Benefit of walking to nursery

[matthewmatt]

Hello,

We are choosing a nursery for our unborn child. We have viewed 5 nurseries in total. We have narrowed it down to two:

A nursery that is a 7-minute walk (for an adult) or a 1 minute drive; or
A nursery that is a 30-minute walk (for an adult) or a 4 minute drive. The walk is slightly less nice as its along a main road.

We like them both, but we probably very slightly prefer the one that is further away. It's obviously not an issue if we drive, but it kind of removes the choice to walk.

Overall, we are leaning towards the closer one, because then we can walk if we want to, and also because we think the parents are more likely to be very local as well, which is a beneift.

How beneficial is it to walk to nursery? Do you have any thoughts or reflections? I'm not envisaging walking all the time, but just occasionally.

We had ours within walking distance, about 15 minutes, it’s nice to just get out of house and walk there and back, ours was in a school so helped when DC2 came along and we could do 3 trips a day. Also I found that DC would talk about their day more when walking home.

Depends. Parking by my DS nursery was always very busy so it was less stressful and nice to walk (or run) there with a pushchair when he was younger, but I rarely had the time as I was generally on the way to / from work. Where do you work? If you wfh or use public transport I would try and walk regularly and make it part of the routine so that might sway me to the closer one. If you are driving to work anyway I think you will rarely walk and I would not take it into account at all since neither is very far by car.

Also, at a private nursery my experience is you rarely see or interact with other parents much as everyone is rushing and dropping off/picking up at different times. And I wouldn't worry about kids friendships as they are really too young to form proper friendships til preschool. Walking/living close is much more important at primary age. At nursery it's all about how much you like the setting / staff, plus parental convenience.

if you go local you might find that they have friends from nursery going to the same primary school. Also better for the environment and being part of local community to walk. You might find yourself walking back with other parents going the same way. But as pp said if you’re dropping off as part of a car commute you might drive anyway. Although thinking back I walked/scurried to a nearby nursery and then ran back to get in car to go to work.

A 10-15minute walk is great imo, time to talk about the day and decompress. Not too rushed in the mornings. Baby will be in a pram and toddlers often use scooters or balance bikes which makes walking same pace as adults.

Traffic on the road to DD's nursery was usually very busy mornings, school pick up time and rush hour so driving might take longer than you think (am slightly shocked anyone would drive those distances but I guess lots of people do, hence the traffic).

Currently, one of us works from home
fulltime, but may seek a more office based job (ideally a tram ride, but may end up being a drive). The other is flexible but will at home 2 or 3 days in office 2 or 3 (always a tram ride):

The closer nursery is halfway between our house and the local tram stop (we live in Sale, Manchester), which we would likely be walking to if we went to the office.

Based on your reply I think your quality of life will be much better using the closer nursery which will work with your life/commute and trying to walk most days. It will also get your child in the really good habit of walking or scooting from an early age. Check with the nursery if they have space for you to leave your pushchair or carrier though - some nurseries you have to take it with you, which is fine if you're walking home but obviously a pain if you want to jump straight on the tram, although doable with one of the unstructured carriers.

Possibly a bit niche, but our child started vomiting within minutes of being in the car at 6 months old and hasn’t stopped, so us picking the nursery within closest walking distance and not having to use the car at all has turned out to be one wise decision!

I'd use the closer one. The children who go there are more likely to be in school with your child. It's a great way to start meeting their future friends

Nice to walk so they get a longer transition period rather just being plopped from house to car to nursery. That might not work for your kid though, you just don’t know - they might dawdle and whine the whole way.

We’ve used nurseries within walking distance, we always just drive though.