Towards the end of last year, the Boy and I made the decision to move Baby-Ao to a new nursery at the beginning of this year, after he had spent 3 happy months in his existing nursery.

I had discovered and visited the ‘new’ nursery during my pregnancy and really liked it. But because it only accepted children from ~18 months, and I was going back to work earlier than that, and wanted to be able to settle him into a nursery before I started work, I had to enrol him in his ‘old’ nursery, which accepted babies from 3 months.

We probably would have stayed at Baby-Ao’s old nursery if it weren’t for the fact that he was BITTEN (and yes, there were teeth-marks!) by another child, not once – but *TWICE* within a week. To be fair, the Little Buddy was somewhat at fault because he had snatched the child’s (children? – we weren’t told who bit him, nor if it was the same offending child both times) toy. But to my mind, the nursery should have taught the children not to snatch toys from one another (admittedly a difficult lesson at that particular age), or otherwise monitor the children more closely, especially if a biting incident had recently occurred.

So, the perceived dangers at the old nursery was a push factor.

The pull factors of the new nursery were:

• The lower nursery fees (about a third lower!!)
• Larger outdoor space for my active boy who loves climbing,
• The fact that it is Ofsted-rated “Outstanding” vs. “Good” at his old nursery

Lower fees for better outcomes seemed a clear no-brainer, but because of that, also seemed like it was too good to be true.

My two biggest anxieties about changing nursery were:

• That it would be disruptive and traumatic. Baby-Ao was happy at his old (then-current) nursery – he liked the workers there (he would smile at them and stretch out his arms to them), and they were clearly fond of him (he was the baby of his room). And so I was afraid that the move might be traumatic, given the attachments that he had forned.
• That he would be “bullied” at his new nursery. The new nursery had lower fees because it was a social enterprise, and it takes in more disadvantaged children, which I’m fine with in principle, except to the extent that they might be rougher or less well-behaved, and therefore Little Buddy would be bullied and/or be under bad influence. Furthermore, in the new nursery, he would be the youngest child by far in his room (18-36 months vs. 12-24 months in the old nursery), which would make him an even likelier target for bullying than in his previous nursery.

After some hand-wringing, discussion with the Boy, and a lot of anxiety, we finally made the decision to change nurseries. Because I didn’t have to work between Christmas and the new year, and was expecting to have to work in the new year, I let him have two 2-hour settling-in sessions in mid-December, right before we went on Christmas break, and then one more half-day of settling in on 2 Jan, before leaving him to start with his regular daycare routine with the new nursery.

Happily enough, despite all our ex-ante angst and anxiety, Baby-Ao actually adjusted really well to his new nursery. From the start, he was unfazed when we dropped him off in the morning – as soon as his breakfast was served, he seemed to completely forget our existence (which is identical to his reaction at his previous nursery). On the other hand, he was a bit more distressed in the evenings – he would start being a little bit weepy from 5pm onwards, once other kids start leaving / being picked up by their parents. But within a couple of weeks, by mid-January, he was fully adjusted. And, he hasn’t been bitten so far.

I’m really happy and proud of Baby-Ao for being so adaptable and resilient. I feel really lucky that he is such an easy-going kid, who really makes my life as a parent that much more relaxing and guilt-free, even though I still worry before the fact.