September 2024 marks the start of the new government funding for babies from 9 months old. We thought it would be a great time to talk to our nursery managers about the benefits of babies attending nursery. At Rosedene our managers have over 20 years of experience working with children from the age of 6 weeks, and they’ve got some great stories and tips to share.
In this Q&A, we’ll dive into how our nursery environment helps with babies’ development, social skills, and overall well-being. Curious about how nursery can give your baby a head start? Keep reading to find out more!
1. What are the most important skills that babies learn from attending nursery?
We focus on key skills to support your baby’s growth: helping them with physical milestones like sitting up, crawling, and walking, as well as enhancing their communication and language through playful activities, staff interactions and social opportunities.
2. When is it the right time to start your baby at nursery?
We work alongside parents to ensure that any time is the right time! With many parents facing the challenge of returning to work sooner than planned or after maternity leave, it can be a daunting time for new parents. Our nurseries will support this transition with settling-in- sessions, meeting with parents, creating your baby's Rosedene journey and building that all-important start to your child's Rosedene Journey.
3. What makes the Rosedene nursery baby experience different to others?
At Rosedene we offer an environment that is safe, and secure & provides that home-from-home approach this helps support babies to settle in, build relationships, and allow them to freely explore & be curious. Our staff scaffold children's learning & development creating opportunities that meet the individual needs of our children.
Our settings take on a unique approach to learning which is inspired by the curiosity approach, this offers an environment full of natural resources, nature & outdoor learning.
4. What safety measures do Rosedene take to keep babies safe in nursery?
Our settings are created to offer a safe and secure environment, all our staff are trained in safe sleep, first aid, and safeguarding. We offer the best training to ensure staff have the best knowledge & skills to create a safe space for our children. We have CCTV fitted across the nurseries to ensure the safety and safeguarding of children in nursery, and the safety of staff and visitors to the premises.
5. What does Stockton’s Hub Manager Laura love most about working with babies?
I love to see babies hit those early milestones, watching them start to sit up, crawl around, walk and be part of their weaning journey is amazing to be a part of. I love to see the characters that they become while they are babies, quite often we will see them go from needing help with feeding and walking to becoming their own individual by walking and talking and exploring how they wish within the settings.
Seeing how happy the babies are when they settled and form their attachments to the key workers is amazing to see and gives us great pleasure to be caring for the babies.
When a baby starts with us we get to see them from such a young age to watch them grow and develop until they are ready to go to school which is lovely to see.
6. What is different from Rosedene’s Rosycheeks (babies) environment to the Rosebuds (toddlers) environment?
Our team works closely with each of our rooms to help support the children's transition to the next room, they identify areas such as supporting children with mealtimes, using cutlery, sitting at the table, etc to help prepare them for the toddler room. They also provide opportunities for the children to build bonds with staff in the next room to help support their transition with staff sharing important information to help create a smooth transition.
7. What are the ratios in the baby room?
At Rosedene, we work on a 1:3 ratio in our baby room, so this means there will be a minimum of 1 member of our team to 3 babies (under the age of 2 years).
8. What meals are provided & how do you support children's weaning journey?
We have a 3-week menu that runs across all our settings, this is designed by our in-house Nursery Chefs & input from parents. We work alongside all parents to meet the individual needs of the children including meeting dietary requirements & supporting children's weaning journeys.
All our meals are recorded on our online app and we share recipes of the month to allow parents to try new ideas at home.
For more information on our menus and meals, visit our healthy kitchen page.
9. Do children get outside every day?
At Rosedene we have a unique approach to Outdoor learning to allow children the freedom to explore, play, and be curious. We make sure that our babies can access outdoor learning almost every day. Our baby outdoor environment is tailored to each development stage, whilst being enhanced with both child and adult lead learning opportunities.
10. Do you offer settling-in sessions?
We offer 3 hours of settling-in sessions per child. this is a great opportunity for children to become familiar with the setting and begin to build important relationships with staff. On the first settling-in session, parents will be invited in to meet with staff to discuss key information, and routines, as well as ask any questions.
We hope this blog has answered all your questions about enrolling your baby into nursery. If you have any other questions, our nursery managers are happy to help! Click here to fill out our
contact form.
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