I need to hear from other people whose children don't (or didn't) go to nursery or preschool or playschool or kindergarten or anything like that. Am feeling a bit of a fraek.

[broccolispears]

Rationally I know that dd is not the only 2-year-old in the world who doesn't ever go to any of these things, but it would be really comforting to hear from you because all I seem to be hearing at the moment is how brilliant nursery is for their development and how important it is for them to learn independance and I'm feeling a bit inadequate for not sending her.

I do have the odd evening out (though not completely without children as am bfing a 12-week-old atm!), otherwise I just take the children with me. Hairdressers. Supermarket. Dentist (had a filling with them with me last week).

Yes, send her to nursery and all the tantrums are down to it ("poor kiddie is too tired, nursery turns him aggressive" etc). Keep him at home and he has a tantrum? It's because he can't socialise, is spoilt etc. Any argument can be used to be nasty about someone else's choice. I think it's great there isn't a "norm" in early childcare as you have more choices.

Scottishmummy, I got the impression that Broccolispears was feeling under pressure from friends etc to send her dd to nursery even though she felt it might not be right for her dd rather than an outright criticism of nursery provision per se.

yes Mercy i did too, read my posts.i got nursery bad no one should have to go response

working parents with nursery get a regulatr MN kicking. in fact they are doing it at the mo elsewher as we speak

Broccolli - Most people send their children to preschool for themselves not for the child. I know I do!

Let's ignore all that silliness. All children turn out fine as long as parents are vaguely interested in being parents.

Nursery/not nursery, bf/not bf, wohm/sahm, greggspasties/notgreggspasties is all irrelevant.

My honest to god view is this: if you're on MN in the first place you are vaguely interested in parenting and therefore it's all fine.

We don't need to argue on here because we're all doing fine

Hi Cthea, Sorry I just noticed your earlier question.
We (him and I) have made friends with a group of 3 other mums, we see each other at least once a week.
He knows the babies by name (so for example, if I ask him to take a toy/snack to xxx, he knows exactly were to go.)

I have made an effort to invite these mums (that I liked) home for coffee, or to go with them to the park/swimming/etc. So I try to keep in touch out of the playgroup as well.

This has given DS the opportunity to see these chidren more regularly and to form a little bond with them. I

dd never went to nursery till she got her free sessions at the age of 3. We went to a toddler group and a pre-school mini-movers class so she did get to meet other kids. DS (nearly 2) also wont go till he gets his free place but again he goes to a mini-movers class and 1 morning a week I go to a parenting group at the local nursery and he goes into the creche for those 2 hours. We also meet up with my sister who has 3 kids so they get to play with them too.