Full-time work and parenting

[Joz]

Marina - I know exactly how you feel! My sons nursery in under a week has had outbreaks of:
Scabes, chicken pox, foot and mouth, vommitting and diarrhoea and measles - great!

My son had a measles jab a month ago - do you know how long it takes for the vaccine to become effective - I thought it was 6 weeks?

Hi Lil, I'm doing a primary PGCE over 18 months So far the homework is reasonable but I too hope evenings will not taken over too much...

This will probably arouse a lot of emotion, I am doing my BA(Hons) in Early Childhood studies, last night at college, there are 14 of us in the class, 10 work in day nurseries and are DNN or NNEB and they all said without exception that they would NEVER put a child of their own in a day nursery! Scarey thought, it certainly provoked some discussion. Many would have the opportunity to take their babies to work with them but said they wouldn't do it.The lecturer was amazed, she was surprised how strongly they felt.

That's interesting Alibubbles - what were their reasons and were you discussing specific age groups or did they feel that way for all children?

They felt it was not right for the under two's. They say no matter how hard you try, you can never give the babies the attention they need. Babies cannot sleep when they want, feed whe they want, there is such a strict structure and with so many children it has to be kept to.
Key workers, in theory are supposed to help allieviate the situation, but some babies are in day care 12 hours a day, staff work shifts, they have meal breaks and rest breaks, holidays and sickness, so no child is going to be able to attach firmly to another carer, as they are capable of doing, as that carer must be available at all times for the baby to transfer their affection and feel secure. (John Bowlby - separation and anxiety)

A high percentage of babies from day nurseries fail their 8 month hearing check, as they have learned to shut out the noise around them.

Alibubbles, does this also apply to under-twos in the care of childminders?

Tigermoth, home based daycare is the best care for a baby under two. Most childminders can only have one baby under a year and a total of three under five. They have the same constant care from one person, who will talk to them as an indivual, not as small group. They do get one to one care, they can sleep through lunch if they like, lunch is prepared for them when they need it, be it 12 or 2pm. It is a home from home environment, they are involved in activities they would do at home, able to choose whether to play, interact or just be cuddled on the sofa with a story book. They go to the park, outings, visits, activity groups etc.

Day nursery staff have to have a 1:2 ratio for under 2's on outside visits, and it just isn't possible with staffing.I know many childminders who provide an excellent service, and parents end up leaving them with the childminder instead of sending them to nursery at 3/4 year prior to school, as they feel they benefit greatly from being'at home'

In Switzerland, where I have just spent the week with the children I looked after for 7 years, there are no day nurseries, the neighbour was horrified to hear we have 10 in our city alone, she thought it was so cruel!

Parents are encouraged to stay at home with their children until they go to school, which is not until they are 7! They also only go 8-12 for a while, then when full time have 2 hours for lunch! If you have to work, they are homebased care centres with 8-10 childrem max, family groupings. There are a few kindergartens, but it is care until 7 with no pre writing skills, or reading etc. Very Rudolph Steinerbased, or Montessori nurseries, a great emphasis on play.

Tigermoth, home based daycare is the best care for a baby under two. Most childminders can only have one baby under a year and a total of three under five. They have the same constant care from one person, who will talk to them as an indivual, not as small group. They do get one to one care, they can sleep through lunch if they like, lunch is prepared for them when they need it, be it 12 or 2pm. It is a home from home environment, they are involved in activities they would do at home, able to choose whether to play, interact or just be cuddled on the sofa with a story book. They go to the park, outings, visits, activity groups etc.

Day nursery staff have to have a 1:2 ratio for under 2's on outside visits, and it just isn't possible with staffing.I know many childminders who provide an excellent service, and parents end up leaving them with the childminder instead of sending them to nursery at 3/4 year prior to school, as they feel they benefit greatly from being'at home'

In Switzerland, where I have just spent the week with the children I looked after for 7 years, there are no day nurseries, the neighbour was horrified to hear we have 10 in our city alone, she thought it was so cruel!

Parents are encouraged to stay at home with their children until they go to school, which is not until they are 7! They also only go 8-12 for a while, then when full time have 2 hours for lunch! If you have to work, they are homebased care centres with 8-10 childrem max, family groupings. There are a few kindergartens, but it is care until 7 with no pre writing skills, or reading etc. Very Rudolph Steinerbased, or Montessori nurseries, a great emphasis on play.

That's interesting Alibubbles. I have heard the pro childminder/ anti nursery for under twos argument before - I believe Penelope Leach says much the same thing.

It was mostly our finances and chance that determind my choice: My sons both went to childminders as babies and as under-two-year-olds (my two-and-a-bit son still does). Most nurseries in our area were just too expensive to consider. It is therefore difficult for me to compare the two. I have been very happy that my sons were able to bond with one carer, and by luck, in each case they had the childcarer pretty much to themselves during school hours, when the older ones were out of the house. The downside was that in both cases, for various reasons, my sons had to leave their first baby childminder at around the age of two, so the bond was broken. At least the nursery offers a consistent care environment.

I personally know mothers who have been extremely happy with the nursery care they have chosen, and their young children have thrived. I also have friends who are nursery workers. They babysit for us sometimes, and they seem so good at their job that I would not hesitate to leave a baby in their care. Mind you that's a bit off the point. You are talking more about the nursery structure, not the personnel, aren't you? Also, another pro nursery thought, I suspect that nurseries tend to offer slighty more in the way of educating and stimulatiing play opportunities.

Lastly, just a general question. If nurseries are 'bad' for under twos because the typical day is so rigid and structured, with eating, sleeping etc at set times, I wonder why the Gina Ford way of bringing up babies is so well regarded by so many?

This has definately prompted me to ask the staff at the nursery which my daughter attends their thoughts on the subject, although like Pamina when our dd was a baby she really was given individual care and there was not a rigid timetable for the under two's and still isn't as far as I'm aware (my daughter now being 4). They have always allowed the little ones to feed and sleep when they have wanted to / needed it and often when I went to collect her as a baby she was cuddled up in her keyworkers arms really content.(Still is actually). I guess we have been really lucky with our choice of nursery. I'll let you know what the staffs thoughts are though.

Alibubbles, I find what you said quite worrying,but it doesn't really stack up. A nursery nanny can only look after 3 babies tops. A childminder can look after more than three children, with the older ones taking up more attention and time. Have these students actually worked much in a nursery? Have they seen a typical childminders day? They really need to compare the two days, side by side, I would have thought? And as has already been said, most decent nurseries allow babies to sleep when they want.

To be honest I wouldn't want my child to 'bond' with just one carer. The thought of relying just on one person to look after my child worries me. That person could be having an off day, there's no-one to monitor what the children do with the childminder. There aren't the facilities the nursery has got, and all nurseries are highly regulated by Ofsted. There are more children of the same age, which must be preferable for the child. The nursery nannies are also not in their own home or distracted by their own children, so they can concentrate on your children and not on the housework etc!! Plus nurseries don't have TV, so no temptations there!

just a few thoughts, undoubtedly one-sided!

I tend to agree with Lil but it is worrying that the staff would not put their own children into nurseries !
DS is almost 2 and has been going for 18 months. He seems very happy there. He sleeps when he wants to and eats with the group but on the odd occasion when he was asleep during a meal, he ate afterwards. Also when I pick him up he is sometimes on his own, reading a book or playing with the "kitchen". They have group/led activities twice a day for 30 minutes (I think), the rest of the time is free play with 4 corners of very different activities.
WHilst in France a few weeks ago I saw a TV programme on the shaken baby syndrome - which is far less known over there because they didn't get the Louise Woodward story over there.
In this Paris hospital they had 2 babies a week brought in, all in serious conditions, a lot die from it, some are seriously damaged afterwards... anyway, the point was that the hospital (with the social workers) were trying to discover what had happened and it was often difficult to find out who had shaken the baby : a parent or the childminder. They said they had never encountered this issue (of having to figure out "who did it") when the child was in a nursery. I guess because if for any reason a staff member is "fed up" with a child, she can always ask a colleague to deal with him.

Don't get me wrong, I am only reporting back what was said at college, I was surprised at the vehemence of the girls stating they would not put their own children into a day nursery. I was amazed, so were the others who weren't DNN/NNEB and we were very curious as to their reasons.

I don't doubt their professionalism or ability to to do a really caring job, I understood quite clearly from what they were saying they really do care, they care more than people realise, but there comes a point when they find that they cannot stay too long in some nurseries as they feel too stongly about the type of care the babies receive. Many felt when they started with the nursery what a wonderful place, and are led to believe it is an ideal world, but in reality,when they have experienced it for a while, they realise that it is not always that way and don't actually believe it is necessarily in the best interests of the child. This accounts for a high turnover of staff, it is 80% in our local day nurseries (I think I have said before, of which there are 10!)
It isn't that the care is sub standard in any way, but not necessarily the best of care that is suitable for the age group.
They all said that every nursery has it's policies on sleeping. eating etc, on demand, but in reality it doesn't happen that way.
The senior Under 8's officer here has retired and is writing a book on the effect of daycare on under three's. I look forward to reading it! I appreciate it is a very emotive subject and I do not want anyone to feel that I am criticising their decision to use a day nursery, I was interested to hear other peoples opinions.

Sorry about the double posting.

Alibubbles, I think this is a case of your damn if you and damn if you don't... every type of care has its pros and cons - even full time mums isn't always perfect. But we all try our best and make the best decision we can based on our values, possibilities,...

My ds went to a childminder in her home from 3 months to 12 months. She was a very caring lady and ds loved her dearly. Unfortunately, she often had to cancel a day's childminding because one of her daughters had sick children and she had to look after them and could not fit any other children in. When ds was 12 months, one of her daughters had a fourth child (and lived on a remote rural property) and so she left to go and look after these grandchildren for 6 months. We had no choice but to find somewhere else for ds to go. I looked at lots of other childminders, as I also thought the 'home-away-from-home" system would be better for a young child, but could not find anyone as good as the first and was also wondering if the same thing could happen again and again. Ds was very upset when he had to leave the original childminder.

I decided to look at the long daycare centres (nursuries) to try and give my ds some sort of stability and continuity of care. It was very hard to leave him at the centre for the first two weeks as he was upset when I left but the carers would phone me several times during the day to let me know how he was settling in. The centre ds attends has 4 separate rooms, one for babies from 6 weeks to 2 years, one for 2 year olds (where ds is now), one for 3 year olds and one for 4-5 year olds which is actually a pre-school classroom.

They have a very loose routine for the under fours and they definitely allow them to eat and sleep when they want to (as they say they do) as I have gone to pick ds up early at 4:30 pm and he has been asleep in the room (with a carer) while the other children are outside playing. Since settling in to the centre ds has never looked back and can't wait to get there each morning. This was also the same before he turned 2!

There have been no changes in staff (except for the comings and goings of prac experience students) in the 16 months ds has been at the centre and 4 of the carers actually have their own children cared for in the centre (not by themselves, but other carers)! The centre has a very family-oriented feel and older siblings in other rooms are welcome to go down and visit their babies at virtually any time. The 2, 3 and 4/5 year olds all play outside together in the one playground. Ds loves all of the carers he has had (three carers in the baby room and three in the 2 year old room) and chases after them if we run into them in town calling their names!

I know ds only moved to the centre at 12 months (and was walking), so I have no actual personal experience of sending a small, immobile baby there, but I have spoken with the mothers of young babies in the centre about this as I am expecting baby no. 2 in April. I have been keeping a keen eye on the young babies in the baby room for the past three months and they certainly seem contented enough, often being carried around in a sling by a carer. They are also able to feed and sleep whenever they want to. For babies under 6 months there is one carer per baby, so this a lot better than when ds was at the childminders!

I don't know if things in the UK are very different to Australia or not (you do seem to send your children to school much sooner and be worried about academic achievement of children at quite a young age compared to here) but I certainly have no problem sending my ds (and his future sibling) to a long daycare centre (nursery). So far ds loves it and is turning out to be a very easy-going, sociable and well-adjusted little boy!!!

Both my children have been at nursery since they were babies (ds from 9 months when his childminder gave up, and dd from 6 months). My initial concerns about sending ds were quickly dispelled when I saw how well he settled, and how many cuddles etc he got from the staff. Dd went at 6 months, and loves nursery, and has never been upset about going (she's just turned 2) - in fact if things start getting a bit boring at the weekend with Mummy and Daddy she has been known to demand to be taken to nursery! (Not so good for parental morale...) The nursery manager has just started her second baby in the baby room, so she must feel OK about having her child in nursery care. I think so much depends on the individual nursery, the staff (the girl who was primary carer for ds when he started is still working there, 3.5 years later), and on the character of the child (even as a baby).

Hi Alibubbles

Out of curiousity, do all (or some) of the 10 on your course who work in the nurseries work in the same one(s), or are all the nurseries different for each student?

On my Montessori course, I was also surprised by how anti current nursery staff were about nurseries for the care of under twos.
I spent alot of time going to see nurseries and childminders when deciding where my ds would go and I have to say that the standard of care varied hugely between all the nurseries and all the childminders. Some nurseries had such a high turnover of staff (always one of my first questions) that I just knew they couldn't be happy places for infants to be, whereas others seemed much more well established and the workers were very caring and attentive.
Likewise, there were some childminders I wouldn't have left a pet with, let alone my precious baby.
Having studied attachment theories, it does seem very important for small children to form some kind of bond with a few key carers to give them a stable base and make them feel secure. A good nursery should be able to do this, although possibly not with quite the same degree of penetration as a childminder. It is not so much the number of children that the carer is looking after but the regularity with which that carer is responsible for the infant: nappy changes, feeding etc.

Alli, The nursery nurses work at nurseries over a radius of about 70 miles in the county. One particular chain has been bought out by a major company, but before that the care from nursery to nursery of the same name was very inconsistent. In fact my tutor last year used to run one, she had years of experience and is the most devoted person and adamant about quality care that you could ever meet. She,too said it was not the place for babies, and admitted that she used to say to parents how can you consider leaving a baby so young in a nursery, why not consider a childminder. I know childminders have had a bad press, there will always be good and bad childminders, but like wise good and bad nurseries.
She also said some people don't want to get too involved with a childminder, they feel it is too familiar and are anxious that the child will love the childminder more than the parent. The anonimity of a nursery avoids that sort of conflict. I know from experieence that some parents are really pleased that the child dosen't want to leave the childminders at the end of the day, it means that they are happy and secure in their environment. Some childminders I know have looked after many brothers and sisters of the same family for many years

There are some excellent nurseries, I know that, and I have seen first hand the type of care the children receive. The nurseries that appear to be the best IMHO are the home based or small family grouped style nursery. I have also visited some nurseries where the babies where being fed and not one nursery nurse had eye contact with the child, they were standing by the side of a high chair and just spooning in the mush, no conversation, no encouragement, just gossiping to the other nurses about what they were going to do tonight!

All the positive comments about the experience of mums on this site are attributed to the staff. They are all highly trained dedicated people, but that dosen't neccessarily make for the best environment. I don't doubt the dedication of the nn's, I know they feel very strongly about quality care, but all too often, childcare has been the easy option at GCSE, and the admission criteria to the NNEB course was not very high. Now standards have been looked at, and the new DNN requires 5 GCSE grades C and above. It is a tough course and the girls have a lot of learning to do, observations etc.

Soon, all childminders will have to have attended a pre registration training course and futher training before they are registered. They will also be expected to continue further training. Ofsted will make sure of that.

I would agree with many of the comments about the decision to use a nursery depending on the particular nursery and the baby. My dd has been at the same nursery since she was 4mths. She is now 22 mths and a few weeks ago she was anxious and not keen to go - this coincided with the birth of our ds. It also turns out that she was a little bored as last week she moved into 2-5yrs room and is once more excited and desperate to go to nursery again.

I work with many childcare students and sometimes wonder if I would leave my child with them. By the end of the course I would happily leave a child with most of them. I do confess that when it came to choosing a nursery I asked our placement team which of the local nurseries they would leave their children in. From this shortlist I chose one and would happily recommend it to anyone. Again, I'm lucky in that some of the carers have their own children there, and there is not a high turnover of staff. It is also small (9 under-2s at any time) and very friendly.

I did consider a childminder but where I live you have to register with one virtually as the child is born if not earlier. They were all full and were not vry keen on part-time arrangements. I was probably just unlucky at the time.

This probably isn't very helpful, but I really think the success or otherwise of Nursery/ Childminder depends on so many things:

• your child's personality/ how early or late they begin in day care
• quality of daycare, be it childminder or nursery
• how they react to it
• how much guilt (or otherwise) you feel

Like all working parents we ummed & aahed over this one for ages, and finally opted for a very good local nursery (part of a national chain) which my son (now 2) went into full time from 5 months. Unfortunately we had a friend who had had a very distressing experience with a child minder - basically she was called by Social Services at work and advised to collect her child, as a 'friend'/neighbour of the childminder had reported her for cruelty. This particular childminder had a child of her own of similar age, and was getting angry because my friends child was developing more quickly, so was being really hostile to my friends daughter. I don't know all the details, but fortunately I don't think she was physically abusing her, however the perception of the situation was that it could develop the wrong way.
As a result dh & I both felt that we didn't want to rely solely on one person whom we didn't really know, and who wouldn't have any 'checks' on them during the day when we were out. Somehow we felt the 'collective responsibility' of nursery was somehow preferable.
We have been very lucky - the nursery is excellent and has very loose routines for the babies and an excellent curriculum for the toddlers. My son has positively thrived there, and even friends with same age kids at home have commented on his development. But like I said - IT DEPENDS - you really have to trust your instincts, both about the quality of any care, and also your child's reaction to it.
In terms of managing all the other stuff (housework/ gardening)about a year ago DH and were definitely struggling to keep our heads above water so one evening we made an 'action plan' to 'buy back' our precious time with our son, and also try to alleviate some of the stress. Basically it entailed a) getting an Au Pair who does all the housework/ ironing & babysits 2 nights a week; b) a gardener c) agreeing that for certain jobs we wouldn't 'DIY', but would 'pay a man to do it' (this one was really hard for my husband to accept, but I was getting really pissed off when every weekend he was saying 'can you look after ds all day because I need to paint/ build a shed etc etc when I felt we should be together as a family).
Finally we also approached a whole load of friends with kids the same age at the nursery and shared emergency contact numbers/ agreed to help each other out if ever we got stuck in traffic/ on the train etc, etc. Now our son is a bit older, we have also taken the lead in offering to have 'all the kids' on an occasional Saturday morning (they happily play together!) in return for the same favour on another occasion. We just found this helps to sometimes do those 'shopping things' which are impossible with a toddler. Interestingly, once we started/ suggested these things with the other parents, they all said how grateful they were because they'd all been thinking the same things, but were too shy to suggest/ set up. (obviously just takes a bossy old moo like me!!)

I'd endorse many people's comments about the "collective accountability" of a good nursery's staff as opposed to the one-to-one relationship you can build up with a childminder. I was unlucky with mine, who turned out to be a grasping, manipulative bully - something that Social Services checks may not pick up, I guess. We withdrew him immediately she started insisting that I gave up breastfeeding him because it was preventing her from bonding with him.
Our son went full-time at 8 months to a local university nursery which has a low turnover amongst its largely mature and 100% qualified staff, and like Jo20's, is only small. We looked at other local nurseries and were concerned about the variability of the care and in particular the cramped conditions for babies in some of them. Until the age of 2 our son was one of only four in the Baby Room and he loves it there, now one of only eight in the Toddler Room. I think size does matter!

I was a bit concerned to read from Pamina that her nursery doesn't have enough cots for all the babies to sleep. Every baby in the baby room is supposed to have their own cot according to the rules. It is different in a toddler room. Like wise they must have their own bottles etc not used by another child

I also agree with the 'collective accountability' advantage of nurseries. I know just how stressful it can get being at home all day with one's own small children, let alone someone elses. When I was looking the childminders for whom I had personal recommendations were full, and I was not impressed by any of the one's with vacancies. The first I visited was sitting in a smoky fug when I arrived, despite my specifying on the phone that I would only consider non-smokers. She then told me she would only smoke outside when my beloved dd's were there... The second completely ignored dd's throughout our visit. The third said the right things, but the vibes were all wrong. I later saw her at toddler group yelling and smacking her own child and the one she was looking after. Of course there are excellent childminders, a friend of mine has the ultimate Mary Poppins. but for my dd's I felt much 'safer' knowing that there were several adults. We were lucky that it was a small nursery, and for the first 2 years there were no staff changes. Unfortunately there was then an unsettled few months until a new team was established. One dd barely noticed, but the other missed her favourite carer very much. However childminders also move or give-up, so continuity cannot be relied on. Also nurseries arrange alternative cover if staff are sick or on holiday. I know from friends that this can be a huge worry if childminders cancel at the last minute.