more permenent.
Thanks

[donsher]

Hi, I'm sorry about your strife.  Could he still be feeling under the weather and unable to verbalize it?