Child Nursery

Scorpio33

Hi,

My wife and I have a baby, and my wife is due to go back to work next April, and so we are currently looking into nurseries.

We both work 30 mins or so away from home, and my wife will be going back to work 3 days a week.

What I would like to ask is where you think wwe should be looking for nurseries - near home or near work?

My thinking is that if anything is wrong, then if we looked for ones near home, then baby would be in the car for the least amount of time to get home, against the 30 min drive to get home should we look for one near work.

But then if there are traffic problems, then it would mean one of us being late picking her up from Nursery, which some places will not accept.

What do you guys think?


Also, what things do you look for when choosing a nursery?

Any assistance gratefully received!

dizsiebubba

I am having a similar issue with this at the moment...

I am leaning towards nearer work but this is how I see it...

Pro's
* It costs less because I don't have to pay for childcare in my commute time.
* If there was a serious accident, I am closer to the nursery or hospital baby would be taken too being at work.
* I think I will just feel better in general that he is near in an emergency.
Con's
* If it snows while I am at work and I can't get home by public transport or car (which happens 3/4 days a year where i live) I will have to get me and baby home walking which would be easily a 2 hour walk without a baby instead of doing the walk on my own and picking up baby from nursery 5 mins from home!
* I work out the outskirts of a rough part of the town and the nurseries are in the rough part where you often hear of stabbings and the riots were here (but mostly this is evening) although nursery does have an outstanding ofsted report and offers baby a good programme.

Not sure if pro or con
My baby will be the only white british baby there. I was like this in primary school and it done me no harm whatsoever so I don't think it will be an issue but from the religious aspect there will be points of the day where he is left alone (with an adult but no other kids) because the others have religious requirements and his food will be different to the others too because he has no religious dietary requirements so he will be the odd one out...?

averagemummy

Several of the girls at work live at least 25 mins away, and they mostly opted to put them in the nursery accross the road.

I think the main reason being that there are no delays in picking them up, especially if they are ill

chirpychick

I think it is better to have nursery near to work, therefore if anything does happen one of you can get there ASAP.

Bluebell1000

Our main priority was which one we actually liked best out of the ones that had spaces (though we're going for a childminder not a nursery)! We went for one closer to home, but we know that in an emergency my Dad could pick our little boy up.

One of my friends gave me a list of questions to ask...
1. Will they cope with cloth nappies (may not be relevant for you!).
2. Do they take childcare vouchers.
3. What do the children eat / when, do we need to provide food / formula?
4. Do we need to provide buggy / car seat?
5. Do they go on outings?
6. Policies during holidays / child sickness / staff sickness (do you still pay)? Are they closed over Christmas and Bank holidays?
7. Do you keep a diary of children's activities / progress?
8. What other children are there, ages? Staff:children ratio?
9. What do the children do in the day? Activities, play, etc.

CL

My DD is in a creche and my DH & myself both work 30 mins away from work and decided to put LO in a creche near home. Reasons are:

• My LO hates being stuck in the car seat. She would rather have 1 hr per day playing in creche than sitting in a car.
• If there is an emergency, or I'm stuck in work I can get a relative to collect her and keep her for me.
• I don't want her to pick up the accent from the area where I work LOL.
• The creche is cheaper at home than near work.
• I live in a country area and the staff in the creche take the children out to see the cows/horses in the fields. I work in Belfast, so that wouldn't happen at a creche beside work.

Mrs_Imp

We use a childminder close to home for various reasons:
If he was at a childminder close to work, then if something happened to me, DH would have to drive 2 hours to get there (we work an hour away in opposite directions).
If I decided to take the day off work or was ill, then DH could still take him to the childminder.
If I leave something behind (his shoes one day) then it's only 5 minutes up the road to collect them.
Any friends he makes at the childminder's will be close to home, so we could meet up at other times.
If I broke down on the way to work, then he'd not be stuck by the side of the road waiting for recovery.

We're lucky, as we have several friends who have offered to pick him up if we're late home unexpectedly, or if he's ill and needs taking home.

Scorpio33

Thanks all - I think we'll go for a nursery nearer work. I think they will be nicer nearer work anyway.

waterbaby

I've done both, and I work 3 days too.

I have a 30 min drive to work, and began by putting my 11 month old boy into nursery across the road from work. I looked at a couple near home, but I decided to have him close to me, 'just in case'.

Although he had one hour a day in the car, he was quite happy watching the world go by. Where it got very difficult was when there was an accident, and we were stationary on the motorway. He screamed and screamed, but I could do very little about it; and that is hard. We got stuck in the bad snow once on the way home, took us 7 hours to get home .

Being just the two of us in the car for 30 minutes meant there was nothing I could do to keep him awake on the way home, and that did cause problems with bedtime sometimes.

When I went on maternity leave again, I decided that I wouldn't spend two hours a day and the petrol doing 80 miles a day just for nursery, so I moved him to the village nursery where we live now. Both of them now go there, and I am happy that the eldest has made friends that he will now go to school with in September.

I have met several parents through my son, and we are a regular visitor at three or four houses of the nursery children, and have them at ours, and now the playdates are starting for the youngest too (17 months). I wouldn't have been able to develop those relationships if we were a long way from those children. You might like to consider that you'll probably be invited to summer/christmas fayres, easter egg hunts, birthday parties... we didn't mind driving back to the old nursery as we tied it in with a visit to grandad.

Although I am further away in an emergency, I am ok with this as I feel that the staff are capable of caring for my children til I arrive. In the snow, it would have been better if he was at the nursery close to home, as they kept the heating on and got the stranded children off to sleep in the lunchtime sleeping bags. Much better than being stuck in a car for 7 hours crying.

The current nursery says it charges £[lots] after 6, but if you are punctual and just have one bad day eg traffic issues then they don't charge.

I hope that waffling is of some use!

Oh and about choosing a nursery - above all, do the children seem happy and do the staff interact well with them? Gut feeling plays a huge part, and your child is an individual, you know her best.

waterbaby

Oh I can't believe that took so long to write! well I did go and make lunch half way through!

Janepig

I never really thought about using a nursery closer to work, I just automatically looked at day nurseries close to home and went for one afew streets away. I was at most half an hour away on the one or two occasions when I was called because they were ill, or the once when DD had an accident and cut the inside of her mouth.

They were always going to be going to school in this locality so it never really occurred to me to put them in day nursery out of the area.

Jx