Would you pay for another day or two at nursery?

[K2012]

Hi FTM and need some advice.

My 2.5 year old son started nursery 4 months ago and has been ill 5-6 times since he started (I made another topic about that a while ago). He goes 2 days a week and every time he’s been ill he’s had a week off from nursery.

He doesn’t like going nursery cries every morning at home when we leave but settles when he gets there. He will be going to preschool in about 6 months time. I’m considering paying for another day or two a week at nursery as they have also said it might be beneficial for him with him settling in better etc. but it’s about £45 a day and no refund if he’s ill. For now he goes 2 days a week (15 hours funded) and we only pay for his meals. What would you do?

Thank you in advance.

My daughter started nursery 2 days a week at 9 months and we went up to 5 days at 12 months and she was more comfortable in going and even during the first week the staff commented on the difference.

We moved to a different nursery at 2, at this point she was in 4 days a week and she cried at every drop off for a month and some drop offs for another month. It might still be an adjustment especially if he's been ill a lot. It might be worth trying a 3rd. Would it be worth talking to the nursery about paying for an extra slot for a couple of weeks to see if it makes a difference? Occasionally I had to book my daughter in for an extra day /half day and they could sometimes accommodate it. Even a half day on the third day might make a difference without too much extra time and less impact on costs. It's a bad time of year for illnesses and hopefully in the coming weeks they will tail off!

Do you need it for work? If it’s just because it will help him ‘settle in’, no (it won’t really). He’s going to have to do it all over again in a new setting presumably. Why not enjoy your time together now? Unless you need the extra childcare, it’s really because they are hoping for a bit more money out of you.

Thank you @Superscientist for the reply. I might consider just doing an extra day a week. I’ll see.

@mindutopia Thank you for your reply. No we don’t need it for work, me and my husband works opposite shifts so the only reason would be for him to settle better as suggested by the nursery.
The preschool is within the nursery just in another room.

I forgot to mention in my post that last month we did pay for an extra day a week for 4 weeks but he was ill for a week so lost out on one day that we paid for.

No I wouldn’t bother. Not you’re planning on moving him to a different preschool when he’s 3 anyway and especially if you don’t need it for childcare whilst you work. I also don’t think it will help him settle because the biggest issue there is probably that his attendance recently has been sporadic due to illness and it sounds like it’s just the initial separation that’s causes upset and then he settles fine for the rest of the session, so it’s not a huge problem really. It’s also more money, money that would then be wasted if he’s off with illness. Finally, research hasn’t really shown any benefits from nursery for babies/toddlers under 3. Not to say it’s bad or anything, just more that it’s neutral and if you don’t need it for childcare then what’s the point. This changes at 3 when developmentally they start the beginnings of playing together and school prep also becomes a factor. But right now, honestly, I think more nursery hours would be pointless so I’d save the money and enjoy the time together!

Can he go for 4 mornings instead of 2 days? Or would that not work with your shifts?

How tight is money for you?

I do think they settle more easily if they're there more regularly, but he should settle eventually in any case. Maybe give it a few more months.

Edit - just saw that he's going to preschool in 6 months. I wouldn't increase his days (unless you can easily afford it and it would benefit you to have some time to yourself!).

I think it might be worth holding off making decisions until the illnesses calm down. They should do soon. If he's in most of his days over 3 or 4 weeks and still not settling that well you could look at adding a half day.

@InTheRainOnATrain Thank you for your reply. We went to see the health worker at his 2 year old check up and he couldn’t speak yet and still can’t so he was referred to SALT but we were told it normally takes a year to be seen (he was referred 6 months ago and we still haven’t received an appointment) so she suggested that he should start nursery and it might help with his speech and also to socialize with other children and get used to being around other children and adults as he’s just been home and to a few playgroups since he was born. He doesn’t have cousins his age and I don’t have friends with children his age so that was the main reason he started nursery. His speech has improved a little bit, he still can’t say any sentences but understand everything we say so maybe going nursery has had an impact on him.

@RatRatPig Thank you for your reply. He goes 2 mornings a week from 8am-1pm.
It’s not because we can easily afford it, it’s still a lot of money wasted if he doesn’t go in and he’s been ill a lot since he started nursery (he never really used to be ill before he started nursery). I’d only consider it for him not because I need time for myself.

@Superscientist Thanks I’ll see how the next few weeks go. Hopefully the flu/cold season will be over soon.

I know the cost isn’t exactly equal but based on your update, if you can then I’d spend the money on private speech therapy, not more nursery sessions.

My daughter moved to a good nursery at 24 months having been unintentionally at a poor one that closed when she was 21 months. At 20 months she only has 3 words, never the same words as she couldn't retain words. She started the new nursery with 10 words and only communicated with pointing.
We spoke the our new HV as we moved and she arranged to see her after she had settled in to assess for SALT referral but was optimistic because the new nursery apparently was very good at putting developmental support in place before being directed to do so and in 2 months she was using 2 and 3 word sentences and had a good number of words by 3 she was on par with her peers.

We had quite a bit of support from our previous HV when we saw her at 20 months when we were concerned about her losing words. Salt referral wasn't made at the time as we were mid house sale and it wouldn't have come in before we moved out of area. The exercises really helped in getting her from 3 to 10 words and once she was starting to retain words when learning new ones really helped her language develop.

Our HV had contact with her old nursery but they closed before we had chance to get support out into place. Do you have joined up support between HV recommendations and nursery time? We notice such a difference when changing nurseries it was only a year or so after the nursery closed that the reasons around the closure arose and it does make sense that 1. Her language delay wasn't picked up on and she wasn't make much progress.

If a HV had told me that a nursery would help with my son's speech I would have asked her how a group of children with imperfect speech and adults who have to split their time between all of the children would help to improve his speech more than a parent who was constantly talking to him and giving him 100% of their attention could?

Speech improves so much between 2 and 3 anyway so any improvements you've seen would have happened anyway.

If people need nursery for childcare then fair enough, but under the age of 3 nursery has very little benefit for children who have loving and interested parents able to spend time with them. I personally would take him out and wait until he's at least 3.