to get irritated when friends of dh's (either with tiny babies or no babies) bang on about how nursery isn't good for babies and how cms are best when they *know* we use nursery?

[bossykate]

and if iabu, then is it ok for me to loudly bang on about inexperienced parents and their laughable opinions?

but even a good nursery is institutionalizing a young child. but thats gonig off the thread.

to the op;

if your happy and your child is happy, then thats all that matters.

Are you friends with BossyKate's DH, igowithabang?

really im at home nad sometimes I think nurseries would be so much more stimulating x

"but even a good nursery is institutionalizing a young child" Big words but what do you mean?

To the OP: before I had children I also had firm ideas as to what's best. Luckily i didn't have many friends with children then, I must have sounded so...stupid.

it depends how much time a child is spending in a nursery.

if its only a couple of days a week, probably ok. but if its 5 days a week from 7.30 till 6.00 ( and some children in my nursery were) its quite hard on them.

i have never used either a c/m or a nursery.

my dd is 2 and im lucky that i can stay at home. but i have worked in nurseries and there not always the best places for under 3's

I still don't know what you mean by "institutionalised" though.

Sorry but I don't worry about the institutionalising thing. How is nursery any different to school in that respect or should we all be home educating too ?

I'm not a stay in my PJ'S til 10.00 am kind of woman so if my dc were at home with me there would be a pattern to the day/week just like there is at nursery and I'm pretty sure that childminders have some sort of structure to their day/week too particularly if they do school runs and after school pick-ups.

The nursery we use has sofas and quiet corners, a den and a garden. Staff give cuddles whilst reading stories. Older kids get to help in the kitchen, one at a time, and do so much extra stuff that I'd be shuttling the kids here there and everywhere to achieve, if I could be bothered of course. Kids who don't want to participate in a particular activity are accomodated as far as possible. The nursery hire bouncy castles etc and other entertainment for parties.

I'm happy with my choice, because I could see that ds1 was shown lots of affection there and he loved the staff but I know that not all nurseries are like the one we use. (We looked at several when first choosing childcare some years ago).

All the facilities are great but its the affection for the children shown by the staff that helped me decide very quickly when we visited some year back and this hasn't changed despite their obviously being some turnover in staff over the years.

My reply would be "isn't it wonderful that we all have these choices so we can choose what works best for each us as a family.! After all each child is different!"

sickly grin & change the subject!!

how do they come to that conclusion?????

It is a personal thing and you do what works for your child and your life and it is no one elses business.

However my concern is the rare occasion when I see children that I perceive arent happy with the childcare choices their parents have made. This is just my opinion and I respect the parents choice and they know their child better than I do of course. But I have wrestled with my conscience about speaking up on occasions. A friends 1 year old dd has stopped eating since starting at her childcare place and my friend tells me that she cries whenever she is dropped off and stands pining at the door when they pick her up. And she has been there a few months now. Their dd has been labelled "difficult" for being like this.

Yes v tactless and not even right. There are pros and cons to all forms of childcare including staying at home yourself to look after.