nursery to still be face to face learning?

[firthy85]

was wondering who has a dc that is in nursery and do you really feel comfortable with it?. at beginning of pandemic i felt very sceptical as to whether it really is as bad and have been in the past very vocal on mn about thinking that we were just being lead to believe things were as bad as they are but following the news of this second wave is making me change my views a little. personally if i did ahve kids i wouldn't feel comfortable at all knowing what i do now know. not to mention the fact that part of the guideance is to have all enclosed spaces ventilated in other words all windows to remain open. in lamens terms to me your child has the choice catch covid or catch pneumonia. feels so rediculous would love to read your experiences of all this?

Not worried at all about my child in nursery. We have been asked to ensure they have warm clothes as outside a lot etc

Not one case of staff, nor children.

Grateful that they remain open.

It’s ignorant because it’s not true. Also why would you want to make A) people who work in a nursery, or B) people who send their child(ren) to nursery, think they are going get either covid or pneumonia???

This. There are also at least 3 other threads on this question in the last week where (shock) some parents need their kids in to work, some think the socialisation side of things is critical, some have older kids to homeschool, some are keeping their kids home and paying for nursery, many nursery staff are worried etc.

Let me tell you OP, we used to do so much pre covid. My children didn't use nursery but they had swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons and play groups and music classes, and when that wasn't happening we went to cafes and museums and parks. Our days were so full, we'd be out of the house from breakfast til dinner and they saw so many other children.

When covid put us into our first lockdown that was all gone. We went from these long full days out of the house, to spending every minute in our postage stamp sized square of artificial grass garden - and we thought ourselves lucky we had that much. My then 3 year old regressed badly, he went back into nappies, started having more tantrums. All the development checks with the health visitor were cancelled. It sucked, my mental health suffered hugely. And I know that we had it no where near as hard as others, but it still really really sucked - and that was in the summer time!

This time around I made the choice to enroll my now 4 year old in nursery part time. I was very anxious about it but I'm so glad I did. Since starting he has finally toilet trained, his counting and reading has come on at lightning speed, and he's just happier. As soon as its practical I'm going to increase his hours, currently he's only doing 9. The break it gives us has let me spend more focused time on my now 2 year old as well, and she's developing much faster now.

My point is that it's easy as a child free person to say "if I had kids this is what I'd do, this is how I'd feel" but the truth is that you don't. None of us saw this coming, none of us knew in advance how we would be affected, and we're all just doing our best. There are all kinds of reasons that parents have judged nursery to be the best option for their children despite the risks from covid, and that includes people who don't need nursery for work purposes.

We are sending our 4 year old and 18 month old. We both wfh and just couldn't do that with two small children without a lot of stress and understanding from our employers which we wouldn't get while nursery is open.

Particularly when the weather is like this, my kids would be miserable without nursery as they have nothing else going on. Unlike adults and older children, they don't get much out of stuff online or socialising online.

We are both under 40 so unlikely to be severely affected if we catch it- though I do worry about it.

We do nothing other than nursery and walks outside - all shopping delivered etc - so I really don't think the nursery staff are at risk from us.

You’re thinking of hypothermia. Nurseries are not THAT cold even with the windows open.

@ForeverBubblegum. yes fare enough i understand the point about your dd. as a side question know it's off topic but how do you explain your sons stimming to her and encourage her to stop?

I’m on mat leave, my child is still going to nursery 4 days a week. I don’t have any concerns whatsoever. I layer her up as they do spend a lot of time outdoors and have windows open. But it’s really not that cold when I go collect her (our nursery is allowing one parent at a time into the building). I cannot express how important I think nursery is. I’m an ex early years teacher & if I was still teaching, I’d be there with bells on. I am young & healthy. My daughter has actually had far less illness this year thanks to the push to be outdoors & washing their hands a lot. I think it’s a real positive. My DD adores nursery, adores the staff & her friends and just time to be a normal child.

I think children are being treated terribly in all this. I think COVID is real, I think the stats are heartbreaking. I’ve had covid & I was pretty poorly for a few days. I get it, it’s not nice & we should def try to get the numbers down & protect the vulnerable. However, that does not mean children’s mental health & well being doesn’t matter. The amount of comments on here shaming people for using schools & nurseries, suggesting kids ‘will be fine’ ‘they aren’t in a war torn country’ .. well of course they are far worse things in the world but it doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering. It doesnt mean it’s not important. My daughter became unrecognisable in lockdown 1. She became withdrawn & moody and awake half the night with night terrors. She started hitting herself in anger & pulling out her hair. We had started on a referral to children’s mental health. Shes 3. It shattered my heart. Within a 2/3 weeks of returning to nursery & socialising in June, she was back. Happy & smiling and sleeping peacefully. The anger & stress literally disappeared. I couldn’t believe it. And for that reason, I will never isolate her like that again. If nurseries close, we will meet friends & let her play. Outdoors and one at a time, within the rules. And if that’s banned, my parents have said we could go & live with them for a short period so she at least sees them as well..

I think those without children should never ever judged those with. You do not know.

ah ok hypothermia. i do tend to get them mixed up

My child has been in nursery since June, no pneumonia but she does now count to 20 and is starting to learn the months of the yr. I’m not worried about her going to nursery and feel it is the last thing she has: no play dates, no soft play, - so I will keep her in as long as I can.
As for the cold, she wears a vest a long sleeve top and a jumper: sorted!

tbf. mental health is something that has worried me throughout all this and i feel genuinely sad for all these people who have kids who are struggling. i question, i don't and never would judge esp not having children myself. just seems so much mixed messaging. i mean secondary school children understand social distancing and can be taught a temporary new normal much easier than nursery children but yet they are told to remain closed or learn remotely

@firthy85

tbf. mental health is something that has worried me throughout all this and i feel genuinely sad for all these people who have kids who are struggling. i question, i don't and never would judge esp not having children myself. just seems so much mixed messaging. i mean secondary school children understand social distancing and can be taught a temporary new normal much easier than nursery children but yet they are told to remain closed or learn remotely

But secondary school children can communicate with their friends online and learn online. Pre school age children can't do that.

There's a vocal group on mumsnet who feel that children under 5 just don't need anything other than their parents. Maybe that's true for some but my just turned 4 year old desperately missed his nursery friends in the first lockdown and his behaviour and mental heath did suffer. He has always been a very social child.

@firthy85

tbf. mental health is something that has worried me throughout all this and i feel genuinely sad for all these people who have kids who are struggling. i question, i don't and never would judge esp not having children myself. just seems so much mixed messaging. i mean secondary school children understand social distancing and can be taught a temporary new normal much easier than nursery children but yet they are told to remain closed or learn remotely

Nurseries aren’t super spreaders. Look what happened when schools went back.

Mine is in preschool still. He really needs to be in for his development even though I'm not working out of home. Lots of layers and thermals. They run around so much they don't really get cold like us.

For him personally I don't worry about catching covid due to his age and I do everything possible to keep him as low risk as possible to try and prevent him being the one to bring it into his preschool.

On the NHS frontline and have been since the start, so always believed. Two of my children are at nursery and I think it’s one of the safest places for them. They are so incredibly unlikely to become ill from going there yet their mental health is far more likely to deteriorate from staying home with everything that usually entertains a child closed. Also remember that for many kids it’s not just a few weeks of not being able to do the things most kids can; it’s already been almost a year and likely to be months (maybe years if you take into account what has closed and will never reopen).

Pneumonia is not a concern of mine. Kids often don’t feel the cold like adults do and open windows won’t cause them to come to harm (unless they jump out!).

Nurseries staying open and schools being open are totally different in a huge number of ways I’m sure I don’t need to go into but happy to do so if you wish.

@MoirasRoses what a great post, really sums it up for me, my child was similar in lockdown one and I'll be doing the exact same as you.

Pneumonia happens when the germs causing a chest infection and the secretions the lungs create mix together and set solid inside a lung. Sometimes if food or drink is inhaled that can cause it too.

Hypothermia happens when bodies are exposed to cold over a long period of time and the core body temperature drops. It’s a risk to older people in fuel poverty because not only are they in a cold environment, they also possibly aren’t moving around very much and may not be cooking hot food either . It’s not a risk to small children in nurseries, because they are usually well-nourished, are running and jumping and dancing and singing, and have coats and jumpers and other layers as needed. Hopefully staff are also moving around lots and topping themselves up with hot drinks as necessary. And as a pp said, the inside is still being heated, even with the windows open, so the radiators are blazing heat. You get a cycle where you run around outside, stop do do some serious playing and balancing and counting snails or making mud cakes, get a bit chilly so run inside and hover near the heat for a bit until too hot again and then run back outside again.

Very well put @MoirasRoses - glad your DD is doing so much better now. We’ve been spared any major fallout with DD (also 3) so far but friends’ preschoolers have struggled in a similar way. The dismissal of small children’s wellbeing and development throughout the pandemic has been terrible; they have needs that go far beyond the nuclear family but these have been largely ignored. Not sure whether it’s deliberate minimising when people say none of this matters, or whether it makes some posters feel better to believe their kids need nothing but them, but I think the long-term isolation and confinement of small children at a crucial point in their development is storing up trouble for the future. As a former teacher I have no doubt that schools will be flagging up these issues in a few years’ time.

Our nursery has been excellent throughout and I feel completely comfortable about sending DD to them two days a week. As an only child this is the only meaningful interaction she has with other children right now, and I feel incredibly grateful for it.

@Firthy85 She's 18 months, so not really up to understanding an explanation, which is why she needs the exposure to other children. She was still a baby at the start of the pandemic so has never gone to any playgroups and until she started nursery a few months ago hadn't ever seen or played with other children, or even been in a room that didn't have her brother and I in it.

Developmentally she's at a stage where she learns through copying without any real understanding of what she's copying or why. If she wasn't at nursery she would have no way of knowing that other children don't spin / flap / avoid eye contact, because that was all she'd ever seen.

@MoirasRoses

I’m on mat leave, my child is still going to nursery 4 days a week. I don’t have any concerns whatsoever. I layer her up as they do spend a lot of time outdoors and have windows open. But it’s really not that cold when I go collect her (our nursery is allowing one parent at a time into the building). I cannot express how important I think nursery is. I’m an ex early years teacher & if I was still teaching, I’d be there with bells on. I am young & healthy. My daughter has actually had far less illness this year thanks to the push to be outdoors & washing their hands a lot. I think it’s a real positive. My DD adores nursery, adores the staff & her friends and just time to be a normal child.

I think children are being treated terribly in all this. I think COVID is real, I think the stats are heartbreaking. I’ve had covid & I was pretty poorly for a few days. I get it, it’s not nice & we should def try to get the numbers down & protect the vulnerable. However, that does not mean children’s mental health & well being doesn’t matter. The amount of comments on here shaming people for using schools & nurseries, suggesting kids ‘will be fine’ ‘they aren’t in a war torn country’ .. well of course they are far worse things in the world but it doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering. It doesnt mean it’s not important. My daughter became unrecognisable in lockdown 1. She became withdrawn & moody and awake half the night with night terrors. She started hitting herself in anger & pulling out her hair. We had started on a referral to children’s mental health. Shes 3. It shattered my heart. Within a 2/3 weeks of returning to nursery & socialising in June, she was back. Happy & smiling and sleeping peacefully. The anger & stress literally disappeared. I couldn’t believe it. And for that reason, I will never isolate her like that again. If nurseries close, we will meet friends & let her play. Outdoors and one at a time, within the rules. And if that’s banned, my parents have said we could go & live with them for a short period so she at least sees them as well..

I think those without children should never ever judged those with. You do not know.

This! In spades!

I think it's interesting that people feel the need to excuse their reasons for sending their child to nursery, things like it's because I have to work, only child, Sen issues. You don't need to have a reason other than nurserys are open and so far no rules have been made about who can and cannot access early years provision. It should be enough to think to yourself that your child needs this and it is innapropriate to isolate children of this age socially for what will have been almost a year. I don't remember people feeling like they need to excuse themselves for socialising at Christmas, going to pubs/restaurants, going on trips away, soft play, going to Christmas events etc etc.

@0gfhty Quite, I completely agree! No one is breaking the rules by sending their child to nursery and no one should be having to justify themselves for acting in their child’s best interests. But I think people are just pre-empting the ‘selfish’ comments that are so rife on this site at the moment - there have been threads and threads of posts saying that parents using nurseries at the moment are wrong.

Exactly 0gfhty!!! People want to call me selfish then fine, 100% I am selfish in terms of my child ! Nurseries are open and I will use ours!

@BigGreen

I have a DC at a child minder and I'm relaxed about it as the risks to him are very low. If he didn't go one of us would have to quit work which wouldn't be in the kids best interest either.

A childminder is very different to a nursery though. Your child is only mixing with one other adult (childminder) and 3 or 4 other children. I work in a nursery and we have up to 30 children a day along with 8 adults working together at a time. Social distancing is impossible.

Mine is in, and I'm very happy about it as is he.