Nursery scheduling advice, please!

[Yellowlamb]

Sad to be going back to work in August, and putting my 11mo in nursery. Between me, my husband and my mum, LO will only need to do one full day (9-5) in nursery.

However, the nursery have contacted me and said that one day a week isn’t great for settling babies and that 2 mornings a week is preferable, and that it doesn’t matter if these are consecutive or not.

In the short term we could wiggle things around and do 2 mornings a week. Longer term we would need this to shift to either 1 x full day a week or 1 x full day and 1 x half day a week.

Would you opt to do:
(a) one day a week as originally planned;
(b) two mornings on a temporary basis before transitioning to 1 full day;
(c) a full day and a morning temporarily before dropping the morning; or
(d) a full day and a morning on a permanent basis?

I imagine a lot of this will depend on LO, and how long it may take him to settle and whether it dropping a half day would be disruptive. Would love people’s advice/ experience of navigating similar scenarios!

B as long as lo settles. I do think nursery are right. Babies can take time to settle and a week is a long time for the baby.

It likely will take them longer to settle at only one day a week at that age but you have to do what works for you too. Good luck with the transition

My DD started at 11 months, doing 3 days. It did take awhile to settle in so I would expect just 1 day to be harder.

I would do the most you can to start, then gradually drop.
I would try to do more than 1 day permanently though.

One day a week can be problematic because they don't go long enough/often enough to get used to it. To an 11 month old, one day there followed by six days not there - by the time they go again it's totally unfamiliar, they've forgotten and haven't got any sort of routine going. It can sometimes work, but some settings even have a rule that you need to book in for a minimum of two days because it tends to work out better for settling in etc than one day a week.

My son did two non-consecutive full days per week (Tue + Fri) and it took him months to settle. Every baby is different, of course, but I’m about to have no.2 and have booked her in to start (when she’s 15 months old) with 2.5 days from the off, following my experience with my son.

@Yellowlamb as someone who has previous experience of working in a nursery setting I think ideally you should choose to send him over two days.

It can often be really hard for the babies and children to build relationships with their key worker / other staff members and adapt to a new routine , new environments and new foods. Whilst settling them in we would work alongside parents to monitor how the baby was settling and build up their hours. It is also helpful for staff to build that strong relationship with the baby knowing how to settle them but ideally they will need to be there for more than one day.

I’m surprised at any nursery allowing a one day/week attendance pattern. It’s not in the best interests of your baby as they’ll forget what’s going on in the six days inbetween. It may be the cheapest option for you with the hotch potch of mum/dad/GPs, but there will be no routine or consistency and that’s what small people thrive on.

I think it depends on your baby. I have done 1 day as that's all we needed and didn't want her in a nursey anymore than she had to be tbh. The first 3/4 sessions were hard but now she's fine after her 5th time going so not months in my experience however she is a really outgoing baby! We did do 3 settling ins and then I did my own version of settling in where she was booked in for the day but I got GPs to pick up like 2pm for a week or two so it wasn't such a long day at first I felt more comfortable with that x

(e) 2 full-day permanently

100%

No nurseries near us take children for less than 2 days per week. I think this says a lot about how hard that can be.

I would go option D.

Option d
Mine loves nursery, but even after a year, he finds Mondays a bit harder after 3 days off.
It will be better for them, and you might find an extra morning off handy. Also don’t forget that they will be off a lot due to illness during the first year, having some contingency time will be a Godsend once you’re back at work.