Nursery placement for one day a week. Is it worth it/recommended?

[poohbearrules]

I've phoned three nurseries today to enquire about placements for my DD when I go back to work in April. She will be nine months at that stage. I'm planning on going back four days. The grandparents are going to have her three days and will use a nursery for the other day. Two of the nurseries said that they don't recommend only one day a week as it can be difficult for the child to settle, they may feel left out and not able to mix as well as the other children who will get to know each other better. I presume this is when they're a bit older. One will take her for one day tho, the other won't and will only do a minimum of two days. Has anyone else been told this or have any experience of this? Or is this just the nursery trying to get me to do two days? My thinking was that it would be good for her to mix with other babies/children, plus I have to go back to work.
Thanks.

[Poosnu]

I would agree that your DD might take longer to settle at nursery if she only does one day. At my DD's nursery, the babies who settled most quickly were those who attended 5 days per week. It might help to have extra sessions during the settling in period to get your DD used to it.

[poohbearrules]

Thanks, that's something to consider. So maybe we could start her off on more days, perhaps two, and then drop it back to just one day? Or would that be too disruptive? The cost is a big factor though.

[Littlefish]

In the nursery where I work, we strongly encourage parents to take up at least 2 sessions, on different days, for the reasons you mention in your first post.

[Mummydoctor]

I would go on your own child. DS1 started nursery 1 day/ week when he was 7 months old and DS2 was the same at 10 months old. They both settled in fine, no problems at all. DS1 is now 3.5yrs and loves nursery ( does 1 long day and 2 funded pre school sessions). He had a phase of not wanting to go (always been more clingy) and at that time he was doing 2 full days. He was better when we went back down to 1 day again. DS2 so far happy too.

[BackforGood]

There will always be exceptions who cope just fine, but time and time again Nursery staff tell me of the problems children have having to 'settle' every time they come, and getting into a negative cycle of being upset, when they are once a week attenders. Not something I'd recommend.

[berri]

I had DS in just one day a week - he loved it and the nursery never mentioned anything when I originally enquired about any of the problems above.

I know all kids are different, but unless you're doing something 7 days a week, I don't really see the difference between 1 or 2 days.

Apart from the cost of course

I think it'd be better to see if your DD settles first, rather than trying to pre-empt a problem which you might not have?

[silver28]

I completely agree with berrl. Your child might be one of those that copes fine doing one day a week. If not, you could increase to two days.

DS went for one day a week from the age of 11 months and i think it probably took him slightly longer to settle in, but he was fine from day one really. He'd cry when being dropped off the first five times (so five weeks in his case) but was always ok after a few mins. After the first five sessions we never had another problem. We upped his attendance to 2 days at the age of 2 but that was to enable DH to work more, not for DS's benefit.

[poohbearrules]

Thanks for your replies. I'm thinking we'll try one day but Guess we'll just have to see how it goes. One nursery rang today to tell me they're booked up two days in April already. That one will only do a minimum of two days tho. Going to visit tomorrow to see what they're like.