To think my baby shouldn’t be in this nursery room?! Or am I being precious?

[Hippan]

DD is fifteen months (last week). She is quite big but can’t walk yet. I was told when joining the nursery that she would be in a room for 8-9 months to 16-18 month olds, depending on her physical development. Every day I have collected her in the last 2 weeks she has been in the room up which is 16-18 months to 24 months. AIBU to think this is wrong? She is still crawling around two years olds above her?

My Ds is 17 months now but only started walking last month and made the transition up to the next room before he walked. He was absolutely fine. I don't think they would base it on when they are walking given that could realistically be anywhere from 10 to 20 plus months.

Of course they do! They may not be having long chats over the water cooler but they are beginning to be more social at this age. My son is 15 months and he is interacting with the other babies at nursery interspersed with independent play.

I think your baby is more likely to start walking by being around toddlers. Seeing others reach toys that they can't reach and playing on toys that they can't use yet often drives them on :)

For me this is absolutely fine. Now I could be looking at this from perspective of having three children. my 12 month old is well able to stand his ground thanks to the 14 month age gap between him and his brother. He can’t walk yet but that doesn’t hold him back when they are they playing.

I would question it OP. My 21 month old is brutal!

@MamaToABeautifulBoy no they don’t. Google it.

This wouldn't be an issue for me at all.

Both my kids moved from baby room to an early toddler room with walking kids before they themselves could walk. My son was 14 months and they moved him as he enjoyed the toys in there more and thought being with the walkers might inspire him a bit... a week later he was walking like a pro! Just needed some encouragement and FOMO!

It’s great for babies who aren’t yet walking to be around others that are. The visits to the other room will be part of her transition and it seems like a good thing that they are doing it early and regularly. The walkers are still lovely toddlers who will all be at varying stages of development and it may well be that your daughter’s development is ahead of some of theirs in other areas. She will be fine. Sometimes these things are much tougher on the Mum’s emotions than they are the child’s.

Hmm when my kids were young nurseries used to tell parents their kids were really advanced so they could move them up to the toddler room early...spoiler: the babies weren't advanced at all and nurseries were trying to save staff. , I'd be asking lots of questions like what about safe sleeping and about the ratios and how closely their eating is monitored e.g. likelihood of choking at 15 months is quite different to two. But prob all the 2 year olds are so advanced they are in the preschool room anyway...

I was going to say the same. Of course they are socialising. It might be sharing blocks, it might be fighting over blocks, it might pushing one's dribbling finger on to the others head - it's socialising! And it's lovely to witness.

I think your daughter will be fine OP. Other parents might not like the big 15 month old crawling over their 6 month old having tummy time 🤷 She'll progress more quickly no doubt, but I do understand your worries.

My son was moved into the next room up from the baby room at 15 months and couldn't walk. The room was for up to 2 year olds. I don't think it did him any harm, and probably actually encouraged him to get moving. Our nursery is pretty great in general and if they consider it standard to have cruising babies in with the toddlers then I trust their judgement.

Oh blimey.

Any interaction is socialising. It's all learning. It's a beautiful thing.

Most nurseries have a 0-2 baby room so I really wouldn't stress about a 15 month old in a 16-24 month room.

i hadn’t even thought about the meal time monitoring thing @Castlereagh !!

They are cruising before they are walking, and often still crawling once they are able to walk independently. A cruising big-for-age 15 month old would be more of a danger to smaller babies than my walking 11 month old would have been, and he still crawled for another 6 months after walking confidently. I don't see walking as a hard cut off.

Of course they will be carefully monitoring the children when eating you're acting like your child will be the only young one in there and all the others will be 2. There will be other children very close in age to yours in the room and even those who are 2 will be supervised when eating.

Yeah they moved mine out early for this. That and they were clearly ready for the older room's toys.

No it’s fine. This happened with ds2, he was tiny but was moved at 14 months to the toddler room and he wasn’t able to walk when he joined but within a few weeks he was toddling around. He much preferred it to being with the babies and it was the best thing for him.

We often used to do this at the end of the day, once some had gone home. It enabled staff in the then empty room to begin cleaning, then once the other children had left, they could help clean the other rooms. Our last pick up was at 6pm, then we had to spend 15-30 minutes hoovering, cleaning the bathrooms and staff room, tidying and disinfecting the resources etc. we mainly merged on days where we knew we had parents who would wait until dead on six to pick up, then want a long chat/take forever to leave, taking one staff member away from the cleaning duties, meaning we all finished late. Before we began merging the rooms on those days, I'd estimate that we all put in at least 3 hours unpaid each per month, which is a lot when you're only on minimum wage. As for worrying about meal supervision, we didn't merge for meal times, only after, but all staff have experience in all rooms, so were more than capable of supervising properly.

Also, for clarity, I say we used to merge rooms because our nursery closed down, not because we stopped doing it.

Ours has a baby room and a wobbler room. When DD1 started at 9 or 10 months she wasn't even crawling, but they often didn't have the numbers to split the rooms especially in school holidays so they were combined a lot. She was fine.

By the time DD2 started, the numbers were up and it was during covid so they didn't combine as often, but she didn't walk until after 18 months and was also a late crawler, so she would've been in wobblers long before she could walk or probably even cruise.

Both were absolutely fine and we were happy with their care.

It will probably be because of staffing ratios.

Ds moved to the 2-school age room at 19 months, because the baby room was moving and they were worried about resettling him twice. I approved it and honestly it's been the best thing for him! He loves running about with the big kids

If the younger room is 8-18 months then surely there are a fair few children in that room who are walking? So there are babies who are 8 months crawling around walking toddlers anyway.

If it was just based on walking ability the rooms wouldn't be split by age. If your baby likes the big room and is happy that is what you should focus on, it seems a positive thing!

I think as someone who used a childminder so is more used to mix aged childcare (and I believe it's beneficial) - I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with this - but my main concern would be them being properly cared for in a room of mixed needs. As long as you feel their keyworker is on the ball it should be fine.

Surely the older children will be moving to the next room, and it won't just be your dd moving to new room all her friends same age will be moving with her, they are probably doing settling in period with her that's why she goes in their. It's won't be right for your 15/16 month old to be in a room with babies that aren't mobile yet.