Worried about age gap at nursery group

[JumpingJupiter]

Our 9mth old daughter is about to start nursery next week and, having done the first of her settling in sessions this week, we’ve discovered that she’s the youngest in the group by a long way. All the other babies in the group are nearly 1 years old and she is the only one that’s much younger. This has made me worried that she’ll be the odd one out and may have issues fitting in with the group. I worry that the age gap might make her feel isolated and alone in the long run. As a result I’m starting to question whether this environment is the best thing for her. We thought nursery would help with her social skills but up until now hadn’t considered that it might have a negative effect on her sociability. I just wanted to find out what others think. Am I over thinking this or should I be concerned?

She's 9 m and the others are nearly 1yr? That's like a 2 month age gap. Can't see what the problem is.

Are you joking she is a baby, am sure she will get on with the 11 month olds just fine.

I'm sure the 8 week 'age gap' won't cause any issues

Fitting in? At this age they just yoddle around bashing stuff and trying to eat it, no?

Don't be silly, my daughter was the youngest when she started and now she is one of the oldest with loads of other kids both the same age as her and younger. Kids join and leave that room all the time so the dynamic is constantly changing anyway.

Op I work in a baby room. We have babies of all ages (5-16 months) and honestly they aren't affected by the age gap. Please don't worry your dd will be just fine :)

Thanks for your replies. It looks like I might be over thinking it by the sounds of it. It’s just that all the others seem to be much bigger and walking, whereas she looks tiny and is only crawling. I’m a first time mum and the first of my friends to have a baby, so learning as I go along. Having a baby is so much harder than I thought it would be. Seems like there’s so much I don’t know.

Do you have friends of different ages? Do you question your ability to get along with someone based on their birthday?

You have no idea who will join or leave nursery at a stage when children start interacting with each other and even then they don't care

It would have to be a massive nursery to have a room with just 9m olds in. In my mind a 9m old and an 11m old are the same age.

I don’t think they interact much with each other till much, much later.

They probably won't be confined to the baby room anyway, my 2yo loves it when the babies visit the toddler room and always plays with them. They have friends of all ages.

Do you expect there to be a room of babies all born on the same week? 8 weeks is nothing.

No, I didn’t expect all the babies to be born the same month, but did expect a slight range of ages. As it is, all the other babies were born in September and dd was born at the end of December. It was more the fact that she seems the odd one out of the group. When we did our tour they showed us a room upstairs for the non walkers and a room downstairs for the walking babies. We were led to believe they’d be in different rooms, but because of this month’s intake they are not using the upstairs room because of a lack of little ones. I am only going by what I was led to believe at our initial tour.

That would be because a lit of children don't start nursery until parents go back to work and often the mother will take a full year of maternity leave. In a few months time there will be plenty there your dds age.

Thanks racercardriver. Just got back from another settling in session and feeling a bit better about it all. Apparently the majority of the group are actually between 14 months old and nearly 2yrs (older than I’d realised), but if interaction with other babies isn’t so important hopefully this won’t be an issue.

Children of this age are working towards playing alongside not with others and all are accepted into the group. A much better mix if it were not for staff issues and logistics would be all children in the nursery free flowing and relating to all age groups as they all have so much to get from and give to other age groups children should not be confined to playing by age its not natural and can restrict development if not done extremely well.
Its a misconception that children need nursery to socialise an only child at home until 3 or 4 can be just as social its the activities attended (libraries, toddler groups, play date, parks) and adult interactions that build social ability along with individual personalities, research shows that young children actually develop well in small groups not large nurseries which s why home based care is great for little ones, parents, family nanny or childminder, providing their is stimulation and adult interaction. We are being fed a political lie to get mums out to work and provide cheap childcare by bigger groups with higher ratios.

OP physical development is only part of the picture. My DS has been late reaching all his gross motor milestones but he has always moved with his age group as his mental development has kept pace/is slightly ahead. Plus two months is nothing after a year of age.

We are being fed a political lie to get mums out to work and provide cheap childcare by bigger groups with higher ratios.

let's ignore all practical / financial reasons why a family might choose to use childcare

Ds was the youngest at his nursery by about 6 months for ages and hes been fine!

And yes as a pp said the older ones used to dote on him. His best friend at nursery is a year and a bit older than him. Hes always looked out for him its very sweet.

Babies don’t socialise in this way. They are preschool age, at least, before this is on their radar. They need grown up interaction, attention and grown up facilitated play. Being the youngest will probably mean she gets more of this, so I wouldn’t worry.

Thanks so much for all your advice. I’m really grateful to those of you who have taken time to post. I hadn’t realised that they didn’t play together (but alongside each other) at that age. Our dd always seems to love being with her nct playmates but now wondering if she just likes to be around people in general rather than just babies of her own age. From the feedback and stuff I’ve now read I agree that it’s the adult carers who have the most influence on their wellbeing. I think I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing. Have to say, I was a little disappointed that the carers didn’t interact more with the babies. It’s hard to form an opinion with such brief settling in sessions, but I did expect more in terms of making the babies smile and more eye contact. It felt sometimes that they were being watchful over the group but could have definitely interacted more. I suppose it’s hard to judge whether they relax and do more of that when they don’t have perspective parents watching them.

It’s always harder to get on with your job normally when being ‘watched’ lol.

But a younger babies will come in behind yours and eventually a ‘school year’ group will develop ready for moving into the next rooms of the nursery. In my experience the slightly older babies make the younger ones develop quicker as they interact and show them how to use the toys the next stage in etc. The even bigger ones love the smaller ones and will show their caring skills. It’s lovely to watch :).

Thanks so much Tumbleweed. That's really reassuring to know. Thanks for taking the time to reply :-)