Anyone terrified of nurseries/childcare?

[Lelophants]

This is the SAHP THREAD!

I’m due to put my baby into nursery when she turns one so I can potentially go back to some (very part time) work. I’ve pretty been out of work since my 5 year old was born for various reasons. I’ve started to feel ready to do some paid work, especially now he’s at a good school. The reasons are I’d like to think I’m contributing financially and get my toe into something I can progress with when all kids are older. Plus my sanity.

But every now and then I freak out and get so scared of putting her in nursery! You hear so many awful stories of abuse and I get so much anxiety.

DH is a high earner (and tbh it’s easier if I’m at home with the kids and odd jobs when he’s commuting!) and maybe I should wait until she’s older/ can talk?

But we have no family help and I’d love some time to myself :( DH obviously takes the kids on weekends but he’s exhausted and it’s not the same.

Everyone else I know works at least part time so nursery is normalised. What do you think? Do I just need to get over my anxiety or appreciate this extra year or so?

My only advice is to make sure you don't run yourself ragged. If you're working part time and him full time it is still reasonable for him to take his share of carers leave etc when your children are ill/ have appointments etc. Especially if you want to increase your hours/ pay in the future try not to get in the 'man with big job can't possibly do anything' mindset.

Of course working part time with him with a commute means you'll do most of it but he is still a parent too.

You hear of occasional stories of abuse. Yes it's terrible, no denying that, but not wide spread. I haven't looked up figures, but I would not working because of it, is similar to not crossing roads because people get hit by cars and not travelling on roads because of road accidents. If you don't like the idea of nursery, maybe look at a childminder. I preferred that option for my little one, because I really got to know the person looking after him, and saw inside the setting. There weren't people in interacting with him that I hadn't met, or places he went to that I hadn't been.

Yeah, that study is was based on a specific, ultra-cheap childcare initiative in Quebec in 1997 which was acknowledged in a big later study from 2000 to be overwhelmingly ‘of poor quality’ in fully 61% of the daycare facilities, with 14% of the settings rated as ‘inadequate’. Only 5% of the childcare settings were rated as ‘good’, meaning that they centred children’s de elopement as well as meeting basic HaS guidelines. (Link to the study is from the blog you link to, and has lots of detail about how the settings and staff were rated.)

Whereas high quality childcare has generally demonstrated a strong positive effect on child MH and cognitive abilities.

DD is 10 and still remembers fond memories of her key workers, friends and playing at nursery.

She loved it, yes there were some little niggles from my side as a parent, clothes getting caked in paint or not as much communication as I would have liked some days but overall it was great.

I wasn't worried no as I know lots of kids that have been to mimosas since they were babies. The nursery had great rating and it was recommended to me.

However I wouldn't put a baby in to nursery if I didn't need the money. I've had both of my kids in from 10months old. They don't really get anything out of nursery at all at that age. It horrible leaving them but needs must for most people. They also get ill a lot and get every bug or illness that's going so you'll be paying for them to go and they'll be off ill.

I think mine started to enjoy it more about 2-2 1/2. I'd just wait until if I were you.

@KindOf But that is surely the point, childcare in England has consistently been shown to not be of good quality. Also the benefits to cognitive abilities etc are evident only after the age of 24 months, until that age children are much better with one main caregiver, preferably a parent

Statistically childcare whether nursery or childminder is safer than home...most childhood accidents happen at home most abuse is by family. We only hear the rare occurrences not the over 99% of everyday life which is safe and happy.

Studies on childcare for babies find it to be 'neutral'. The quality of childcare is obviously key but essentially the evidence shows that childcare for young children isn't having a detrimental impact.
There are benefits for children once they are older (2+) but childcare younger children is neither beneficial or detrimental. However, issues such as mums mental heath and poverty are detrimental so the whole picture needs to be considered.

The headline is that you are not damaging your young children by using high quality childcare.

I have a nanny share (my DC who is 22 months and one other) at my house while my DH works at home, then a childminder for a couple of days a week who has 2-3 kids including my DC, so very few kids.

Could this be a better option? A nanny share is cheaper than a single nanny, and childminder is even more affordable. In all honesty I don't trust nurseries - a lot of the nannies/childminders I've hired have worked in one and it seems they'd never ever put their own kids in one.

I don't think being terrified of nursery is healthy to be honest.

The generalisation that goes on on these threads blows my mind. JFC.

I asked on the sahm thread as didn’t want it to get overtaken by numerous comments about what being a sahm makes me a horrendous, stupid person.

I know some sahm still use nurseries and I guess I wanted advice on how others did it.

Terrified is definitely an overreaction. I meant that sometimes I just get really nervous thinking about it and wondering if I am just doing it because it is expected and the norm.

This is what I mean. I’ve heard so many awful stories lately. I also had to pull my son out of nursery and there were so many issues. Now he’s at school he’s fine…

another reason I didn’t post somewhere else is because people seem to take it as a slight. Why is it I can talk to my childfree friend and they’re not offended I have a preference for children or a particular number of children and yet I make a different parenting choice and it’s a slight? All my mum friends are working mums. We get on very well. We all do different things that can work for us, our families.

Yup! And completely didn’t work out for my son.

How many nurseries have you visited ? The one we used from DT’s being six months old was amazing - low turnover of staff - the majority were older staff, highly educated, lovely facilities and outdoor spaces - nothing but praise for it

@Parker231 i am from a small town which has been in the news recently after a little girl who went there was killed by a nursery worker with many years of experience, another woman who worked there was imprisoned for, I believe, child cruelty. In this same small town there have been two further accidental deaths at nurseries caused by negligence, notably in one case a baby under one being given a whole cherry tomato and choking to death. My brothers gf when he was in his early twenties was verbally and physically abusive to him and was forcibly removed from their shared home by the police after a neighbour reported her assaulting him, she managed a baby room in an outstanding nursery which even then, almost a decade ago, charged £60 a day. These are four nurseries in a five mile radius of my parents home. Whilst objectively I am aware that not all nurseries are bad, enough are for me to not entrust them with my child. Until we stop paying people minimum wage to take care of our most precious children nurseries will always be staffed by people who are very young or who are not educated to know how to properly manage and care for young children. It is a wonderful that you have found such a great setting for your children but this is not the norm

Find somewhere you love, with staff you trust.

Our local montessori has wonderful staff; tight knit team that have been there for years. I had zero hesitation sending my little one.

In contrast, the 2 local nurseries seemed a bit dismal, with cranky staff, when I visited. I wouldn't have sent my kid there.

Having said this, I personally didn't send DS until he was 2.5 and talking well. I appreciate I was very lucky to have the ability to do this, as I work from home in the evenings.

Just to add, I have also worked in nurseries since the bad experience with my own dc and can honestly say I wouldn't place a dc of my own in one now. The rooms are more often than not run by young girls fresh out of school/college who don't have children of their own and often treat the children with contempt. They are also regularly understaffed and left to work in numbers that just aren't safe, in fact illegally. The child minder was a god send and if you can find a good one best by word of mouth, then I would definitely go with that over the nursery any day.

Was that for an older child? Just different children might react differently. My oldest was fine and loved it. Just put my boy in for two mornings a week now he is two and I am not so sure he is going to like it as much. He doesn't seem to be settling that quickly (doing it for speech delay reasons).

Not true that most babies haven't been looked after by their mother throughout history. That's just mumsnet bollocks that gets repeated and taken as gospel.

Yes - I can't voice my anti nurseries opinion in public very often, because it offends everyone who uses them.

But the research is very clear that young children need one-to-one caregiving, in small, family-like groups, in order to thrive. Nurseries are noisy, overstimulating and unnatural in my opinion.

I'm also not anti work - I have a high earning job, and use full-time childcare. But I use a nanny share and a childminder with low child-to-adult ratios. My DC actually shouts 'yay!!!' when my nanny arrives or she's dropped off at the childminder. Which is maybe insulting to me 😂 but I'm just pleased she likes them. I also interviewed so, so many before I found anyone I was happy with... Maybe I'm too fussy about all this

Before selecting the nursery for DT’s we looked at about 10 nurseries, several childminders and got as far as interviewing a couple of nannies. The nursery we selected was by far the best option imo - ratio was 1:2 so the same they would have with a nanny, at home and better than a childminder. With twins it’s never going to be 1:1 or for children with a sibling.

I've never heard of a nursery offering 1:2 care! Is it the same person every day? The research basically says children under 3 need to form a secure attachment with just one carer to be healthy, ideally with the lowest child-to-adult ratios possible. In my experience most nurseries didn't offer that - it was a rotation of staff rather than a single caregiver.

I'm not trying to bash people who use nurseries, each to their own, and I'm sure there are very good ones. I'm sure most kids who use them are fine, it's just not for me - I'd chose a childminder or nanny/ nanny share over them