DD's lovely nursery are currently providing her with one to one care from a very experienced keyworker, so that she can come twice a week for 3hrs each session. This is because the nursery is for 18 months plus, but DD is only around 12 months developmentally for most things and is less than that for speech.
They are funding this entirely themselves, as they say (and I agree) she wouldn't be safe or happy without it. But they say they can't afford to provide 1 to 1 for DD to attend for more sessions or for a longer time.
What do other people do in this situation? Would getting her statemented provide funding for the nursery? They're not that experienced at SN admin although they are a fabulous caring place.
DD's 21 months and has GDD.

It sounds as though she needs a statement. You can apply for one yourself.

I've just never heard of one for a child so young--people tend to post about statements for 3+.

I've not heard of one either but I think you can still apply. Attilathe meerkat will know.

Have you contacted your local childrens services dept and asked them for advice?

I have left a message, waiting for them to get back to me.

I googled it and can find nothing about a legal minimum age. IPSEA will be helpful here as well.

DS1 (ASD) is in a nursery with a statement and a full time LSA there is no minimum age as the others have said

dd has had a statement since she was 2, started process at 18 months.

Put in the request for a statement to the LEA - there is nothing to stop you doing this. There is no minimum age.

www.ipsea.org.uk is IPSEA's website.

It takes around 6 months for such a document to be put in place once the LEA say yes. The hard part however, is getting them to agree.

We got funding for DS2's 1-1 through an organisation/body called SCAAG (scag?). It was something our portage worker referred us to, and it was all sorted without me having to do anything myself, hence why I'm so vague about it? It came through just after he was 3, but I don't think it had a minimum age requirement.

Sorry, just gone through files and can only find reference to the fact that he got 6 hours support a week.....does your area have a Specialist Teaching Service/something with a similar name? Might be worth doing a suitably vague phone call?

However, I agree that statementing is probably the most positive course of action.

Thanks for all the help! I've spoken to the local special ed people and they were helpful, confirming no lower age limit, and telling me which documents to email them. I'm going to investigate SCAG and IPSEA too.

Can't find SCAG or variations thereof but IPSEA seems like a very helpful site. Have sent email to the ed people. There is apparently a procedure where the paeds can notify the ed dept about children they've seen who are likely to require a statement, which would presumably save the parents a bit of time--but we didn't think to ask our paed at the last appt.