Nursery or nanny for 16 month old? Very worried!

[Gemzooks]

I worked FT whilst DS was 4 months until 1 year, but this was with a devoted nanny and me having flexible hours, DH at home all morning etc. Worked great. Now we moved to another country, and I've been looking after DS all the time, so he has obviously got totally used to just having mum all the time. Now I've been offered a great job for 3 days per week, and have the basic options of nursery or nanny (we're in Holland and can just about afford a nanny as you get a third of the cost back off the state).

DS is quite sensitive and highly strung, although very sociable and generally a happy child.

Any experiences? I don't want to make the wrong decision and have him suffer or turn into a monster!

Don't have experience of either nursery or nanny as we use a childminder but as your thread is unanswered thought I'd plough in.

If I were in the situation you are in and provided it doesn't cripple you financially I'd go for the nanny, purely because it means you don't have to do pick ups and drop offs and because its a form of childcare that both yourself and your DS is used to then it should be easier for all of you to adapt.

Our DS goes to a wonderful c/m 4 days a week and is happy as larry. I like the idea of one person caring for him, its only a pain when she has holidays, as she is perfectly entitled to do.

Hope it works out for you.

Is language an issue at all? How long will you be in Holland for?

I have to say that at this age I think in home care is preferable to a nursery. But if you wanted him to speak Dutch, and if he was going to be educated in a Dutch school rather than an international one then I would expect an early immersion into the language could be of benefit.

thanks for replies..

Well, it would be good if he spoke Dutch, and the nannies here are usually Eastern European or Latin American, so speak English but not necessarily that well. Have looked at some childminders but they have been nutters, and always had the TV on all day. Anyway, finally got a nursery place, provisionally, so going to go and look at it tomorrow. The thing is, he is a sociable child, but he is quite young still, and he really would need to be the little pet of one of the staff, he's very affectionate and soppy. So a bit scared of the tough Dutch ways I have encountered so far!

Gemzooks, I don't usually visit this section but am here today! We lived in Holland while DS1 was younger (arrived when he was 2.5) and as I was pregnant and he had been used to being in full-time nursery in the UK, I put him into a Dutch nursery for a couple of days per week (I presume you are talking about kinderdagverblijf).

I don't want to put you off but we were very unhapy with the whole experience and the things I would advise you to check carefully are e.g. the ratio of carers to children - it is much better in the UK than in NL, there it seemed to be something like 1 carer to about 6 children, even for the little ones. There was also a very high turnover of staff which ds struggled to cope with - we may have been unlucky with that particular nursery but anecdotally I heard that this is common. There were far fewer activities for the children to do than he had been used to doing in UK nursery where toys, activities etc were rotated during the day. They also had the bizarre (to me) practice of putting the children into their pyjamas and giving them a nap of about 3 hours in the afternoon. In fact, they used to eat lunch in their pyjamas and then go straight to bed! As Ds was only sleeping for about an hour at home, he hated this but to be fair they let him stay up when they realised he just would not sleep. On the four or so months he spent there I think he only brought home one craft project. We did subsequently look at some other nurseries and this pattern seemed to be fairly common across the board. Oh almost forgot the food, lunch in nursery seems to be a fairly standard sandwich, often with peanut butter, jam or hagel (chocolate sprinkles on)- pretty horrific!

If you are going to work three days per week, you might be better off putting him into peuterspeelzaal for a couple of hours per day and using an aupair to cover the remaining hours? Peuterspeelzaal starts from age 2 and is more like pre-school. The standards of care seem to be better, lots of activities, singing etc.

Sorry not to be more positive about the nursery experience but hope I have given you some pointers on things to look out for.