Visiting a nursery - what questions should I ask?

[Myrtle1]

I return to work in March and my DS will be going to nursery 3 days a week. He will be 5 and a half months. I've booked visits to a couple of nurseries this week but as I am new to all this I'm not sure what I should be looking out for and asking when I visit. Any advice would be appreciated!

Gut feelings go a long way when finding childcare for you. Think about what you would like your child to be doing and how you want him to be cared for and go from there. Good luck.

ask about staff turnover, too many changes will be upsetting.
check if they get outside during the day.
ask about partnership funding (i.e. when he is 3 you should get some funding).
take ds with you, i didn't even consider nurseries where the staff didn't look at or ask about dd.
if it is a bignursery check they have a key worker system (i.e. one member of staff who will be ds's main carer) this is good so you have one point of contact for info and ds can have some security.
check out the hygene levels.
go with any gut feelings you have.

x post nab3!

Staff turnover v impt so ask how long the people you meet have been working there - this will give you some sense of whether it's a happy place where staff want to stay, as well as being important for your child's continuity and security. How many different people will come into contact with your child each week and how long will your child stay in each area before being moved up (ie some big nurseries move them to another room every 6 months, others leave them in the same place for 2 years).

Routines - some nurseries will expect your child to fit in with their general nap time, others will fit in with your child.

Communication - do they have a book where they write messages or do they make time to talk to you?

What's included in the cost - eg food, milk, nappies etc.

It will be quite interesting for you to see what they want to talk to you about - one place was determined to tell us all about how they had a policy for this and a policy for that but they didn't seem nearly as child-focused as the place we eventually chose.

I can think of heaps of other things but I'm sure once you've seen one place you'll get a sense of what you want to know. We started my dd at nursery at 5 and half months and IME it's a great age to do it - young enough to settle easily but old enough for them to actually get something out of having lots of other children to watch all day.

Thank you for all your advice - its really helped. I think I will have more idea of what I'm looking for now.

Also if you go at dropping off time you could grab one of the other mums and ask her the nursery too.

what do they do if kids wont eat food

how do they potty train

how do they deal wiht unhappy kids

I used to work in a nursery and all of the other posts are spot on. Also it may be worth asking to see their previos Ofsted reports. Plus, I would try and just turn up for a visit rather than booking one to catch the staff off-guard so that you get a true feel of the way the nursery runs x x

Apart from other suggestions (all very good)...

How do they do with discipline problems -- e.g. what will they do if your DS (once he's a bot older) bites or hits others? What will they do if another child in your DS's class has a biting or hitting problem?

Do the children watch any television? If so, how much/what/what time of day?

You'll obviously be most focused on the baby room and maybe the one after that, but have a good look at the older children right at the top of the age range. How do they behave, how do they seem? These are the children who are the product of several years at this nursery and can tell you a lot IMO.

See how the person showing you around relates to the children in the various different rooms -- is this an everyone-knows-everyone sort of a place or more siloed?

All posts here are good, and gut feeling re care is very important, but I'd also check out things which are going to make your life easier once you're back at work:

• can you park?
• do they charge for late pickups?
• can you change your days around at all?

One thing i found great was a settling in period... You may want to ask if they do this. My son went in for a week before for a few hours, i was able to stay although i felt it defeated the whole idea.
I found this helped a lot and he settled instantly.

bump for pablopatito

They should ask you to take your shoes off when you go into the baby room. Two of the nurseries I looked at didn't, including one of the big chains! I think that is pretty basic when you've got children crawling on the floor and putting their hands in their mouths... Otherwise, agree with key workers, how they settle children in. I took the view that potty training was too far off to worry about when my ds started going for two mornings a week at 5mo.

BTW, my ds took a while to settle in and I was very glad he went for the two mornings a week for about 3-4 weeks before I went back to work full-time because by the time I did go back to work, he was obviously happy. It is very hard leaving them so I would strongly recommend sending your ds a week or two before you return to work to enable you to settle in as well!!

first aiders...how many, how trained, how often training updated.... vvvv important.