Cotswold Dad and I have been talking and we have decided that Cotswold Kid should go to a day nursery. We never actually planned for him to go to nursery as we are fortunate that we have sufficient child care for the days we were working through family members but 20 months on I really feel like he is starting to suffer as he is not getting many opportunities to interact with other children his age and make friends.

His current social circle

He does see other children, I have plenty of cousins with children of their own and I have friends who also have children - some of whom are around his age - but we don't see them as much as we'd like and he misses out on the interaction. It's got to the point where he's pretty much with adults all the time and he has no friends of his own, I've been worried his social skills are suffering and whilst he is active he doesn't have many recognisable words.

Making the decision

At the same time Cotswold Dad was talking to his business partner who's son is slightly older than CK. The child has recently started nursery and in the short time that he's been there had made some significant progress and so CD was keen to think about putting CK in nursery as well.

I didn't need much convincing and started to look online at different nurseries in the area. I also read a few articles to get some tips on what I should look for including this great blog post by the Frenchie Mummy.

Local nursery options

Where we live there are very few nursery options with only 3 nurseries in the town itself, there are other nurseries in the outlying areas but they are a good 15-20 minute drive and not on the best roads either.

The nursery I was primarily interested in is currently attended by the daughter of one of the mum's from my antenatal class so I have already heard some good things but I wanted to see it for myself so I found it incredibly helpful when the local nursery advertised an open morning for Saturday morning last week (the promise of cake was a further motivation as well!).



Our Visit

Saturday morning we went over to the nursery (a 5 minute walk from our house) and were immediately met by the room leader for the 2 year olds, she gave us a tour of the '2' rooms and I was immediately struck by how lovely it was, everything was clean, the displays were bright, and there was a huge selection of toys and activities, sensory rooms, dens - it was fantastic. There was also a lovely outdoor play area including a treehouse which I knew he would love.

The staff were great as well, the room leader took us over to the baby room as we weren't sure which he would start in so we also got to look around that and the pre-school and were impressed with all. I think one of the main things I like was that the staff were very experienced, the room leader for the 2 room had been there for 18 years and a lot of the other staff had been there for 6 or 7 years plus. Of course there were a few 'school leavers' but for the majority of staff they had been there a while. I also got a real sense of how much they seemed to enjoy being there. They were all laughing and joking with each other and seemed very at ease and generally seemed to be happy to be there - despite it being a Saturday morning. I got a really good feeling about the place.




The Deal Breaker

CK was with us and when we got to the nursery he didn't want to get out of the pushchair, didn't want to walk in with us and didn't want to interact with us. We carried him round with him clinging to us but with time he started to increase his confidence and was happy to get down and then started playing with toys and interacting with the other staff playing peekaboo with one of the women there. He seemed to settle in so well and this also really put my mind at ease as I just knew that this was the right place for him and there was no need to look at anywhere else.

Signing up

We filled in the registration forms right there and then and we are waiting to hear back from the admin as to when he can start, we're hoping to put him in 2 mornings a week to begin with. I'm also going to do a visit in the week - most likely in early September as I want to see what the nursery is like in its normal setting and not when it is being 'staged' for parents to look around. But I'm fairly confident this will be a formality and just another opportunity to warm CK up to going to the nursery again based on what I've seen so far.

I guess I just have to think about preparing for his start now and am looking forward to getting the start date. I need to get him a backpack, water bottle and a lunchbox (he will eat lunch there) so will have to do a shopping trip in the near future as well for these things but I'm really excited for him to start as I'm sure it will do him wonders.

I'll keep you posted as to how you get on - what were your first experiences like looking around a nursery. Did you 'know' as soon as you stepped foot in the building that you'd found the right one? Let me know in the comments below.