To think nurseries mixing small babies with up to 2yr olds is wrong?

[OminousChristmasPudding]

Went to visit a nursery yesterday in a new area we are moving to and I was astounded that the setting was in a medium sized hall with a fenced off playpen area which was the “baby zone” for babies from 3 months which they said is the youngest they’d had, up to 2 years. inside the playpen were hardly any toys or books to stimulate babies, just a few broken looking old things and one lonely baby was just standing in there looking out.

My 16 month old would firstly climb the edges of the playpen within minutes and secondly would be howling at being trapped in there with nothing to do all day. Secondly he is running jumping and climbing, how is that safe when babies as young as three months are also in the pen?

Honestly I was quite shocked by the visit, currently he has a room full of toddlers 14m to 2ish years and this has sand, water, climbing play kitchen etc and lots and lots of toys and stimulation.

Not sure if this is the norm in nursery’s but luckily I’ve found another one which is like his current one which is excellent.

The issue is lack of government funding plus nursery workers are one of the lowest paid sectors in society = not ideal nursery set ups. To be fair though, many people have a baby and toddler and live to tell the tale. If it’s not right for you, don’t chose it

Well clearly it's not the norm as the two others you've looked at aren't doing that?

My daughter’s nursery 0-2 is together but it’s a huge space rather than a play pen and it has about a quarter of the room set up for babies and the rest is toddler age toys. It’s big enough that it works well, the toddlers aren’t really interested in the baby area so naturally stay in their area with the toys that do interest them and there is 1 staff member for every 2 kids so plenty of supervision. I do think in a smaller space it would be tricky though.

It sounds awful but not because of the ages. It sounds badly resourced. I used to childmind so had a big mix of ages. It takes some planning to ensure you have the right resources and activities planned for everyone. It sounds like the setting you visited just isn't being run very well..
On the whole the mix of ages was a positive for the kids I looked after though, they all got a lot out of it. I didn't just throw them all in a room with a load of broken toys though

Our nursery was all ages, babies up to age 5 all together. It was fab. They did have a baby room where they could take the babies to do something quieter when the older ones did something less age appropriate for little ones. But it was wonderful for their development, lots of exposure to language with older ones and the older ones helped with serving lunch and clearing up and looking after little ones when they did the play or sports day.

It was really lovely and we had no safety issues. Babies and young toddlers well supervised and carried or worn in wrap as necessary if they needed to be up off the ground.

I liked that there was none of this changing rooms business. There was just one room and they kept the same key worker the whole way through.

This nursery sounds crap though.

Normal.

They will probably have very few babies under 1 anyway - so not hard to keep an eye on them.

Nurseries seem to advertise from 3 months but I don’t think many actually have ‘pupils’ that age.

Sounds sad for the kids

I think having under 2s all in one room/area is fine, maybe even advantageous in some ways if it's a small group of under 2s with a good staff ratio. Having that area just be a fenced off area with no resources is not fine. You make it sound like there were also no dedicated staff for the 'baby zone'? Where are the babies napping?

In any case, I would absolutely not use this nursery.

Ours was just two 'rooms' - nursery and preschool. They moved into preschool at around 3.5. Like you, I liked it and thought there were advantages in terms of continuity and mixing between ages. I also liked that it was a very small nursery. But both were very well-resourced and staffed with dedicated, free-flow outdoor space for each - it was nothing like what OP describes.

most nurseries these days have very few under a year, they may be certified to take younger babies but i suspect they don’t have enough to justify a room just for under 1’s

And what's that, sixty quid a day???

£75 a day. I get the benefits of mixing ages but not keeping babies and toddlers under the age of 2 in a small fenced off area where they can see the rest of the kids playing with toys etc! I thought it was awful.

I'd be shocked tbh! But then a nursery near us was advertising that they give the kids (pretty sure under 2s) iPads... As if I would pay them to do that!

That nursery sounds awful. My 1yo goes to a wonderful nursery, started there at almost 9 months. The "baby room" is up to 2 years. They have one big room with loads of toys, a cosy type corner for story time, cots for naps and absolutely loads of stuff in there. There's a separate room off the side of it where they do messy play and have their meals. The 2-4yos have a massive room also with loads of stuff in and separate areas for different activities.

Our son's nursery sounds like the one you looked at except 1) they have tous and activities for the babies, they just dont have everything out all the time and 2) they dont have the children segregated most of the time. There is only 1 baby under 20 months anyway.

0-2s together is pretty common. I worked in 2 nurseries where the 0-2s were together, it worked well. There were never any accidents caused by older ones that harmed the younger ones. It sounds like they're lacking resources from your description of it but the age range is fine.