Final nursery update

So for any of you who read our initial nursery sagas (Part 1, Part 2) I thought I would write an update to let you know how Doof gets on now…

Doof has now been in nursery full time for 5 months and he absolutely loves it :)

He starts at 7.30 in the morning and is there til 6 and has so much fun. When I drop him off in the morning there are never any tears, he is just straight into playing with the toys (if he is the first one there) or with the other children. In the evenings he is always excited to see me but if I watch him before he realises I am there he is always playing happily and I have never seen him crying.

The staff are all great. They seem to genuinely care about all the children and give lots of cuddles and attention and they have different goals for each child to work towards depending on their development so I feel they don’t just see it as a job but actually them being an important part of the childrens’ lives. Within a week of him being there everyone knew his name (even the staff in the older room) and they all say hello and wave at him when they go past. It definitely feels like a family there, even though it is a decent-sized nursery and part of a large nationwide chain.

The cynical part of me might wonder if all the niceities are just put on at drop-off and pick-up times to impress parents but because of my weird hours I often take Doof in late if I’m on a late shift or pick him up early if I’ve been working nights. On all these occasions I just arrive unexpectedly at any time and always witness the same.

The only time I have ever questioned our decision was when Doof got really bad nappy rash and they were only changing him once every 6-7 hours. I was a bit nervous about saying something as I didn’t want to ruin any relationship with them but when we did say something they were very happy to change him more often and said that if we wanted they would change him every 2 hours! I think Doof is just pretty chilled out when his nappy is full and so doesn’t fuss to be changed so was maybe getting overlooked.

So all in all I am so happy we chose nursery over a nanny and, more specifically, that we chose that particular nursery.

For anyone starting out at the beginning of the nursery-settling-in-process – definitely take heart from our journey because at the start I never thought Doof would even last 2 hours there. When I look back at that time now I can’t believe it!

Now all we have to decide is what we do when we have 2 kids and nursery becomes twice the price…