Questions to ask

[flyawayblue]

I'm looking for advice on what to ask a nursery when looking for a place for my 5 month old daughter. She has a milk allergy so will be asking about that but what else have I forgotten?

Sorry if this has been answered before, couldn't see anything when I looked.

What the stuff turn over is

How many staff and children in the room

Have they got any other children with milk allergies

What activities they do

How often do they go outside

what settling in days / hours do they offer and are they free

What there health / temperature / illness policy is

what days and times are they open

what hours / days are available

other ages of the children in the room

any outings that the nursery have going on

what there last ofsted check was graded at

what progress reports do they do

How often are parent meetings

What's there policy on dealing with issues relating to child development

what do you need to provide, re nappies, wipes, bottles, comforters, clothes, sun hat, sun cream, nappy cream etc

Do they go on walks etc in local area

Ask about sleeping arrangements, is there somewhere quiet for her to nap at any time of the day or will they only be able to put her down to sleep at set times (when others sleep)?

What strategies will staff use to comfort her, get her to nap?

As she will be quite young ask whether there is a dedicated baby room/space or whether she will be with toddlers/walkers.

Ask what specific activities they have for her age range. Many of the activities might only be suitable for older toddlers.

Ask what support they provide for weaning, eg will a suitable mix of pureed and finger food be available.

Most nurseries don't have many babies that young, you want some assurance she won't be forgotten/overlooked/bored or intimidated by older toddlers.

How they discipline children. Simply because I fell for the answer 'we don't really need to do that often'. Then found out from ds that there were several children fighting and all went undisiplined. Whereas at his new school the head said 'we have badly behaved children just like every other school. We are consistent with our approach of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and it only takes a few weeks for most children to learn our rules'.

How often the teachers shout.
They will probably lie about this. In the new school I've never heard a shout. In the old school teaching rarely got done without shouting.

spottybra

The baby is 5 months old...

It's not a school, it's a nursery

Thanks all. They take babies from 3 months so I hadn't thought of her as being the youngest but will check.

I also hadn't thought of the child development or parent reports at all.

Hopefully she'll only be there 2 days until she's 1. We had been planning on splitting the maternity leave but dh can't in his new job.

Ask how many people they have with paediatric first aid training on duty at any time.

Legally they only need one but a good provider will have more.

Are there no childminders locally? They follow the same regulations as nurseries but lower ratios, more one on one care and in a home environment which is often a much better place for a young baby