Going from living a life at home with the family to suddenly being thrust into a new environment full of strangers would be daunting enough for anyone. It’s especially true, though, for under-fives starting at nursery or pre-school. So, the key is to prepare children for the change and, of course, for the nursery/pre-school to be very welcoming and accommodating. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the things that will help toddlers and preschoolers transition as smoothly as possible.
How to Help The Transition to Nursery/Pre-School
Firstly, and most obviously, it’s a great idea to talk to your little one so they get used to the idea of going to nursery or pre-school. Although they may not initially grasp what to expect, the more you talk to them about it and give regular reminders, the more they will be mentally prepared when the time comes. Describe it to them, focus on the positives like making new friends, taking part in new activities and games, having access to exciting equipment, and so on. Maybe even role-play some of the things they should expect, perhaps as part of a game (make it fun!).
Arrange a Visit
Once you’ve selected the best nursery or pre-school for your child, arrange a visit. At Treetops Nursery we’re always happy to show both parent and child around the setting, so they can see what’s what, meet the staff and children, and ask any questions. Both child and parent can even sit in on activities during an arranged visit to see if they feel at home, before committing. It may even turn out that they know some children already there and that also helps to break the ice and to hit the ground running once they enrol. If not, perhaps encourage interaction with one or more children that’ll be in their cohort during the visit. They’ll naturally then gravitate towards them once they start properly. Another tip during your visit is to make a note of whether any of the books, toys or games at the nursery are the same as you have at home. Anything familiar to the child will always help to make them feel more at home once they’re at the nursery.
Encourage Independence
Helping toddlers with toilet training, personal hygiene, speaking, communicating, following rules, tidying up after themselves, hanging up their coat, fastening shoes, packing their backpack and suchlike will also help them with their self-confidence once they start nursery. If they are a little more independent and able when they start, they will naturally also be a little more self-confident and relaxed at the new setting.
Listen & Reassure
Giving your child a voice is also important. Encourage them to ask you questions and take time to properly answer them, so they know what to expect. Find suitable responses to reassure them if they have any concerns and always be sure not to reflect any concerns you have onto them.
Set a Routine
A week or two before their start date, try to get them used to a daytime routine that mimics the timings at the nursery. For example, snack times, meal times, times for a daytime nap and so on. In tandem with this, get them used to a suitable routine for getting up in the morning, getting dressed (as independently as possible) and going to bed. Their body clocks will soon adjust to this in readiness for a similar pattern once they’ve started at the nursery. Sufficient high quality sleep will be essential, of course.
Keep preparations relaxed, soothing and feeling as natural as possible for your child.
On the First Day of Nursery/Pre-School
When the first day of nursery arrives, ensure you and your child are fully prepared with everything you need, on time too. You don’t want to cause your child stress by being late or disorganised. Also ensure that each of your mindsets is positive. Focus on the positives and reassure your child by reminding them what fun they’re going to have and how exciting it is to now be going to nursery. Your child will only get one chance to get a good first impression of going to nursery! It’s also helpful to hide any negative feelings or anxieties you have about leaving them at the nursery (your child may pick up on these if not), so keep it relaxed, natural, free of fuss — and positive. Also remind them, of course, that you’ll see them later (N.B. be on time!) and can’t wait for them to tell you all about their exciting first day at the nursery. In any case, though, you may find they can’t wait to get through the door and don’t give you so much as a second glance, particularly if they spot a friend or staff member they met at the earlier nursery visit.
Consider putting your child’s favourite teddy bear or comforter into their backpack, so they don’t feel alone.
Our childcare professionals have many years of childcare experience, so helping children settle in is second nature to us. Rest assured, we will ensure that your child has fun, feels relaxed and is safe at all times. We will ensure that this milestone in their lives goes as smoothly as possible and that their time at the nursery/pre-school is a resounding success.
Nursery Childcare Places in Willesden, Harlesden & Kensal Green
Treetops is a high quality nursery and pre-school in Willesden, near Willesden Green, Harlesden and Kensal Green. It is in very high demand in the Northwest area of London, so please get in touch as soon as possible if you would like to enrol your baby, toddler or preschooler, or to arrange a visit. Please choose an option:
In short, allowing a young child the tools, time and guidance to play regularly will help them with many elements of their learning and development — and that’s critical. Indeed, that’s why good nurseries, pre-schools and childcare settings encourage children to learn in large part through play.
Firstly, it’s fun for them and is an essential part of a happy childhood;
Play also keeps children mentally fit as it stimulates their senses, brains and sense of adventure;
All in all, play fosters both physical development and mental development in children. Doing so sets them up with improved physical and cognitive abilities as well as incredibly important life skills. Combined, this also sets under-fives up beautifully for school-readiness when they leave pre-school.
Even newborn babies should be encouraged to be active, in order to learn and develop their abilities through interaction and play. At this age, this is achieved largely through activities known collectively as Tummy Time. This is an incredibly important tool for their early development. Tummy Time pretty much describes the essence of the activities — i.e. time spent awake and active on their tummies during their first year.
It helps them to build physical strength, particularly in their upper body, and helps them achieve various developmental milestones.
Another important benefit of Tummy Time is that it helps babies avoid conditions like positional plagiocephaly (otherwise known as ‘flat head syndrome’) and positional torticollis (i.e. a twisted neck) because it allows them to change position more often.
You can lie the baby on their tummy (while awake of course) on a soft blanket or rug on the floor. Get down low so you can interact with them and play games like peek-a-boo at their level.
Encourage the baby to support their own weight on their hand and arms (almost like a ‘push-up’ kind of position) for short periods. This can initially be done by helping to support them with a hand, lifting them under their chest or tummy. They’ll soon catch on and help to push themselves up and support their own head more and more.
Willesden and other north-west London areas close by feature regularly in the long-running BBC mystery crime drama Jonathan Creek. This popular series stars actor and comedian Alan Davies as the main protagonist. Other occasional stars who appeared in the series included Griff Rhys Jones, Rik Mayall, Jack Dee (who we’ll hear more about below), Bill Bailey, Nigel Planer and even Bob Monkhouse.
Actor and dead-pan comedian Jack Dee co-wrote and starred in ‘Lead Balloon’, a BBC4 comedy series that first ran on British TV from 2006 to 2011. The first episode actually achieved the highest ever ratings for a comedy on the channel at the time and the series later aired on BBC2 and to audiences on BBC HD. There were three series in total, with the first two being filmed in and around Willesden. Indeed, the main characters Rick (played by Jack Dee) and his partner Mel (played by Raquel Cassidy) live in a house located in Willesden. A café called ‘Michael’s Café’ in series one and two is, in reality, ‘Gracelands Café’, which is located just a stone’s throw from Willesden in Kensal Green.
Willesden also features in the British TV comedy-drama ‘Minder’ that was extremely popular on ITV/Thames Television from late 1979 through to the mid-90s. One of the two key protagonists, Arthur Daley (played by George Cole), kept a lock-up garage in Willesden and this is where he kept all his merchandise. He also did many of his deals in and around the area. One episode of Minder was even called ‘Willesden Suite’. No less than 10 series aired in total, making George Cole and Dennis Waterman into household names.
‘The Last Detective’ was another extremely popular British TV drama that ran for 4 series between 2003 and 2007. The main protagonist was ‘Dangerous Davies’, a Detective Constable played by Peter Davison. ‘Dangerous Davies’ was, in fact, the series of books upon which the TV drama was based. Filming of episodes often took place in Willesden, Harlesden and other parts of north/north-west London. Indeed, episode 4 (s.3) was called ‘Willesden Confidential’ and episode 3 (s.4) was called ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Willesden’.
Zomba was widely accepted to be the most successful independent music company (The Zomba Music Corporation sold for literally billions eventually). Along the way, Zomba bought legendary music company Rough Trade and itself eventually became owned by BMG, then later Sony Music Entertainment under the RCA/Jive Label Group umbrella and later still its artists moved across to Epic Records. One of the original founders of Zomba is a certain Mutt Lange, who became a legendary producer (later marrying Shania Twain) who has worked with Def Leppard, The Boomtown Rats, Huey Lewis and the News, Britney Spears, Nickelback, Maroon 5, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, The Corrs, Billy Ocean, Lady Gaga, Muse, AC/DC, Foreigner, Tina Turner, Backstreet Boys, The Cars and many more. Music genres cover everything from rap and hip-hop to pop and rock. From humble beginnings, this Willesden company influenced music and culture around the entire world.
‘Morgan Studios’ was another very influential and successful music company that started life in Willesden, pre-dating Zomba, back in the 1960s. They went on to work with huge names like Free, Blind Faith, Led Zeppelin, Supertramp, Paul McCartney, Wings, Rod Stewart, Yes, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd, Carly Simon, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, The Who, The Jam, The Cure, The Stone Roses, Thin Lizzy, The Kinks (more about them below), Squeeze, Gary Moore, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Tyler, Elton John, and many more household names. The recording studios were based at 169-171 High Road, Willesden, being owned originally by Barry Morgan, the drummer in successful bands like ‘Blue Mink’ and others. Interestingly, in 1980, Morgan Studios were sold half to Zomba (see above) and half to Robin Millar CBE who, four years later, produced the seminal album ‘Diamond Life’ by Sade. He is also a legendary music executive, who worked with many other huge names including Eric Clapton, Sting, Herbie Hancock, Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, Malcolm McLaren and Alison Moyet to name just a few.
guidance and links. Your child will fall into one of 4 possible categories:
Socio-economic background matters too:
Breast milk is nature’s totally natural food for newborns and little ones, containing nothing artificial or added.
Babies are also more protected against asthma if they have been breastfed.
Breastfeeding a baby reduces the chance of mothers developing Type 2 Diabetes.
Our top 25 benefits of breastfeeding really only scratch the surface. Breastfeeding and breast milk have many more benefits including anything from saving money and being more convenient (nothing needs buying or preparing) to being better for the planet. With breast milk, there’s no packaging to throw away and it’s a totally sustainable food source, direct from nature. Incredible when you think about it.
Last month, we mentioned what a huge topic formula milk is. So, in this post, we thought we’d explore all the different types of milk available to infants in the UK.
Baby and infant formula milk comes ready-made in liquid form or as a powder that needs to be carefully and hygienically made up. The liquid variety is usually the more expensive of the two and needs to be used sooner, due to its shorter shelf life. Whichever is used, labels should be carefully checked to ensure suitability for the age of the particular baby/infant in question.
Comfort Formula is another type of formula milk based on cows’ milk, but the milk proteins it contains are already partially broken down (partially hydrolysed). It is marketed as being easier for the infant to digest and, as such, a formula milk that will reduce the chance of constipation or colic. However, there is no evidence to back up such claims. It’s suitable from birth but parents should ask for advice from their Health Visitor or midwife before giving their baby this type of milk, and certainly not use it if their infant is allergic to cows’ milk.
From the age of 1: your baby can move onto drinking whole pasteurised cows’ milk as their main drink (or alternatively sheeps’ or goats’ milk so long as it’s also pasteurised) as part of a healthy, balanced diet. It should not be given to children before they’re one because it does not contain enough iron.
More and more parents are bringing up youngsters as vegetarians these days, so we thought we’d put together a rough guide to raising babies, toddlers and preschoolers as vegetarians. When doing so, certain considerations will need to be made, including ensuring that meals are nutritious, containing all the necessary food groups, vitamins and minerals needed by the very young.
The good news is that formula milk that’s suitable for vegetarians is available. Parents may ask their midwife or health professional for any recommendations in regard to types or brands, particularly if one formula milk disagrees with the baby. However, whichever brand and type is chosen, the formula milk must be formulated for the baby’s specific age. This is usually obvious on the product label.
From around the age of 6 months, your baby will usually start the process of weaning off of milk and begin to eat solid foods, albeit given in puréed or liquidised form initially. This is when parents then need to be mindful of their child’s nutritional needs and this is even more pertinent when bringing up a child as a vegetarian.
Well, tofu and other soya products will contain good quantities of protein.
Iron is essential for growing children and can be found in many of the foods mentioned above. That said, it’s worth mentioning that some foods block the absorption of iron. Such foods include tea as well as whole grains and legumes containing ‘phytates’, dairy products containing ‘casein’ and eggs and dairy products that contain particular forms of calcium. The simple solution to many of these is as follows:
Of course, that can be the case. What’s more, such handheld screens are a great way for parents to keep children entertained when perhaps they need to get on with other things. Electronic handheld devices also teach children about technology and introduce them to IT; essential skills for them to master in this day and age. Even games can be educational, with some designed to improve children’s numeracy etc. while at the same time being enormous fun. The key, though, is for parents to ensure that children are looking at the right content and not for extended periods of time. Ideally, it should be content that’s informative — i.e. content that will teach them something new, introduce them to new topics and allow them to make discoveries that will educate them. So, the content needs to be chosen and curated by parents — not the child.
There are some tools available to help parents accomplish this. While we don’t endorse any particular online safety application over any other, applications like 
Hundreds of scientist and medical professionals around the world are convinced that handheld devices like mobile phones and tablets are potentially harmful to humans, especially unborn children, when connected to Wi-Fi. They say that this is due to the ‘RF wireless radiation’ that the devices emit when connected to the web (etc.). What’s more, they appear to have some compelling science and research to back up their claims.
