Charlie O'Brien blog: A bad nursery experience and choosing a childminder

This time last year I was getting ready to send my then almost-one-year-old to nursery.

Because I work from home we only really needed a couple of half days worth of childcare and we chose the nursery at the end of our road.

It was convenient for drop offs and pick ups, it was on the way to the train station if I needed to go into London and it seemed OK.

We had two visits and although I didn’t get overwhelming GOOD feelings about the place, I didn’t necessarily get awful ones either.

The anxiety of starting with a childminder

It started OK with a nice key worker and although Noah cried every time we dropped him off for six months, we put it down to him being a sensitive child.

We continued until after our wedding when everything broke down.

Noah was moved into the next room, which was the natural progression. But he was moved with very little in the way of 'settling in' and on his final day (after just three sessions in the room) I finally saw what was really going on.

I was told my son was in the garden playing with the other children, so out I went – looking forward to seeing him enjoying the summer evening. I couldn’t find him so went back inside to an empty room to find him sobbing in the corner with red puffy eyes and snot all round his face.

It transpired he was actually very unwell and had been sick hours before, but no one felt the need to call me. I was working at home 100 yards away.

During the debrief with his new key worker she told me that he was too sensitive and needed to toughen up to survive nursery life and to be able to handle himself at school with the “big boys”. (Yes, she actually said that.)

'I cried for days and four months on I still feel guilty for allowing him to be in that environment'

Let me just stop here and tell you that he was 18 MONTHS OLD.

She also told me she didn’t have time to give one child undivided attention and couldn’t keep making excuses for him because he was always ill. (He wasn’t – and even if he was?!)

We left and never went back.

I cried for days and four months on I still feel guilty for allowing him to be in that environment. But far from this being a depressing tale of giving up – today Noah started with the loveliest childminder and I couldn’t be happy.

She listened to all my concerns and reassured me that this experience would be different. When we picked Noah up after his half-day he didn’t want to leave.

We’ve muddled along for four months with some babysitting from my parents, and me turning down work but the time has come to put our trust in a new set up and I have a very good feeling that this will work for all of us.

If you’re reading this and you’ve got the job of choosing childcare in front of you – my tips would be to look around at a few different nurseries and options. But most importantly, trust your instincts. I didn’t and I still regret it.

But fingers crossed, we’re moving on to a happier era.

Charlie X

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