Beginning Nursery - Any Tips?

[Jessica78]

We are looking at when to begin our 2.5 year old Ad with a couple of mornings of nursery a week. She misses other children! Has anyone got any tips on starting nursery? Thanks!

If she misses other children it might be better to go to playgroups with her for six months or so, so that she can play with other children while you are there. You will be able to see how well she plays (ideally playing independently and just checking in with you at times, I believe) and also help her with social skills as necessary - if she gets thumped or something snatched you can talk to her about it and how she feels or deal with it as appropriate at the time. Is that feasible? Three is supposed to be the better age as developmentally they have a better understanding of time and are generally more advanced and able to talk about things and cope better, afaik.

How long has she been with you? If a few weeks, then i would say give it several months and do groups with her. If already 6 months or so i don't think the odd morning would be a prob at all.

We started with local library sessions then moved on to the toddler group most of the children there went to. Finally we chose a morning nursery session that many of the children from her toddler group went on to attend. Having familiar faces at each stage helped me as much as her.

Thank you all for replying! She has been with us for 5 months and we do two morning 'group' sessions atm, she does really well at them. We think we are going to take her to have a look round at the nursery we like and see how she responds to the environment and then make a plan!

We went to a nursery that offered stay and play first (some will let you come in as a volunteer otherwise). My AD was the same age and it really helped her settle as she knew the setting, the routine, the staff (the toys!) and the other kids. I got to know the staff & other kids too which made my AD so much more comfortable. We only did this once a week for a month & she was then ok going in & being left & we could talk about nursery more easily as we knew what went on and who was there.