Tips for starting nursery

Harry has officially finished nursery. Writing that honestly breaks my heart, we love Harry's nursery, they have done so much for him and he wouldn't be developmentally where he is now without the wonderful staff and key workers he had there. Harry started nursery in September of 2017 so has been there for almost 3 years. He initially went 5 days a week, 50 weeks of the year 8am to 6pm, so he was there more than he was home. Thinking about all the time he has spent at nursery got me thinking about all of the things that we had no idea he would need and I thought I would put together a nice list of tips and some essentials so that any other parents in that position have a starting point. 

This is actually a photo of Harry at nursery in September 2017!

Obviously, every nursery is different so it would be worth taking to them to see if there is anything you need I haven't listed!

1. Buy cheap 'Play' clothes - I know, especially if this is your first child you may have spent lots of money on beautiful clothes for them, I know I did! But please do not send them into nursery in those beautiful expensive clothes, I guarantee you they will be ruined. Go to your closest Primark and pick up a load of their £1.80 T-shirts and some cheap jogging bottoms or leggings. Things that you wouldn't care about getting stained or ripped or ruined in any way. And a big tip is to buy more than you think you may need. Harry still now has around 10 pairs of jogging bottoms and too many cheapy Primark T-shirts to found and every single one of them has a stain on it!

2. Get a recognisable bag - This is so important, especially if when your little one starts nursery they are still in nappies, while your changing bag is beautiful and probably cost a bit of money, the likelihood is someone another parent at nursery probably has the same or a similar bag, which can be confusing for nursery staff when looking for bottles, nappies or spare clothes, so try to use a bag specifically for your child or have some kind of easily recognisable feature on it. We used a backpack from My 1st Years, that was personalised with Harry's name, however, please be aware that personalised bags are not necessarily recommended as it advertises your child's name, maybe think about initials.

3, Label everything - This one seems so obvious now, but back when we were first sending Harry we honestly never even thought about it. We lost so many clothes, a few teddies and even a few packs of wipes in the first few months of Harry being a nursery because there are so many kids running around and things get wet or messy. We ended up using a sharpie to write in the label of all of Harry's clothes and packets of wipes and stopped letting him take toys in. 

4. Buy costumes well in advance - My word, how expensive are world book day costumes? For something that your children wear for one day and again are probably going to get messy or wet, but one thing I've noticed throughout the years is costumes are a lot cheaper online and easy to get hold of in all sizes when its not close to world book day or Halloween, so why not buy them a few months before and save yourself some pennies!

4. Buy 'nursery' outdoor wear - The number of times, in the beginning, we forgot to grab Harry's coat, wellies or hat and gloves so to remedy this we went out and got a second set to leave at nursery on Harry's peg. This meant that he always had them available as nursery would take the children outside even if it was chilly and wet, but make sure you label them all!