To think PIL's need to mind their own business re: Nursery

[yorkshapudding]

DD is 21 months old. I work part time and my Mum looks after her on the days I work but DH and I have decided that we want her to start going to the Nursery attached to our local Primary school for a couple of sessions a week.

The main reason for this is that DD is behind in her speech. She only has 6 words that she says consistently and probably another five that she has said once or twice then hasn't said again. I took her to the Speech and Language clinic and they weren't concerned as her understanding and non-verbal communication is very good but they said that attending Nursery might encourage her to speak more. The second reason is that I think it will help to gradually prepare her for starting school as she is very used to one to one attention at the moment. As an added bonus it that it will give me a couple of hours to get some housework done in peace!

We mentioned to PIL's that DD would be starting Nursery and they assumed this was because I was increasing my work hours, when we explained that i wasnt and what the reasons actually were they seemed flabbergasted. They said they couldn't understand why anyone would "farm their child out to strangers" when they didn't need actually need to and that it was "odd". MIL made some snide comments about how in her day Mum's "didn't think we were entitled to me time" etc. DH had stern words with them and they started back tracking pretty quickly then but it has sort of stuck with me.

DH says just ignore them but they really push my buttons and I already feel guilty for leaving her to go out to work so I am quite sensitive to this sort of thing. I can't be the only Mum whose child does a couple of sessions at Nursery even though we don't technically need the childcare, can I? I know I shouldnt care what people think but I don't like the idea that people who don't know our reasons will think I just want DD out the way so I can sit around eating bon bons and watching daytime TV.

Not judging here but pre-schools are not suitable for 2yr olds, (I've worked with prechools and their staff with lots of experience and they say the same) I would find a nice local childminder for her to spend time with.

Ask you MIL if she says the same to her Son - you are both parents.

I was once told by a paed that she only recommends that people put children in nursery in situations like this because occasionally it will mean that a child who isn't receiving optimum care at home can benefit from some decent interaction. They don't always know which children need it because parents can be very good at saying all the right things. She admitted that the nursery environment is not as good as the one to one input a child would get from a responsive carer in the home environment but being in nursery won't harm those who don't need it and could greatly benefit those who do..

The fact that her speech is still behind doesn't mean that your interventions aren't working. It could be that she would have been much further behind without them and it could also be that she is developing perfectly well but on a timescale that is different from other children.

It won't do her any harm to go to nursery and the farming out to strangers comment it cruel. I'm sure you will do your very best to find high quality care for your DD. Just don't pin your hopes on it making a difference. It could even set her back for a while if her confidence is a little shaky.

I think the early years settings do prepare children for school quite well. It helps for them to get used to the less flexible routines and the higher level of independence they will have to cope with in YR and they can learn this lesson in s gentler environment with better adult:child ratios. However, I don't think they need much more than about six months in an early years setting to feel this benefit. They are much more emotionally mature around 3 to 4 years old than they are at 2YO so starting early will not necessarily make it any easier.

Lots of parents use childcare to enable them to get housework/shopping done or to get a bit of 'me' time. You would be far from the only parent doing it. Your child, your choice. You do what works best for your family. You would have nothing to feel guilty about even if you were using the time to catch up with friends for coffee.

Your PILS clearly care deeply for your DD and they are allowing this to cloud their judgement and cross boundaries. What they said in unkind and unfair but you need to ignore that, see it as coming from concern and do what you feel is the right thing for your child, just as they had the opportunity to do with their own DC.

If your dds speech doesn't improve I would consider insisting on getting her hearing checked again. DD passed her hearing tests with the NHS both times with flying colours - I ended up having her tested by someone else (for free as it happened) her hearing curve was completely wrong...

The NHS tests are very very basic at this age I'm afraid. They are looking for not hearing frequencies at 40 decibels whereas the normal at pre-school age should be less than 20 decibels. My dd passed her hearing test with all the high frequencies being near 40 decibels!

Seeing as children in my area go to full time nursery school from age 3 onwards I don't think it's a bad idea at all to start some kind of nursery/preschool at age 2 to gently build it up.

I realised that my dd needed done kind of nursery/ pre school at age 2 when I saw how much she enjoyed going to the crèche at the breastfeeding peer support course I did once a week. It brought her in no end.

Ds was different however & responded better 1:1

I can not believe the responses in here, shocking! OP i am sure your lil one will do just fine at nursery. My son goes 4 full days a week as we work full time and we have no family nearby. People need to get by, we can not all afford to be SAHMs.

I would love to (which my swedish mum thinks is crazy) but we need two incomes to make ends meet.

My nearly four year old goes for three whole days, I used to work but gave up due to ill health and he loves preschool so we still send him.

Another one to say speech therapy experts all encouraged switching from childminder to nursery to help with speech delay. They were right - made a massive difference communicating with peers rather than younger/older children and adults.

In normal life..ie not MN ..It is completely and utterly Normal to make whatever childcare choices you want for whatever reasons. Of course you can want a bit of a break that is not working or child care..your mil is probably jealous because she never got that

A 21 month old will benefit from being with other children and honesty I think it is boring for them to spend all their time with an adult at that age.

To answer some of the points made:

It is actually a pre-school not a nursery, sorry if my phrasing caused confusion.

She will be doing 2 x 2 hour sessions a week. One of those will be when I'm at work, the other will be on one of my days off.

One of the 2 hour sessions has to be on my day off with her because that's when they have spaces available. Obviously I could find somewhere else to accomodate her on one of my other working days but I wanted her to go this particular place as I have a couple of friends with children of similar ages there who have been very happy with the care so I chose to see it as a positive that I would have a couple of hours to get some chores done.

I am not "pinning all my hopes" on this to "miraculously" improve her speech, I just thought it was worth a try. If I don't feel she is getting any benefit I can take her out.

Yes, she is an only child so that was also part of my reasoning, for her to have more regular interaction.

This saying that I should be grateful that PIL's take such an interest in DD, they don't usually seem interested at all and I guess that's partly why I'm so sensitive about it. They have very little involvement really. They have never offered to babysit and decline all invitations to come over to visit or join us on days out. If we didn't take DD to see them they would never see her. The only time they "take an interest" in DD is when they feel we are doing something wrong and then they are very vocal about it. I don't think I'd mind them expressing an opinion if they actually bothered with her the rest of the time.

I hope this doesn't come across as dripfeeding. That certainly wasn't my intention, I just left out the specifics because, honestly, I didn't expect to have to justify myself to such an extent. I had no idea so many people felt so strongly against putting preschoolers in childcare . PIL's have form for getting worked up about all sorts of things that wouldn't bother most people and I thought perhaps this was one of those times but judging by some of the responses on here I suppose I had better prepare myself for a lot more criticism if we go ahead with this.

All those of you who have replied saying you feel preschool/nursery helped with your DC's speech and that they received excellent care..thank you. It's nice to know that not everyone thinks I'm damaging my child

i am shocked by the strength of opinion in here over sending a child to nursery two sessions a week! Yes one-to-one may sometimes be best for speech development but there are other areas of development too which would not develop with just one-to-one. There is a limit to how much additional benefit each extra hour of one-to-one provides. I also strongly doubt that the DGM is providing one-to-one every waking moment; there will be times when she is cooking dinner, preparing snacks, doing chores, letting dc develop skills in playing by herself, driving places, going to the shops.... All not one to one input but all good stuff just as a balance of nursery and home care will be.

Not all of us have a choice to not put preschoolers in childcare, we can't all afford to be sahm's or have family around to help with childcare, I use nursery and it's the right decision for me and my children and they have a great time.

Op, someone will try and make you feel guilty whatever you choose. Ignore it.

I work in a Nursery School and recently we opened for 2 yr olds. I can't tell you how surprised I was by how much fun the 2 yr olds have coming to nursery. I knew we would be providing a service for their parents but the 2 yr olds are so happy and excited to see their friends and their carers. Some come for the 15 hrs gov funding, some come for 1 or 2 sessions which are usually 3 hrs each. The ratio for this age is 1 adult to 4 children, although we have more staff than the minimum.
When 2 yr olds first start we often have tears at home time because they want to stay and play!
I hope your little one settles in well and enjoys her time there.

I don't think anyone has criticised working mums, or working mums using nurseries, on this thread. Given the limited use op is going to make of nursery, I doubt if any rational person could really criticise her. It is more the supposed benefits to the baby that people are skeptical about. I don't think her DDs speech is particularly behind and by the time she is 2 it may be much better. Also if children have to go to nursery school at 3 to prepare for school and nursery at 2 to prepare for nursery school, where does it end?

my grandchildrenrock, thank you so much. It seems like a really lovely place and the staff seemed to be very enthusiastic about having 2 year olds there, if they weren't I wouldn't contemplate sending her.

Mine have both started p/t nursery younger than this due to work. My work is not consistent, but I keep them in regularly for their stability and my sanity.

Ds1 has speech issues. I noticed around the time that he was 2, that progress had stalled. I flagged it up with the HVs, who identified him as the lower end of the normal range and weren't concerned. A year went by with little progress and his confidence began to decrease. Nursery and I flagged up concerns around the same time. We contacted the HVs who identify that there was now a delay, and it ended up going through SALT. His key worker has been fantastic as tailoring activities of interest to him to target specific language needs, and nursery focused observations on his speech. He's come on massively in the last 6 months and is transitioning to school beautifully when a year ago he was cowering behind if anyone not on his select list of safe people to talk to him.

He's always had lots of 1:1, but there's a limit to how stimulating the conversation with one person can be. At home it was so hard to engage him in conversation because he'd want to absorb himself for hours into the trainset. Nursery has done a lot to improve his verbal confidence even though there are still gaps to resolve.

My friend had her son at a child minder for the home from home atmosphere. His speech fell behind after an operation when he was socially isolated through the recovery phase. The childminder abruptly retired, so he was sent to nursery, and his speech suddenly flourished because it was a more stimulating environment.

All those of you who have replied saying you feel preschool/nursery helped with your DC's speech and that they received excellent care..thank you. It's nice to know that not everyone thinks I'm damaging my child

Those suggesting that this may not help your DD's speech significantly haven't implied that you are damaging your child by sending her

Cecily, I see where you're coming from. I agree that her speech isn't massively behind but it is behind so I don't see the harm in giving this a go and seeing if it helps. If I feel she isn't benefiting or isn't enjoying it for any reason I will have no hesitation in taking her out. Also, I'm not saying children "have" to go to pre-school at 2 to prepare them for school. I'm saying that I think my DD will benefit from more interaction with other children and that in her particular case I think that it would be better to start spending small chunks of time with other children in a more structured environment and very gradually build that up. If I have another child I may well decide that their needs are different.

No, Goldmandra, I realise that but those who have told me I am bonkers, selfish and deliberately failing to act in the best interests of my child have.

he was sent to nursery, and his speech suddenly flourished because it was a more stimulating environment.

His speech was just as likely to suddenly flourish because it was developmentally appropriate for it to flourish at that point. You can't possibly know this was because of the environment.

Some children who suddenly make progress when they start early years settings would have done so at that time anyway, some flourish because they were being neglected at home and some flourish because the environment happens to give them exactly what they needed at the right time. Some even regress for a while and there could be several reasons for that.

Laugh at her. Seriously. Practise laughing and say 'oh mil you do make me laugh with your silliness'

My 21 month old has attended nursery for two days a week since turning 1 as I have to work. She has a really wide vocabulary, is confident and sociable. YANBU. She gets plenty of stimulation at home also but I really think nursery has helped her too. You know what's best for your child!

Ah. I see.
Sending a 2 year old to pre school for 4 hours a week is not a bad thing to do op. Your pils abvu!
However, I will repeat what others have said...it may not help her speech. But if that isn't your primary reasons then it's irrelevant.
Hope it all goes well.
Worra makes a very good point...it's mothers that get flack for all parenting choices and decisions. Get better at standing up for your choices!