Nursery Hunting

Nursery always an option for me before Daniel was born and I'd always said I would put my child into a nursery even the first couple months of maternity leave. Not wanting to do so is because of the increased awareness of the emotional risks of early separation for a baby from his mum followed by my extensive child-rearing-books-reading.

However all these readings and awareness, I kind of felt-the-fear-do-it-anyway and started nursery-hunting last week. I viewed couple of them light-hearted when Daniel was around 6 month old and now I really got my head around it. I viewed two so far and spent quite a bit time in each premise talking to staff. I have asked the questions like qualification, staff consistency, environment, diet, safety, cost, learning and emotional policy in particular. I was quite impressed bye one called Chatterbox, which came from a playgroup mum's recommendation. Maybe because i always believe that word of mouth is the best reliable source of information when it comes to choosing nursery, I got the good impression instantly when i stepped into their baby room, there are 8-9 babes of Daniel's age in the Chatterbox, they all looked very content and peaceful and engaging in what they are doing when we were there. Apparently, in terms of learning and play, they follow UK government's Birth To Three Matter Fram, also they provide daily log of baby's activity like what time they napped for how long, what time they had their nappy changed, what time they eat what and play etc... plus the observation sheet for the baby's development milestones backed up by photos ( hehe, saving me to do the blogs).. I particularly asked their emotional care and was delightedly told things like they nurse baby to sleep if the parents ask to. My own observation was that one 12 month baby cried when the manager left the room to show us around and he got picked up by her straight away , she explained that the baby was with her since he was 4 month old and he therefore became very attached to her. So it was not as bad as I thought. Regarding to ease baby's separation anxiety, she said we can visit the nursery many times as we wish for settle-in session without charge. Also they will phone parent at work to tell how the baby get on etc...

There is nothing to sad about sending your child one year old to the nursery, I love being with my son. I know I will miss him when I at work and might be shedding tears the first day when I let him go solo, but in that age old dilemma I also love being me and the freedom of being able to go on holiday and providing him a better education. there will be enormous personal cost if I choose otherwise now. I wouldn't trumpet the transition back to working life as some sort of symbol of having-it-all, like everything else in the life, there always comes with cost, I just have to get on with it!