We started looking at the nurseries for our daughter when I was about six months pregnant. This is not because we were searching for things to do, but because in London that’s how things work. In central London, there is not that many (good) nurseries, so the earlier you put your name down on the list, the more likely it is you will get a spot at the nursery you think may be best for the child you haven’t even met.
So we did that.
One year old
My plan was always to go back to work full time and pick up my career where I left it. We decided to do shared parental leave, where I would take nine months off and husband last three, which meant that our daughter was supposed to start the nursery cca ten days before her first birthday.
Now, this was hard.
In Serbia, people say it’s not advisable for a child to start nursery before the age of one and a half or event two, because of the emotional attachment to the parents and because of the emotional stress the separation from them would cause. I was told by a renowned Serbian child psychologist to expect this settling in period to be emotionally quite stressful for both our daughter and us, but was re-assured that none of that stress would have any long-term effect on her.
What I found interesting was that people here in the UK did not share this opinion and I drew my own, straightforward conclusion: In Serbia, the majority of new parents have the luxury of leaving their child with grandparents once they return to work, so they do not need to send children to nurseries very early on. In London, the majority of new parents live without any family around, so nannies, child minders and nurseries are the only available childcare options, all three meaning you will need to leave your child with strangers.
We opted for the nursery option.
Unhappy child
After one week of settling in, she started nursery full time and what followed was series of mornings when she was quite unhappy at the drop off. I used to ring the nursery every day for at least two months around lunchtime to ask how she was doing, always getting a similar kind of answer ‘doing fine’, ‘sleeping’, ‘played & ate well’, ‘cried a bit, then was fine after a cuddle’. These people are experts, they would have called us if something was really wrong we kept telling ourselves.
Grandma around to help
We were lucky to have my mum in here in the first three weeks of nursery, so she would pick her up at 3pm the first week, 4pm the second week and 5pm the third week. The idea was to slowly increase her time at the nursery and once my mum leaves, have her ready to be picked up at around 5.30pm after I finish work.
Things were gradually getting better
And then, very slowly, and over the period of six long weeks, we started noticing changes. Positive ones. She started smiling and happily going into the arms of carers at the drop off; through reports and weekly updates we now saw what they were up to on a daily basis: art classes where they would get messy, painting dressed in nothing but nappies and something that looks like a raincoat, music lessons, sand pits, cooking activities – some, not all of course, we wouldn’t be able to provide at home. Yes, I am referring to the sand pit.
We noticed increase in her interactivity, over time her concentration while we ‘read’ to her prolonged and she finally started picking up the spoon on her own. Things like that, you see.
Germs
The drawback of course was the number of times she got ill. Temperatures started literally in the first, recurring every or every other week. Cough and runny nose also started in the first week, and they haven’t stopped yet. Our hope is that she will have immunity made of cast iron by the time she starts elementary school.
It looks like it is good for her
To sum up, if you need to send your child to the nursery early, my advice is try and not feel like you are committing a crime. I felt like that and I probably still feel like that on occasion. Nurseries are good for them; they will learn to share and not overreact if a toy is taken from them while on the playground. Bottom line in my humble opinion, the potential for your child to be more sociable is higher if they attend nursery vs if they are being looked after by a family member.
But brace yourself for at least a month and a half of emotional stress and adjustment to change.
Maybe they didn’t tell me everything
I met a mum from my daughter’s group three months after she started nursery. The mum said she knew who Klara was because when the mum was settling her daughter in, Klara was crying ‘all the time’. A tiny little detail nursery forgot to mention while I kept calling to check on her.
I guess they knew what they were doing.