Settling in
Settling is a fortnight of short visits that get longer, and it is booked into the diary before your child's place starts. The point of it is that your child meets the room, the noise, the smell of lunch and their key adult in pieces small enough to hold.
The plan below is the one the room offers first. It bends when your child needs it to bend, while the order of the pieces stays the same: the room, then a meal, then a rest, then a whole day.
| When | How long | Where you are |
|---|---|---|
| Day one | Half an hour | On the floor in the room with your child |
| Day two | One hour | In the entrance with a cup of tea |
| Day three | Two hours with snack | Away, back for the end of snack |
| Day four | Morning to lunch | Away, back as lunch is cleared |
| Day five | Morning, lunch and rest | Away, back when the room wakes |
| Week two | The booked session | Away, on the telephone if needed |
Before
The visit that happens before day one
You come in during an ordinary session with your child, so you see the room at its normal volume rather than tidied for visitors. You are shown the register, the menu board, the garden door and the peg your child would use. The room lead who will be your child's key adult is introduced by name, and that is the person you write to for the rest of your time here.
The registration form is filled in at that visit or taken home and returned before day one. It carries the names and numbers of everyone allowed to collect, the sleep and feeding pattern you keep at home, any allergy or dietary requirement, and the three photograph consents. Nothing starts until that form is back, because the allergy card at the table is copied from it.
Day one
Half an hour with you on the floor
The first visit is half an hour long and you stay in the room for all of it. You sit on the floor where your child can reach you, and the key adult works nearby without taking over. Most children spend that half hour holding on and watching, which is exactly what it is for.
The key adult uses the time to learn the practical things: how your child is held, what they are called at home, which word means milk, and which toy travels everywhere. Those go straight onto the room card. Bring the comforter on day one, because it is the object that makes the room familiar faster than anything an adult can do.
Days two and three
The first goodbye, and the first snack without you
On day two you stay for ten minutes and then leave for an hour, and you wait in the entrance where the room can fetch you. The goodbye is said out loud and kept short, because a long one tells your child that leaving is a serious matter. The key adult takes your child to a window or a tray as you go.
On day three the visit reaches two hours and takes in snack at quarter to ten. Sitting at the table with the other children is a bigger step than it looks, so the key adult sits beside your child for the whole of it. You are telephoned during that session either way, with what your child did after you left rather than a reassuring sentence.
Days four and five
The first lunch, and then the first rest
Day four runs from the morning to the end of lunch, so your child meets the room at its noisiest. Lunch is the point most children find hardest, while it is also the one that settles them fastest once they have eaten in company. The allergy card is at the place from day four onwards, checked by the room lead and by a second adult.
Day five adds the rest. The mat goes in the same place it will always go, with the bedding from your own bag, and the key adult sits by it until your child is asleep or clearly not going to sleep. Sleeping somewhere new is the last thing to come, and some children take a fortnight over it. You collect as the room wakes, and the first full sheet goes home with you that day.
Week two
The booked session, held lightly
Week two is the session you have actually booked, run as it will be run from then on. The key adult stays on the same shift for that week so your child meets the same face at the door each morning. The daily sheet is handed over in full, and the room lead talks through the first fortnight with you at the end of the week.
- The peg, the tray and the photograph are in their permanent places from the first morning of week two.
- The key adult writes the sheet each day and reads it back to you at the door rather than passing it over silently.
- Sleep, meals and nappies are recorded as normal, so you can see the pattern moving week to week.
- A telephone call comes on any day your child is unsettled at drop-off, once the room has something useful to report.
- At the end of the week the room lead asks what you want changed, and the change is made the following Monday.
Longer
When a fortnight is not enough
Some children need three weeks, and a few need a term. When that happens the plan is stretched rather than pushed: the sessions go back a step, the key adult stays fixed, and the goodbye is practised at the same door every morning. Nobody is told that their child should be settled by now.
Crying at the door is common and it usually stops within a few minutes of you leaving, which is why the telephone call afterwards matters more than the scene at the door. When your child is still distressed twenty minutes in, the room telephones you and says so plainly. As soon as the pattern changes, the sessions start lengthening again.
Write to nursery@firststepsinfant.life to arrange the first visit, and read a day here beforehand so the times in the table above already mean something. The rooms page lists what goes in the bag for each age.