Twickenham Nursery - Please help :)

[cukcoo]

I am deciding between Teddies and Tic Toc nursery in Twickenham - does anybody have experiences of either? Any other good nurseries in this area? Thanks.

Have you checked the OFSTED site for their latest inspection reports? Visits and gut-feeling count for a lot, but it's also useful to see what short-comings (if any) the Ofsted inspector noticed.

Thanks Bubble99. Just wanted to see if I could get in touch with any of the parents who have used any of these nurseries? When I visited Tic Toc, I was put off by the smell of dirty nappies - started thinking how often do they change them? Am I over-reacting?

I have personal experience here so had to reply. I put my little boy down for the nursery you mention last and had a bad experience. I can't comment on the older rooms but the baby room was staffed by very young and inexperienced staff, in my opinion. I was particularly offended by a comment one day saying my son was 'no trouble, you would not know he was here.' Excuse me - biggest nightmare! Could write a book about it. My basic impression in the fortnight we used it was it was a money making business and not properly supervised or managed.

Good luck - have you considered looking further afield? Can recommend some others if you want ...

Don't have personal experience of BUPA nursery but a couple of neighbours have been pleased with it.

Thanks Taliggy. Can you pls let me know of others you would recommend? My son will be 10 months when I place him. I have heard that Teddies is money making and has lots of agency staff, it's so confusing.

My DS went to Teddies for about a year. Whilst he was perfectly happy there DH and I also had concerns at the levels of agency staff and staff turnover. Also, they had a bit of a tendency to call us about 1 1/2 -2hrs hour before closing to say he had a temp.and could they give him calpol. Their policy is that once they have administered calpol the child must be collected within the hour. When this happened more than once (DS temp when we got home - he did have a bit of a cold- was not overly high -and he was always still playful and fine the next day, we suspected it was more a case of the staff wanting to get home early!

Must stress though that in other respects Teddies was fine. Food was good, it was clean and mostly the staff were good with the children. I think perhaps Teddies had trouble retaining the good ones for long because of pay.

Have you considered a childminder. I've never used a nursery because I found them all to be cold and business minded, not loving and nurturing. WE have a nanny now, but when DD was a baby we used a childminder and it was for me the perfect compromise between a home-like loving atmosphere and qualified daycare. Might want to look for a registered childminder in your area?

DS now goes to a more local nursery (Head Start - nice and homely, more stable staff and building is a victorian house with a big garden for them to play in)part of the week, at home with DH part of week and occasionally at my cousin's who has a little boy of similar age so it works fairly well now.
In answer to your question I preferred the idea of more social interaction with same age group to a childminder and from my own childhood experience I enjoyed nursery. Talking to friends who have used nannies and childminders I got the impression that sometimes issues between the nanny and the parents got in the way e.g no. of private phonecalls, use of car, paid holidays, nannies' boyfriends/friends visiting the house etc etc. At the end of the day it what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. Each to his own.

Although I considered a childminder, really like the idea of DS playing with other kids of similar age and also the fact they there are lots of activities and stimulation in the nursery.

At the moment there is a large board up outside Teddies nursery to recruit staff - which just goes to show that there is definately a staffing problem there! The advantage of Tic Toc seems that it is independently run and staff seem to have worked there for a number of years.

I am also considering to put by daughter in to a nursery - at present have a nanny but think she will benefit from nursery from September this year she will be 22 months - has any one got any recommendations for twickenhan/hampton/richmond area

What you will find is supporters of either Tic Toc or Teddies. My 3 year old is at Teddies Twickenham West and thoroughly enjoys it. He has some great friends there and loves going - gets cross with me if I turn up early. Yes Teddies are always recruiting, but there are consistent staff in every room and even the Bank Staff who work there are regular (and not new faces every week which I ahve experienced in other nurseries). What I would recommend is you visit lots of nurseries to help make up your mind....good luck with the search, I know it's such a hard decision. I am very pleased with mine!

Hi

Just wanted to say that my 10 month old is now well settled in Tic Toc nursery. I am very happy with them and the staff are consistent, no new faces! The atmosphere is really homely unlike others we visited in Twickenham that look very clinical (white buildings, walls and floors!!) and give the impression that babies are not allowed to make a mess! Very pleased with my choice.

Thanks for that going to look at tic tocs next week just been to lambsmead and aston pierpoint - both very different 1st quiet small and new but seem nice and the other one very good in terms of things to do etc but very busy and more expensive - our problem is that if we have another baby how we are going to afford both in nursery!?

LOL, burble, was going to suggest looking at \lambsmead-nurseries.co.uk/\Lambsmead}. That's run byy bubble99 (see below), obviously too modest to blow her own trumpet... I'm glad first impressions were positive !

pants - There, that's better

I much preferred Tic Toc.