Young babies in nursery

[MadameHomais]

I have been reading another thread about a six month old in nursery for around 12 hours a day.
I must admit that I am very uninformed and I didn’t realise young babies could be left at nursery for such long hours.
It made me wonder how do the nurseries manage such young babies?
I look after my ten month old grandson 5 days a week, 10 am until 5 pm and I think that is a long time for him to be away from his parents, but needs must.
I collect his cousins from school three days a week and on those days I am in bed by 8.30 pm! I am a light weight now I am in my late fifties.
I do enjoy childcare though.
I do realise how fortunate I was with my own four children. I had help from my mother in law and a sympathetic employer. I don’t recall any other friends having to use nurseries for such long hours 30 plus years ago.
I am so sorry that we live in a society where, sometimes, both parents have to return to work when their children are so young.

You're right, it isn't great that this is what society asks of us these days, and that it is a necessity for some isn't a good commentary on where capitalism has left us. Yes some mothers may have amazing careers that they're keen to get back to full time long hours after 6 months of mat leave and if so good for them, but I suspect that this is the minority and most people in this position are there from necessity. I hope our mat leave laws and benefits improve and that men are encouraged to take parental leave and there is a culture shift here eventually.

@HelloDulling

I'm 45, when I was born my mum had to go back to work full time as a teacher after 6 weeks as there was no paid maternity leave available so I went to a childminder 7.30am-5pm. Families using childcare for small babies is really not a new thing.

Same happened to me.

However unlike my DD's CM and nursery workers, they weren't qualified and inspected. It was just luck whether the childcarer your parents chose was good at looking after children.

When I worked in the baby room before my children. Maternity leave was often only 14 weeks so we often got babies in at 12 weeks. We worked round the babies routines from home, often a mum would pop in on her lunch to feed her wee one and we regularly had one on one time while others slept. As well as lots of fun a d different experiences and toys etc.

It's what parents needed to.

Maintain a ‘certain lifestyle’ FFS. I have no safety net, no family behind me, nothing. I’m not inheriting property, I need to build a secure base to raise my family in to give them opportunities I didn’t have myself.

OP, I agree with a lot of what you've written. Your family are lucky to have you.

My DC (14 months) doesn't attend nursery and is instead being raised in a big, extended, loving family with parents around as much as possible. Grandparents look after DC two days a week and my husband and I have reduced our hours to cover the other three.

This set up is frequently criticised by British friends who think nursery is far better than family care and that my DC is missing out by not going to nursery. I'm almost made to feel negligent for not sending her.

My husband's culture (European, but not British) is very much about the extended family pulling together. My DC is growing up surrounded by cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents who she sees regularly (usually on a weekly basis). I honestly think being raised by loving, engaged family members is at least as good as nursery.

@wanttomarryamillionaire

My ex Dil worked in a nursery and often said how common this was and how she felt sorry for the children. I went back to work part time when my youngest was one and I struggled to leave him for 20 hours a week with a relative not even in nursery! I know that times have changed and people often need two salaries but theres a big difference between needing two wage packets to put food on the table and pay the mortgage and doing it so that you can maintain a certain lifestyle.

It broke my heart leaving my babies at nursery at 6 months old. I cried, a lot.

Portraying us as some heartless subhumans is so offensive. I would have loved more time with them.

I know nobody at all who went back to work when their children were under 1 who didn't have to do that financially. A year of combined maternity/ paternity pay at full salary mandated by law would fix that problem. I bet you then there would be close to zero 6 months olds in nurseries.

That said, vilifying mothers for eventually going back to life where they are a parent AND a person with a career and life of their own is ridiculous, so regressive and massively sexist. If a man works full time he's a great family man and provider, of a woman does that she is callous and should not have had children, many of these posters have told us. Why? Why does having a vagina make me wanting to provide a stable home for my children, a bad thing? Yes that means we get a little less time together, but it means they have a stable and happy life and good friendships and a nice, warm home and experiences they could not have if I relied on the state to provide for us, just so that I could be at home 100% of the time rather than 70% of the time while they are too small to even remember it. When they are older and I have money saved for them to go to study or set up businesses or have house deposits, and they've lived in the same place with a stable home and stable friendships and schools, I'm sure they'll be glad I prioritised their security over tuff trays (although I made plenty of those every Saturday!). I moved house and schools almost every year as a child. That did far more damage to me than going to nursery would have done.

Everyone is trying to do their best in different circumstances. We should focus on examining why the circumstances so frequently provide a range of suboptimal options to choose from, rather than us as a nation putting in place a system that works so that parents don't have to do that.

@MissEDashwood19

OP, I agree with a lot of what you've written. Your family are lucky to have you.

My DC (14 months) doesn't attend nursery and is instead being raised in a big, extended, loving family with parents around as much as possible. Grandparents look after DC two days a week and my husband and I have reduced our hours to cover the other three.

This set up is frequently criticised by British friends who think nursery is far better than family care and that my DC is missing out by not going to nursery. I'm almost made to feel negligent for not sending her.

My husband's culture (European, but not British) is very much about the extended family pulling together. My DC is growing up surrounded by cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents who she sees regularly (usually on a weekly basis). I honestly think being raised by loving, engaged family members is at least as good as nursery.

That's wonderful, and will be brilliant for your DD.

Unfortunately in the UK many people do not live near extended family, and even if they do, family mostly won't be willing to be involved in the practical day-to-day raising of extended family that way. Our social fabric has disintegrated so much as that would, I agree, be brilliant, for the vast majority it isn't available.

@Westerman

I suspect that in a lot of cases, most women need to work so the family can pay for the kind of lifestyle people seem to expect nowadays. With many of the people around me, when I was of that age, there was no bedsit, terraced house or 1-bed flat starter home; it is straight to the big, 4-bed detached house on a new estate now. 2 or 3 holidays per year. 2 big cars on the driveway. Nursery bills. These lifestyle choices doesn't come cheap.

Yes, there are those who have careers they need/want to maintain and those who simply want to work, too. But in my experience, doing regular office jobs, most were working simply to fund their chosen lifestyle.

Times have changed. Few households can afford to buy or even privately rent a one bed on one income, or even one part time income.

If you are lucky, in a cheap area around here you can get a small two bed or one bed flat for 200k, if you can even afford to save a deposit you will need to have an income to get at least a 190k mortgage. A normal office job may be 20/25k, you still need two full time incomes to afford to borrow 190k (for example) as a mortgage on a small house- even then it may not even be affordable after your costs of running a car for work or train fare.

A lot of parents have to use affordable housing schemes or pay private rents, even then you will still need to have two incomes to keep a roof over your child’s heads.

Very few people are working all hours and moving straight to a 4 bed with loads of holidays. I mean if they are, then good for them! But it’s certainly not the norm in my experience.

12 months maternity leave is a very recent thing (late 90’s? Not sure). Even as recently as 1991 not all women had entitlement to maternity at all.
When my kids were born I had 26 weeks. My eldest went to a childminder from 6 months to about 2 years old. My youngest went straight into nursery. The nurseries coped fine. You could take in expressed breast milk provided it was very clearly labelled. They managed the weaning fine. And baby rooms were available with cots for the littlest.
The biggest issue for me was I had PND after my eldest- it wasn’t identified until I was about 3 months post partum, so had only just got to feeling better and was still on high doses of antidepressants when I had to return which wasn’t great. Baby was fine though .

Should say I was entitled to 26 weeks not “had”, I didn’t have a choice. That was 1994-1997

Needs must, but it is sub-optimal. Being left with a family member as a baby if the care is okay is fine. But babies are left with a childcare worker looking after 3 babies in a baby room. Sure the babies won't come to any harm. They will be fed, sleep, held and played with. But it is sub-optimal.
We would expect a mother with triplets at home to struggle without support. But put a childcare worker in that position and it is deemed fine.

@julieca

Needs must, but it is sub-optimal. Being left with a family member as a baby if the care is okay is fine. But babies are left with a childcare worker looking after 3 babies in a baby room. Sure the babies won't come to any harm. They will be fed, sleep, held and played with. But it is sub-optimal. We would expect a mother with triplets at home to struggle without support. But put a childcare worker in that position and it is deemed fine.

That's not a fair comparison, though. 2 adults and 6 babies is WAY easier to manage than one adult with 3 babies. 4 adults with 12 babies is again way easier than one adult and three babies. Upset children get one-to-one attention and the others are engaged by people they lnow extremely well doing fun stuff with them and their friends and giving plenty of affection. Very different to an isolated mum of triplets struggling to cope of even get a toilet break, and probably attempting to breastfeed multiple children at once.

@MissEDashwood19

OP, I agree with a lot of what you've written. Your family are lucky to have you.

My DC (14 months) doesn't attend nursery and is instead being raised in a big, extended, loving family with parents around as much as possible. Grandparents look after DC two days a week and my husband and I have reduced our hours to cover the other three.

This set up is frequently criticised by British friends who think nursery is far better than family care and that my DC is missing out by not going to nursery. I'm almost made to feel negligent for not sending her.

My husband's culture (European, but not British) is very much about the extended family pulling together. My DC is growing up surrounded by cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents who she sees regularly (usually on a weekly basis). I honestly think being raised by loving, engaged family members is at least as good as nursery.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an extended, loving family living close by who are willing and able to care for young children.

My mum died before I had my child, my dad still works full time and lives over an hour away, my brother is in prison and my sister is 17 ( a whole 21 years younger than me!!)

My in laws do quite a bit of childcare for us but they have 8 other grandchildren. SILs don't live locally.

For us nursery was our only option if we both wanted to maintain our careers.

@julieca

Needs must, but it is sub-optimal. Being left with a family member as a baby if the care is okay is fine. But babies are left with a childcare worker looking after 3 babies in a baby room. Sure the babies won't come to any harm. They will be fed, sleep, held and played with. But it is sub-optimal. We would expect a mother with triplets at home to struggle without support. But put a childcare worker in that position and it is deemed fine.

Not quite triplets but I’m a twin Mum of babies with a 3 year old without support and I take care of them alone all the time. I do a bloody good job.

I suspect a trained professional would probably do an even better job than me to be honest. Babies do well with routine and scheduled naps which is probably what they’d do. It’s perfectly possibly to take care of multiple children at once!

@julieca also why do you presume that a family member would necessarily provide better care for a baby? Some people don't love being around small children even if they are relatives, some people are just rubbish at it. Some people are abusive. At least in a nursery setting or with a nanny the children are with somebody who likes children, has been trained to care for them safely and provide them with stimulating activities, and has also been safety checked.

@Dartfordwarblerautumn

12 months maternity leave is a very recent thing (late 90’s? Not sure). Even as recently as 1991 not all women had entitlement to maternity at all. When my kids were born I had 26 weeks. My eldest went to a childminder from 6 months to about 2 years old. My youngest went straight into nursery. The nurseries coped fine. You could take in expressed breast milk provided it was very clearly labelled. They managed the weaning fine. And baby rooms were available with cots for the littlest. The biggest issue for me was I had PND after my eldest- it wasn’t identified until I was about 3 months post partum, so had only just got to feeling better and was still on high doses of antidepressants when I had to return which wasn’t great. Baby was fine though .

Being "entitled" to 12 months of maternity leave is meaningless if it is not paid at full salary. Some women are single parents. Some are the higher earner so the family would lose their home if they took time off unpaid/ paid at the paltry SMP rate. Everyone should have a year paid at full salary. That would change a lot.

@MadameHomais

I have been reading another thread about a six month old in nursery for around 12 hours a day. I must admit that I am very uninformed and I didn’t realise young babies could be left at nursery for such long hours. It made me wonder how do the nurseries manage such young babies? I look after my ten month old grandson 5 days a week, 10 am until 5 pm and I think that is a long time for him to be away from his parents, but needs must. I collect his cousins from school three days a week and on those days I am in bed by 8.30 pm! I am a light weight now I am in my late fifties. I do enjoy childcare though. I do realise how fortunate I was with my own four children. I had help from my mother in law and a sympathetic employer. I don’t recall any other friends having to use nurseries for such long hours 30 plus years ago. I am so sorry that we live in a society where, sometimes, both parents have to return to work when their children are so young.

To focus on your question about how nurseries manage such young babies, mine went to nursery full time from 9 months old (7 if you consider he was a premature baby), and I can tell about my experience. First of all, I visited several nurseries and picked one I liked. It's a small nursery, with an even smaller baby room. I liked their approach, their setting and facilities. But most of all I liked that all the staff seemed happy there and they were engaged with the children, no one was left out. More than two years later I can confirm my instinct was good, as the staff has really been so helpful, caring, lovely with my child.

The baby room has the standard ratio of 1:2, with most days only 2-3 children in. The room is at the back of the nursery, so no one has to go trough it and it's more peaceful. Children in the baby room don't mix with the others. The room has a small kitchen for the staff to prepare and clean bottles, while baby food is prepared onsite by the same chef who prepare the older children's food.
They babies spend an awful lot of time cuddled by the staff! The routine consists in breakfast on the high chair or bottles holding the baby. Then it's snack, lunch, snack and tea, unless of course a baby has his/her own schedule. Mine went in shortly after beginning the weaning process and we just agreed with the key worker on every step (I told her what food he already tried, she informed me what new food he had, then it was her suggesting by instance when he was ready for the next texture). Even for bottles, I just communicated how much and how often he should get one and we worked together on when to stop one etc
In between all the meals, there is an awful lot of nappy changes! They have a fixed schedule (twice in the morning, twice in the afternoon) but every day there is the need to change the babies at other times too.
Also, an awful lot of changing outfits as the vomit/dribble/runny poo is pretty much the norm.
Naps happens in cots that are on the floor (they are wooden type of 'pods'), they have a mattress and get cleaned sheets every day. At nap time they play a soothing music and close the blinds. However, young babies nap way more often than that! But in the baby room there is never chaos or much noise.
The only exception is play time of course. During the day there are several corners set up with various activities, and they change them often. There is a teepee with lots of cushions that is a reading corner, a sort of super easy climbing frame, there are things to play with textures or with lights, books, puzzles, animals....
They take the babies out to the garden less often than the other children and always when the other 'classes' are not around.

I have fond memories of our experience in the baby room. My son developed a very strong bond with his key person and I was able to learn a lot as a new mum from her too!

My son went to daycare from five months old when I returned to work. There was a ten hour limit, but even though I had him nearer work than home that was quite difficult to keep to, though I did. But it started making things awkward in the office - I was the only parent and often the first to leave (I was contracted to work days rather than hours, and days could be over 8 hours easily).
If I had my husband's job the kids would have been in 12 hours every day - he was a high powered lawyer. We were fortunate that I gave up work after my second child, but many don't have that choice.

@Whatelsecouldibecalled

What’s the point of your post?

Do nursery take young children? Yes. From about 6 weeks some of them

Do parents WANT to leave their child for 12 hours a day? Some of them yes

Do parents NEED to leave their child for 12 hours a day? Some of them yes

Is your child extremely lucky that they can leave their children with a family member and presumably not pay extortionate fees? Yes

Are you a mug for doing all that childcare when retired? Yes

Is this the goady-est thread I’ve read today? YES

@Whatelsecouldibecalled

A very concise no-nonsense post.
Until your penultimate sentence........
Calling the OP a mug is just as goady as what you are accusing other people of being 🤷‍♀️

Well this is definitely a lovely thread to read while my one year old is struggling to settle in to nursery…

I’m probably one of the women the OP is judging. We are lucky that we could afford for me not to work and live off DH’s salary (though it would be tight) so DD wouldn’t have to go to nursery. Half the time I think that’s what we should do but I’m sending her anyway, four days a week, 10 hours a day. All grandparents are still working so no help available there.

I love my job and find being a stay at home parent really dull. If I could keep my job and work half days then I’d jump at the chance and spend more time with DD. But that’s not an option most employers would let me get away with. So should I just quit? If I did I’d find it very hard (possibly impossible) to get back into my field when DD and any other future children are old enough and even if I could I’d be set back forever. So I’d be giving up a career which more than doubles our family income and will provide for DD.

I’ll probably feel guilty about not being around more, it feels very unnatural to drop her off at nursery, but in the long run I hope it’s better for both of us.

I know I’m really lucky to have the choice of what to prioritise - but even those of us lucky enough to have the choice find it agonising so we could really do without threads like this judging us.

I am not talking about toddlers that you can do group activities. Three young babies with one adult, or nine young babies with three staff - there is still the same amount of time to actually cuddle a baby, change babies nappy or feed them milk with a bottle of expressed or formula milk.
I am not saying the babies will come to any harm. But it is obvious that the attention is shared between three babies and one adult. The only difference nine babies and three adults make is that if some babies are sleeping, there are more adults to respond to those awake. But if they are all awake the extra staff and babies makes zero difference.

Some people don't have family to help

OP hasn’t been back so it was obviously a ‘wind them up and watch them go’ goady fucker of a thread.

@julieca just because that's the legal ratio doesn't mean its always at its maximum, in DS nursery there are 4 babies in the baby room, max at any one time (6 total registered) 2 full time baby rooms staff who have both worked there over 8 years. That's one adult to 2 babies.

People will always have opposing view on this, what is so saddening is the refusal for people to try to understand situations so different to their own.

Should we not have had our 2 sons because we have no family to help raise them? Well, I do have an abusive mother who would leave us alone as kids to go out or not feed us because ' we didn't ask to be fed' I suppose I could leave them with her because you know, FAMILY!

Or, I could leave them with trained professionals, who really have become part of our village in raising our boys. People who look after them as their own, who have cuddled them when sad and have cleaned up their messes when required.

Yes, maybe I work to keep our lifestyle, because why the hell shouldn't I? Why shouldn't my boys get to experience holidays (of which we had none), have a nice home to grow up in (instead of 5 of us in a 1 bed flat like when I was small) Have happy parents who neither of which is mentally cut out for staying at home full time for at least 5 years, then stuck in jobs in which they'd not be happy?

The age old assumption is always there that my earnings are 'pocket money' and BIL even said when I go back FT I'd soon change my mind, not realising that DH and I earn very similar salaries and my money isn't just for pretty things and treats, it pays the mortgage, the childcare, the food bills, and when its no longer paying for childcare yes it'll pay for a lifestyle that us and our kids bloody well deserve.

@julieca the babies will be in a baby room having age specific activities planned. Many SAHMs have multiple kids and the baby would end up accompanying older siblings to age appropriate activities- its not like SAHMs give universal 1:1 care, or indeed grandparents minding a clutch of cousins of varying ages.