Childcare and breastfeeding

This week we’re talking about all things childcare and I’m delighted to be joined by Molly Morgan, a holistic sleep coach & maternity nurse. 

Molly and I discuss choosing between a nursery, childminder or nanny, what to look out for when making your decision, how a setting can support your breastfeeding journey and some of the practicalities of breastfeeding a child around nursery schedules.

Find Molly on Instagram at @molly_foxandthemoon

or on www.foxandthemoon.co.uk/

My new book, ‘Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding: a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents’, is out now.

You can get 10% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

Follow me on Twitter @MakesMilk and on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

Emma Pickett  00:00

Hi. I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time, because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end. And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end to join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing. And also, sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly about that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk. 

Emma Pickett  00:48

I'm really happy to be joined today by Molly Morgan, who you might know as Molly from Fox and the moon on Instagram. She is a maternity nurse and also an holistic sleep and wellbeing supporter. But today she's joining me to talk about the experience of starting a breastfeeding baby or toddler or older child in full time childcare or nursery. And I've asked Molly to join me because she's got a background of working as a professional in these spaces. And she's also someone who understands very much what's normal when it comes to little people feeding and little people sleeping. So I'm hoping we're going to be able to talk through that whole issue of starting nursery and and how we can do that in such a way that protects breastfeeding. Thanks very much for joining me today, Molly.

Molly Morgan  01:33

You are welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Emma Pickett  01:35

So before we get started on the sort of details, tell us a little bit about your professional background, and what are some of the sort of settings that you've worked in? 

Molly Morgan  01:43

Yeah, so I've worked in childcare since I was sort of 1516 years old. So I've kind of covered lots of different bases with that, from an after school kids club to a special educational needs teaching assistant. And then more recently, I've worked in two different nurseries. So I worked as the lead practitioner of a 26 place baby room in a nursery. And then I've also worked as a private nanny for the past four years to three children. 

Emma Pickett  02:11

Okay, gosh, so you've got the whole range going on there. So I'm glad with we're going to be talking today, I should just say that I come from a background as a primary school teacher, that was my background before I became a lactation consultant. So I sort of come at it from a slightly different angle, I have also have had experience of of supporting in you know, earlier, early stage environments, but not I would say anything like this age range that we're going to be talking about today. There is definitely a specialist knowledge when it comes to talking about very little people and little people leaving their parents and carers for the first time. So one of the things that inspired me to make this episode was a message that I received from a new mom a few weeks ago that I did talk about on Instagram and and we you and I talked about it at the time, it was quite a demoralizing message, because she had been told by the nursery where her daughter was going to be going, that she sort of got this letter from them that was a kind of, you know, diktat of all the things that they wanted her to do. And one of the things that she got from that message was basically the implication that her child shouldn't be breastfeeding in the day and that she should stop breastfeeding in the day and move to bottles in the day with the understanding that that might make their life easier. They also said in the document that they didn't want her to be feeding her daughter to sleep anymore, because they thought that would hinder her transition to nursery. And I guess it was a little bit unclear as to whether they really genuinely thought that she'd be should be stopping breastfeeding and, and whether it was just a badly written document. But that was definitely the impression she got and she definitely got the impression that they were not supportive of her still breastfeeding. And I was horrified with this message. And now you were to and I posted on Instagram and lots and lots of mums and parents who used nursery settings and childcare said Hang on, this isn't normal. You know, by nursery were absolutely fine with me breastfeeding and supporting me to breastfeed, it's absolutely possible to start full time childcare while you're still breastfeeding. And, and breastfeeding responsibly. If we if there was a busy mom, who could only listen to five minutes of this podcast, and she's just going to be listening to the first five minutes, what would you want them to know about starting a child at nursery while they're still breastfeeding? 

Molly Morgan  04:17

It should be the standard that it's not even something somebody should be able to have to think about. Right? It should be this is how my child's fit and my settings should be supported with that. And I think if it's questioned or brought up in a negative way, when you're looking at nurseries or settling in, it's a red flag for that setting in general, because I think it just demonstrates that the staff don't have a comprehensive or even basic understanding of infant development, Infant Nutrition, or feeding and sleep in general. Because if the staff within the room were aware of normal and biologically normal infant sleep, they would know that how a baby is fed does not impact their ability to sleep and does not impact their ability to settle in or sleep at nursery. And I say that from experience. So if you have anybody implying that that's a red flag for the city as a whole, and I would be concerned, what else the setting is not clued up on, if that makes sense.

Emma Pickett  05:22

Yeah, yeah, there's something there isn't that it's about not being child centered, and not being family centered. Yeah, but also not understanding the, as you say, the biological norm of how little people work, I guess. So for that mom, she'd already chosen that this setting, she was getting the induction booklet, she was quite late stages. And she was quite shocked. So I've got any guests, anyone who's listening to this, who's in the much earlier stages, maybe is still looking at settings, it's really important to ask those questions. And as you say, it's almost like a little litmus test for their attitude to the relationship with the parent in general and the relationship to how they perceive little people settling in. It's not about the little person sort of bending and changing. It's about the setting. You know, obviously, realistically, you know, the in the best way they can adapting to what little people need. I think one of the things I might mention is that if someone's in the very early days of breastfeeding, they might think, oh, yeah, oh, you know, 12 months, that's ages away, I won't be breastfeeding by then I don't need to worry about breastfeeding policy, I don't need to worry about asking about, you know whether my child needs to be on bottle because of course, they'll be having bottles by then, of course, I'll have given up breastfeeding by 10 months, what people don't realize is that you get to kind of eight, nine months, and you're still breastfeeding, anything. Hang on. I'm not going to stop breastfeeding. I didn't think this mattered to me. But I'm not going to be ending breastfeeding. So I would always start with the assumption that you might be breastfeeding. Absolutely. And it's worth thinking about what life would look like if you were breastfeeding, rather than assuming, you know, three months, you know what you'll be doing at 12 months? Because you might not necessarily. I'm aware that lots of people who listen to this aren't necessarily in the UK. So, you know, maternity leave varies in different countries. And, you know, there are some American listeners who might go back super soon. I mean, three months maternity leave seems like quite a long time in America. But I guess in the UK, usually most people are staying home for at least a few months before they're going back to work. We know we don't have other things that protect our breastfeeding writes in the workplace, and we've got other problems, but we do tend to have slightly better maternity leave. We don't tend to have extended families that look after our babies in the UK and often it is people using childcare settings. You know, what do we have any sense of what's common in the UK? What do people tend to choose if they are going back to work when they're babies under 12 months old?

Molly Morgan  07:44

I think nursery is the instant thought for parents. And actually, I think child minders becoming more popular. So that's the more for anyone who's not aware that's the more children being dropped off within somebody's home them having children within their home. I think that's becoming more popular because it's cheaper than nurseries.

Emma Pickett  08:07

I didn't realize that. So child minders are cheaper the nursery is interesting is that because obviously they've got less overheads, and they're not having to worry about certain significant regulations.

Molly Morgan  08:17

Yeah, exactly that and also child minders charge by the hour, whereas the nursery tends to charge by the half day or the full day. And actually, from my experience in the nursery, rarely did parents utilize that 7.30 till 6.30, it was more maybe between eight and nine drop off and then collection sort of from 4pm onwards. So if you're in that kind of bracket of people that you're not going to utilize those extended hours, childminder charges by the hour, so that could be a really useful tool. They tend to be open slightly shorter hours, but yeah, you can book in and pay kind of for hours and when the hours you do so it can work out a lot cheaper. And then obviously nannies, summer nanny myself, but nannies tends to be the more expensive while it is the most expensive option because it's that personalized one to one care within people's own home. But actually, there are ways to make nannies cheaper and more accessible. So if you have twins or multiples, it generally can sometimes work out that and nanny is a cheaper option anyway. And there's a big increase in nanny shares at the moment. 

Emma Pickett  09:25

So so that's the one family using the same nanny. They just decide which home it's going to be in presumed it's possible to share between one 

Molly Morgan  09:32

yeah, sometimes it's a bit of a mix. And as long as each family are paying national minimum wage, that's the kind of standard so yeah, that can be a bit more of an accessible route as well.

Emma Pickett  09:41

And nannies are a little bit more expensive because you don't obviously you've got to shoot smaller ratio unless you've got a very big family you tend to have fewer children per adult. And if you're if you're using a nanny, I don't want to get too much into the mechanics of it all but you're employed by the family so they have to live they've got certain requirements in terms of taxation and your rights as an employee. But although that sounds super scary, there are quite a lot of agencies and places that will help you work that out. And, you know, do you can just, you know, tick a box and buy a package rather than having to necessarily do all the research yourself.

Molly Morgan  10:15

I think it's about like 250 pound a year to sign up with a payroll company that covers everything with that, and a lot of nannies are self employed these days as well. Because they work with multiple different families. So the income into that self employed bracket like I do so. 

Emma Pickett  10:29

Okay, so you don't have to have someone who's your employer who's doing all that auto taxation everything. Okay. Okay. So what are some of the factors that families use to help them make a decision about whether to use a child minder, or nanny or nursery setting? I'm guessing, obviously, finances is part of it, what else might they think about? 

Molly Morgan  10:50

Yeah, putting finances aside, I think actually, different settings suit different temperaments of children and different sorts of parenting values of parents. So it's difficult because it could be likely that a parentless thinking about the settings before they really know their child or know the temperament of their child. But nurseries, you know, when I'm speaking, quite generalized here, can be bigger, can be louder can be a bit more of a clinical setting, whereas childminders it's that home home environment, it's quieter, there's less children there, there might be family pets there, you know, it's that more home, home cooked food kind of vibe. And if you have a child that's quite sensitive, you know, gets quite overwhelmed as gets very overstimulated, that child minder setting could actually be better. But then if you have a parent who, you know might be a little bit more anxious, might be a little bit more worried about, you know, health and safety and things. It's possible that a nursery could be a better environment because they have more regulations and more guidance that they have to follow. Like, don't get me wrong, child minders, have to follow a lot of stuff. But there are more staff, there's more training. It's that more professional environment, per se, not all the time, but it could be better suited to parents that are a little bit more anxious, possibly, but I think there can also be nurseries that feel homely. And there can also be child minder settings that feel clinical. So I think, you know, weighing up the temperament of your child and what feels right for your child is the most important thing. 

Emma Pickett  12:23

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that. That's helpful. Molly. One of the things that that sometimes I hear parents say is that if you've got the possibility of backup of family, like you do have a mother and daughter or mother who's around or an older relative, the you might possibly be more likely to use a child minder, because if the child minder wasn't well, you would have that backup. But if you're an environment where you've got zero family backup, if your child was unwell, you've got nothing at all, and a job where your employers like to be a bit funny about it, that a nursery could be more appealing for that reason. Whereas if you weren't, whereas if you work from home, and you've got a little bit of flexibility, you know, your partner could maybe work from home as well. You might not be so worried about that. But little people get unwell, they do get ill. And if the little person is unwell, if you were a child minder, if you were working in nursery setting, what's the sort of guidance you wouldn't accept someone who's been vomiting or diarrhea, but I guess, diarrhea for a baby? What does that even mean? I mean, what what kind of guidance did you have in the settings you worked in? 

Molly Morgan  13:22

It was extremely rigid, actually extremely rigid. And I it was actually probably a big frustration for parents. Because, you know, they're, you know, if that temperature was 37.5, or over, and I'm talking 37.6, that child's being sent home. If they're, you know, having a loose nappy, because they're teething, the management, they have no letup on that, that child's going home, it doesn't matter what's caused it. It's really, really strict. And it's controversial to say, but we have to remember that nurseries are a business and does that child going home free up a member of staff to do some admin work? You know, there's, there's that sort of consideration to think about, and it is very, very rigid. In terms of being a nanny. I'm with the children rain or shine, you know, they're vomiting with them. That's, again, one of the perks if you are in a financial position to have a nanny, and you don't have any flexibility at work or any family support. A nanny is going to be the top tier option for you. Because, you know, I'm at home today she's in preschool. If she gets sent home, Ill I'm on call to go pick her up, you know, the parents aren't even going to know about it necessarily. So yeah, that's definitely a consideration because nursery settings are really strict. I've never worked in a childminders but I would imagine they're bound by similar policies and as any parent who has a child and childcare will know, stuff does spread like absolute wildfire, in nurseries so they do have to be cautious because it could wipe out staff and it can wipe out lots of children.

Emma Pickett  15:04

Yeah. So where I live in London at the moment, there is a, quite an issue with nursery places and waiting lists, particularly now. So I don't I don't necessarily want this episode to be kind of like the history of British childcare and the political situation with childcare, because that's not super helpful. And actually, it's quite frightening for a parent to hear about. But I think, I think we do have to be realistic that if someone's listening to this, and they've got a two week old baby, and they're thinking, oh, yeah, I'm gonna think about nursery when I go back to work. You need to think now, that comes in lots of areas in the UK, you know, a three month waiting list is a dream. And there are actually, you know, six 912 month waiting lists. I heard of a three year waiting list the other day for a nursery. Some recent research suggests that 75% of nurseries have got waiting lists 56% of nurseries say that there's an unmet demand in the local area, would you expect someone to be putting their child's name down when they were pregnant? Is that is in that situation? They're not going to know their child's temperament? I know, we've just we've talked before about how you might pick a setting based on temperament. But I mean, is it worth just paying the the admin fee to reserve a place, just in case and then see what happens later,

Molly Morgan  16:15

I would say if you have the money to do that, definitely, it's definitely worth doing it whilst you're pregnant. I know we spoke about temperament but you can you can assess what you're comfortable with and what you're happy with before you can figure out your kind of ideal scenario. And actually, a lot of nurseries do open days where they do like a Sign up today and pay zero pound deposit or 0% admin fee. So I would really recommend to keep an eye out for those do like an open day dash, like as many as you can, whilst you're pregnant. You know, even if you register to multiple web a zero pound deposit. Yes, that's frustrating for settings to hear me say but from a parent's point of view, I think yeah, definitely worth paying or getting some some places locked in if it's really important to have that childcare sorted. 

Emma Pickett  17:06

Yeah. Can you talk us through what's happening at the moment with these these free hours? So we've had a change recently, with ours being offered for two year olds? What What is it the situation at the moment, if you're in the UK, what is possible from government funding without having to spend any money. 

Molly Morgan  17:23

So currently, at the moment, you can get 15 hours free childcare for any child over the age of two, that's obviously changed. It used to be used to get 30 hours from a child aged three. But now once you get 15 hours from a child age to they are currently and I believe in September, it's going to change again, that there's going to be 15 hours funding in place from nine month old for nine month old babies. I'm not 100%. On that we'll need to yes,

Emma Pickett  17:48

no, I did hear about that as well. Now, obviously, we're recording this before the election. So who knows what's going to happen in the future? There are lots of pledges flying around. And, you know, in the election, preparations election, you know, labor have announced paying, putting putting more money into childcare places, but they're generally seems to be a bit of a problem. Even when governments are pledging these free places. Yeah, we've still got childcare settings closing, we've got childcare setting saying, well, it's all very well, you're offering these hours, but we can't afford to operate on that basis. What what's happening at the moment, why are we struggling so much in the UK. 

Molly Morgan  18:23

So firstly, the new guidance with so every setting has to offer a certain amount of three year old places under 30 hours, with the new two year old funding settings are under no obligation to offer that at the moment, a lot of places are, but double check it if you're banking on those funded hours, you need to double check that because not everyone has to offer it. And essentially, the problem is, for a really long time, when the government announced this two year old funding, they didn't tell it settings, anything. They didn't tell settings, what amount they would be getting towards these hours, because they're three or odd funding barely touches the site. So they said things were really anxious they couldn't commit to offering these hours. But equally, they knew that they almost had to offer these hours to compete with other local nurseries. So what they're doing now is they'll accept the 100 hours but they'll likely you're likely to have to pay a certain amount of top up and they can claim that for nappies, food activities, admin fee, you know, whatever they want to stick a name on it, but there will likely be a top up amount because nurseries physically cannot function on the amount the government give them towards these funded hours. I think that's what's really key as parents are like, Oh, they're these free hours where they're not free. The money's still has to come in it has to come from the government. It's just not enough so they have to top it up. So that's another consideration when looking at settings, work out what amount you're going to be liable to pay on top of on top of that funding because I think the funding also is what's contributed to this massive waitlist for nurseries, everybody who may have been waiting till age three to put their child in childcare like, Oh, great. I can get them in from two, let's get them on a waiting list. So, toddler room and up lists are huge baby rooms are probably a little bit less right now because the funding isn't available for them. But from two up that those lists are going to be mega. 

Emma Pickett  20:26

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that has always struck me is how poorly paid is it? Yeah. biller when they work in these settings. There surely can't be much more of an important job than this. And it's bananas that people are looking after tiny babies on minimum wage. When it's such a such an important job. I mean, one of my my best friends is a nanny, and I've just watched her her whole life. People say, Oh, really, you put you charge that much an hour? Gosh, you know, golly, you know, when I bet at pay for babysitting. I don't expect to pay more than 12 pounds an hour. It's like, come on What couldn't be more important. I mean, I know families are struggling financially, but I'm talking about affluent families who absolutely can afford to pay it still arguing about how much you pay for nannies. And I just think as a society, we don't really understand how important it is to have motivated, happy people looking after a little babies. I mean, one of the worries is that if you know the childcare settings aren't revalued properly. We have people who are burnt out who are miserable, who don't have career progression, who were, you know, you know, overstretched looking after the people at the most important times in their lives. Yeah, as I said, this is perhaps going into a different class. But let's so coming back to the individual workers, what's the what are the ratios for childcare settings, what were how many little people you're allowed to look after.

Molly Morgan  21:49

So it's actually a little bit subjective at the moment, it's changed since I was last in a nursery. When I was in nursery, it was one adult to three babies under the age of one, it was one adult to four children between the ages of one and three. And then when they turned three, it was one to eight. I believe now, toddler ratios have changed to one to five. And they also changed some wording within the regulations that the children have to be within sight or earshot of that number of staff. So that is very subjective. And nurseries can manipulate that a little bit to stretch ratios, if that makes sense.

Emma Pickett  22:34

Okay, okay. Difficult, okay. Let's imagine that someone's choosing a nursery, they're going they're either taking advantage of these these open days that you're talking about, which is a great tip, or they're going out and seeing what's around locally, when they walk in the door. What are some of your insider tips for choosing the right setting, particularly for somebody who's breastfeeding, but just generally,

Molly Morgan  22:55

so my biggest biggest advice any 123 setting is looking at the settings capacity. nurseries will brag, you know, where are 100, place nursery, blah, blah, blah, that's not good. That's the level of care is going to go down. Actually, you want some more capacity from working in a 25 or 26. Place baby room, like that is survival in that room. It is who ever cries the loudest gets the support, there's no possible way 26 under ones in a room can be a calm, happy environment, it just not possible. I then went to a nursery that had a nine place baby room. And oh, my goodness, the difference was ridiculous that it was so much calmer, so much happier, all the children's needs are being met, although it's the same ratios. It just shifts the whole balance of the place. So capacity, I would not put my child in anything more than a 15 place. Baby room, I would say that would be my absolute limit. 12 nine or 12, in an ideal world tends to go up in increments of three. Yeah, that's my biggest tip is capacity. The care is just so much better.

Emma Pickett  24:08

So I'm trying to think about that 26th Place baby room must have looked like Molly, it must have been. So obviously quite a large room because there are a fair number of adults in there as well. 

Molly Morgan  24:15

It's not it's no, it's really not. That's the problem. There's there's regulations on square foot per child. But again, it's so easy to manipulate those regulations. We had a main room and asleep room. And that sleep route was classed in our square foot regulations. But what if no babies were asleep? What if they were all in the main room? You know, we were consistently over capacity. And that's the reason I left that particular setting was because we were consistently over capacity and it was dangerous and it was not a happy or safe environment for anybody. It is just an absolute zoo to be honest.

Emma Pickett  24:53

Yeah, Gosh, I'm just trying to imagine daily life that must have been just noise level that must have been so hard to keep everybody regulated and LP yeah. Okay, so we're asking you about capacity. We're looking at the spec the size of the space. Yeah. Sounds like talking about free range chickens here number, free, you know, square foot per child. Anything else that you'd immediately say as a green flag or a red flag?

Molly Morgan  25:15

Yeah, there's quite a few things. Actually, I did a webinar on this recently. So I've noted down a few kind of things I spoke to parents about, but there's a really great certification for nurseries and I think child minders as well. Called Millie's mark. And it was unfortunately, a really awful incident happened to a little girl called Millie, where she passed away in a nursery. Because the official regulations for a nursery is that one member of staff on site has to be first aid trained and one member of staff for multiple rooms and hundreds of children just is not okay. So, Emily's parents sort of campaigned, and they created this award called Millie's mark, which is where 100% of all staff are first aid trained. I would look out for that, or be asking the questions and how many staff are first aid trained?

Emma Pickett  26:03

That seems sensible. I mean, I'm a consultant. And I'm required to be first aid trained, even though I'm never alone with a child. I'm quite shocked to hear that somebody can but be a childcare and nursery setting without, you know, mean little people pick up little tiny toys and swallow them and do all sorts of stuff all the time. So, gosh, that's a good tip. Okay. Millie's Millie's mark means everybody will be first aid trained. 

Molly Morgan  26:28

Yeah, yeah. And then I think I obviously work with a lot of clients that they're really anxious about sleep in their setting. And we'll talk probably a bit more about the breastfeeding side of things shortly. But looking at sleep specifically, each child is very unique in the way they nap and the way they sleep. So it's just finding a space, a setting that offers a space that's going to work for your child. You know, some have separate sleep rooms that are dark with COTS, and probably music, some don't. Some are really rigid that the babies have to sleep in cots. Some have like rollout floor bed mats on the floor. Some will have, you know, if you've got those smaller capacity settings, staff will be happy with just contact napping or babies, some settings or take babies out in the push chairs for walks who that children can nap. So it's asking those questions around sleep to find out how and where and when they're going to sleep and whether that will work for you and work for your baby. And whether they're flexible, whether they're going to be adaptable to your child. Yeah.

Emma Pickett  27:29

Yeah, And how do they respond to you asking those questions? That's another clue for me when exactly when you're when you're talking to someone and you say, oh, you know, Bobby doesn't really like his cart, you know, he prefers a floor bed. And they go like, well, I'm so sorry, Bobby is going to have to learn to sleep in a car. Yeah. And they all they sort of flinch. Or they go okay, well, you know, we'll work on it. We've got some mattresses, we can bring that out, you know, well, you know, we'll try and see what we can do. I mean, that's the response is not well, Bobby's gonna have to learn to get in a car, you've got three months now to get into sleep in a car. It's just it's about staff attitude, isn't it and an individual staff member represents the culture of of that of that nursery. 

Molly Morgan  28:04

So it's actually the setting I worked in this was before I was a sleep coach, or had any of the training I have, we had a self soothing policy, children had to self soothe, to sleep, which knowing what I know now is absolutely wild. And it makes me feel so sad that I was part of that. And that that was something I was striving for in an unfamiliar environment, like these children are expected to self that was absolutely insane to me. So yeah, asking what their approaches to sleep, you know, do they have any policies around it? And having those questions about adaptability? If it doesn't, if it doesn't work? And like you said, looking for the attitude around it? 

Emma Pickett  28:45

Yeah. I mean, I guess your experience led you to where you are today, some families that were asleep in a more, you know, normal, biologically normal way, which I guess is good, and that it got to where you do a while but I appreciate the moment it felt it must have been really tough to see Sir babies who weren't being muted and struggling. Any other group sort of green flags anything else that you really 

Molly Morgan  29:04

Yeah, look, I'll quickly rattle through them. 

Emma Pickett  29:08

So don't forget to take your time. This is important stuff.

Molly Morgan  29:09

Good. Just looking at the setting in general, is it clean? Is it tidy? Are there broken resources all over the place? Or are they looking fresh and new? Are there exciting activities out? Are the children engaged in these activities? Or are they toddlers wandering around the room aimlessly sort of clinging its last legs or are they interested in what's going on? And watching the staff as well when you're having these show around? What other staff doing and they are they start chatting and they start doing paperwork? Like of course there's paperwork to be done but are their staff down on the children's level playing with them and interacting them? Can you witness that level of interaction? Are they encouraging independence in children you know, they asking them to you know, zip their own coats up like really minor things but like these things are really good to look out for and and chatting To the staff in the room, because 90% of the time you're going to be being shown around by management. It varies the nursery. I like that management whenever in the room. So, you know, how much do they really know about what's going on in the rooms, chat to the staff in the room? You know, do they have a good knowledge? You know, can you say, Oh, that's a great activity, like, what's that there for? And then they say, Oh, it's great for this development thing. It's, it hits for you ifs in this area, you know, have those conversations with the staff, if you have any questions around sleep and feeding, actually speaking to the staff in the room, if you get the opportunity to because there might be a self soothing policy in the office. But the staff in the room like oh, no, we love cuddling with ABC, you know, I mean, so yeah, the staff that are actually dealing with the children is, is really key and, and the other tip I have as well is definitely have more than one show around, ask for it. But at different times on a different day. So notoriously, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, are the busiest days. So, you know, hit one of those days at 10am. And you're gonna see full capacity of nursery, and you're gonna see firsthand what's going on. But then if you want to have more of an opportunity to chat go on a Friday or on Monday afternoon, because those are much quieter.

Emma Pickett  31:12

Yeah, actually, I was gonna ask you a little bit about that, because I one of the things that I think is interesting is, if a staff member really wants to talk to you and stands next to you and talks to you for 20 minutes, they're not going to be engaging with the children that is actually or under their care in their ratio. So actually, a really good practitioner will actually probably only half talk to you and probably will say, it's lovely to see you if you've got any questions but I'm actually doing this activity at the moment with children. You don't want someone who's going to spend 15 minutes talking that's actually not a good thing. 

Molly Morgan  31:45

No all sorts of watch you know what I would often do as the as the lead in the room if I was in the middle of something and somebody wants to engage with me, I would make it very clear. Oh, so and so you're making bottles right now please could you put that on pause and go and sit with the children whilst I speak to this parent or the manager that showing the child the family round? Oh, please could you just take over this while I chat to this parent? You know, watch out for that for sure. Because yeah, you they've got your full attention what what are the children doing? 

Emma Pickett  32:10

Yeah, and also suggest they were perfectly enjoying working with the children because they're desperate to talk to the next parent and the parent after that as well. So someone who's a little bit too busy for you is not necessarily a bad thing because because they're doing what they what they should be doing. Definitely anything worth worth looking at when it comes to Ofsted report so as obviously from a teacher background life was all about Ofsted, of course and somebody is still Ofsted if they're a child minder as well, so nurseries and childminders is it worth looking at those looking at the Ofsted website? What can that tell you? 

Molly Morgan  32:43

Yeah, I think so I think it's worth, I don't know if you'd agree with this from a teacher perspective, but I do think it's worth taking it with a pinch of salt. Because, yes, an outstanding setting is amazing. And it's going to be more desirable. But in nurseries, a lot of that outstanding certification is paperwork and his policies, and it isn't actually what's going on in the rooms. So if you see you're setting anything up, I loved it, it was such a lovely setting, the staff are amazing. Oh, they've only got good on their Ofsted. It could just be a paperwork thing. So read that report, look at the bits that say what they need to improve on because that will tell you and if it's something like such and such policy needs to be updated, it might not be the biggest deal in the world. So I think, yes, have a look at them. You can find them easily on the Ofsted website. But don't be put off if they're not outstanding. And look into why they're not outstanding. And actually, from looking at the outstanding setting I worked in I wouldn't have said it was outstanding in the rooms. I'd say the the management were fantastic, but you know, actually what detriment to the children has that setting done to achieve that outstanding sometimes so yeah, take it with a pinch of salt. 

Emma Pickett  33:57

Yeah, no, I think that's very good advice. I said that's, that's probably true of schools as well to be honest, to a certain extent. I mean, when I first started teaching used to get loads of notice for an Ofsted and Ofsted reports really did not mean much. It just meant how good are you at preparing for an officer for me? Yeah, so now it's a bit more sudden and you don't get noticed and people do just turn up. So there are there is going to be a picture. But your as you say it's not necessarily about emotional connection that's not necessarily reflected in Ofsted reports, not necessarily how caring staff are. And it's quite easy for a little bit of paperwork to suddenly go oh, we are we've got our Accident Book but it's a bit rough and ready and there are post it notes and you know someone last week didn't write everything improperly and just shoved in a post it note. I mean, that sort of stuff can happen and that's not necessarily about the sort of culture of a nursery. 

Molly Morgan  34:46

Definitely 

Emma Pickett  34:48

A little advert just to say that you can buy my four books online. You've Got It In You, a positive guide to breastfeeding is 99p as an e book, and that's aimed at expectant and new parents. The Breast Book published by Pinter Martin is a guide for nine to 14 year olds, and it's a puberty book that puts the emphasis on breasts, which I think is very much needed. And my last two books are about supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding. For a 10% discount on the last two, go to Jessica Kingsley Press. That's uk.jkp.com and use the code MMPE10, Makes Milk Pickett Emma 10. Thanks. 

Emma Pickett  35:35

Let's think about breastfeeding and breast milk. Should you expect a nursery to be comfortable handling breast milk? And is there anything in paper about breastfeeding or breast milk? Are there any regulations about how the settings have to be supportive, or we've got any protection and law.

Molly Morgan  35:52

So I've done a lot of research on this. And I'm going to be a bit controversial and I'm going to say, put me back in nursery 10 years ago, when I was young and had very limited experience of breastfeeding and breast milk. I wasn't confident handling breast milk. And I wasn't competent with the storing of breast milk. And the training wasn't particularly there in the setting. For that I know where to go. I knew where to go to get that information. And I was always very confident speaking to the parents and asking those questions. But actually, I wouldn't expect a nursery. They should be comfortable, but I wouldn't expect it. I would have those conversations, it should be part of staff training, but it might not be so having those conversations are really important. And then when we're thinking about Ofsted, I just couldn't find any guidance on nurseries or child minders around restaurants. I've emailed them. I've not heard anything back. But all I could find was a wording in their food and drink section, which just says providers must record and act on information from parents and carers about a child's dietary needs. So we can infer from that, that providers should support the administration of breast milk, you know, but it's very, very, very vague, which is quite frustrating.

Emma Pickett  37:16

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to certainly have any setting said oh, we don't handle breast milk. That's that is nothing more more than a red flag, it's got little shiny lights around it, it should be pretty normal, shouldn't it? It's, you know, for a setting to handle breast milk. And that includes over 12 months. Again, don't assume you're when you're going there at eight months that you're not gonna be breastfeeding at 12 months and 14 months. But you don't necessarily need to be giving the breast milk at that point in nursery. We'll talk a bit more about that you might breastfeed around a working day. But don't assume that you won't want to do that. So you'd so ask questions as if you were still getting breast milk at that point? What about if somebody wants to feed their baby as soon as they get in the door for pickup? Is there anything around that?

Molly Morgan  38:00

There's no guidance. But as a practitioner, and the rest of our work team was really supportive of that. When I think back to my time in Austria, I was in a bedroom for four years, and I had to breastfed children in four years in that baby room. And obviously, we know that breastfeeding rates in the UK are ridiculously low. And that's just a whole nother topic. But actually, I didn't come across it very often. And that's probably why it's not talked about much in nurseries. And that's probably why the guidance isn't there. Because I think, I don't know whether it's because parents automatically feel like if their young child is going to nursery, they shouldn't be breastfeeding room. Maybe that's ingrained in culture. Or maybe it's just generally because of low breastfeeding rates. But it wasn't something that I dealt with very often in my last year, I had a gorgeous little girl and her. She wanted to feed straightaway and pick up and her mom did. So we offered her the office or the sleep room, but she was just comfortable doing it in the room. And we were absolutely fine with that. I have actually been in touch with some local nurseries to ask about their policies around breastfeeding. And I mean, I don't know whether it's because I said I'm talking about it on a podcast, but they were all absolutely fantastic. To be honest. One of them rang me this morning because she hadn't picked up my email. And you know, it was a really, really lovely lady from a chain of nurseries called nursery village. And they were just so helpful. They were talking all about, you know how they would be comfortable handling express milk, comfortable giving express milk comfortable with parents popping into feed during the day, popping in on pickup. She was she was an administrator and she went back to work when her baby was six months old and she would sit working with her baby on the boob like they were really, really supportive. So she couldn't speak more highly of them around that. So that was really, really positive to hear, 

Emma Pickett  39:49

isn't it and I liked the mention of people popping in during the day to feed Yeah, I think that's often not talked about but particularly now when people may be working from home in the olden As when everybody worked in the office nine to five, it wasn't unusual for the nursery to be near someone's office. Yeah. And people would actually commute with their baby dropped their baby at the office nursery or sometimes even on the site, but you know, certainly close to the office, and then coming back with their baby, less common now, I think now most people tend to choose a childcare setting in their local environment. Yeah. But even you know, whichever way you do it, it's possible to visit during the day and breastfeed during the day, particularly your baby's not keen on bottles. Yeah. And that should be fine. You know, parents should be welcome to come into a setting. So. So if someone says, oh, no, we have you know, we have transfer at the door. Parents don't come in. That's healthy. That's yeah, that's child safeguarding. Of course, parents can't come in, you know, not all parents are DBS checked. I mean, what do we say to that? 

Molly Morgan  40:49

Run away! Yeah, even if you're not breastfeeding, runaway, because I think when we consider the emotional development of children and attachment, no babies should be being left at all. You know, that's, that doesn't sit well with me at all. And actually, since COVID, they stopped parents coming into settings over COVID, which for valid reason, but a lot of settings haven't gone back, because it's an inconvenience to them, having parents in their in their but it's so important for the children, to have that parent go into their room to settle them in and to leave, you know, even a baby, seeing their parent in that room is going to do wonders for their confidence and their security in that place. So absolutely. Breastfeeding will not run away, but definitely should be expecting settings to be comfortable with you coming in to breastfeed. And if anybody suggests to you, it's going to be disruptive to the child's day, or it's, you know, it's really hard for the child then to say goodbye. That's just not true. Because, yes, it might unsettle the child to say goodbye, but it's not going to take long for them to settle down. And actually their nutrition. And access to breast milk is more important than that. It's a bigger picture.

Emma Pickett  41:54

And the moment when they're with you and your arms breastfeeding, I mean, the amount of regulation and connection and reinforcement of filling up filling up the mummy cup or the parent company with that stuff really matters. And actually, one thing I would say is that, we've got some evidence that if you do feed in a nursery setting, you're going to be coming into contact with the pathogens of that nursery setting. I once said to somebody, you know, go to the kitchen and rub the tea towel over your face, because whatever pathogens are around, if you come into contact with them, you're gonna make those antibodies. And if you're just doing hand over and you know that on the front door, you're less likely to come into contact with everything. So sit down, breastfeed, touch everything around you. And then you're going to make those lovely tailor made antibodies.

Molly Morgan  42:34

And in general thinking about sickness and illness, you know, we know that children goes through that period of adapting to settings and becoming incredibly full of cold and sickness bugs, and actually, breastfeeding is going to help with that is going to is going to limit that. And it's going to support that. 

Emma Pickett  42:52

So yeah, yeah. Someone said to me this month that they used to breastfeed their three year old and nursery, and they used to sit on the sofa sort of near the entrance of the nursery to breastfeed on pickup. And the nursery had asked them to stop doing that. Because of the age of the child, what do you feel about that?

Molly Morgan  43:10

I just don't feel the age of the child is relevant. And I think if anybody is uncomfortable with seeing a child being fed, like it just reflects more on them than it does on the parent, and I just, I can't comprehend somebody having a problem with that, or, you know, complaining to management about that or becoming an issue. It's just, it's just not supportive of normal, like biological, like, full term weeding, like, it's just, it's not, they just don't have the knowledge, which is really sad in a childcare setting.

Emma Pickett  43:48

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if a parent does say anything, you know, if another parent says something, childcare settings, job is to talk to the other parent and say, I'm sorry, you find that uncomfortable. I understand. It's not necessarily what's normal for us. But this child is barely benefiting from that. And that's the parents choice. And we do superb support parents choices, and you don't even even need to say anything to the person breastfeeding. You just talked to the person who had the problem and try and help them through it and support him through it. Let's do a little drill down on sleep because obviously, I know that you're asleep practitioner. So So coming back to that recommendation, I was talking about that the mum who received that little induction booklet was told to stop breastfeeding her daughter to sleep when she was with her daughter to prepare her daughter for nursery. So I'm going to tell you what I say to parents and you can tell me what you think about it and whether you feel that's on your page as well. So when parents talk to me about preparing for nursery or preparing for childcare, I pretty much say your job is to enjoy your maternity leave. And try not to have the shadow of preparing for childcare kind of hanging over your maternity leave. You know little people do better at nursery when their loved cup is full. So We want them to be secure and regulated and happy. And if you spend the last few weeks practicing and pretending to be a mini nursery, you're not going to be leaving that little person feeling secure and happy and regulated. And you're not also going to enjoy those last few weeks, you can't practice not being around when you're around. And even if you did reduce your breastfeeding, you know, and got them to sleep in a different way, that doesn't mean that that's going to help necessarily in that nursery setting anyway, they're still going to miss you, they're still going to need your co regulation. So you know, the idea that sort of reducing who you are as a mother makes life easier for them in nursery for me just really doesn't seem to make much logical sense. And instead, you should just really enjoy being with your child. And the way you prepare for nursery transition is about visiting the nursery, spending time with the staff, you know, helping your child to see that you trust that nursery setting and, and trust the staff. But you don't change what you're doing at home beyond the absolute bare minimum. So that might be possibly checking, you can pump you know, if you'll be going back to work under 12 months, and maybe checking your child can drink milk and other way, if they're going to be going back as a baby, he doesn't eat a lot of solids. But that doesn't mean spending a whole days expressing and putting your milk in bottles or physically separating yourself from your child or practicing them getting to sleep in a different way. Enjoy your time together essentially, don't pretend to be a nursery before your child goes to nursery. Does that fit with what you would say? 

Molly Morgan  46:30

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I agree with everything you've said. It's just so much more stressful. And, you know, demoralizing, I think because if you try and change the way your child falls asleep at home, and it doesn't work that's going to set that anxious precedent for your child starting. Yeah, I couldn't have said it better. I absolutely agree with everything you said. I think it's quite hard to explain it. But whether your child has breastfed sleep or not, they're not going to be falling asleep with you at nursery. That's the difference. That's the the sticking point, right. That's the change. That's the transition. So if they're used to being put down on their own in a car at home, and they self settled asleep, great, they still might not do that at nursery, because it's a different setting. So no matter how you get your child to sleep, it's going to be with a different person in a different setting. So breastfeeding to sleep, or any kind of getting sleep, there's no point changing it at home, because it's going to be in a completely different setting with a completely different person. One thing you you could do, like you said is focus on that nursery settle in and you know whether you can pump in stuff, you could send little one to mother in law or grandparents or aunts, your uncle or someone different that they know for a few hours, which falls over naptime and see if they can support them to sleep. If you're anxious about waiting to try nursery, you could try like that, if they don't sleep, it's not the end of the world. If they do sleep Great. That might make you feel a little bit better about that transition to nursery.

Emma Pickett  48:05

Yeah, interestingly, how you phrase it, it's about your parent feeling better, not necessarily the child practicing because actually even then it's falling asleep. But Granny's house is not going to be the same thing. No sleep at nursery. I cannot say how many people I work with, who breastfeed to sleep every single time they're with their child. They're breastfeeding to sleep at bedtime, or the weekend for naps on the day. They're not working. And that child is absolutely fine at nursery. There's something magic that happens at nursery everyone always says, What are they doing? What's the magic? What's the magic fairy dust that they sprinkle it naptime? Yeah, so you were in those settings, putting babies to sleep? What was your magic fairy dust Molly?

Molly Morgan  48:41

the magic fairy dust is simply we are not the parent. We are not as fun to hang out with. They don't care about being you know, company as much. I know that sounds sad. But you know, even at home, I work with clients where they're like, it takes mum about an hour to set a baby to sleep, whether that's breastfeeding or not, Dad can swoop in and just setting them to sleep because he's just less cool when he's less fun. They just don't care as much, you know, when when they got that primary caregiver and whoever that primary care about

Emma Pickett  49:17

the caring as well, let's be honest, it's also the if the mother's anxious that the child's not falling asleep without breastfeeding that's gonna rub off. Whereas the dad's like, oh, no, I can't recall that. I'm chill. So I'm gonna help them regulate. 

Molly Morgan  49:30

It's the same thing in terms of people are like, Why do my children behave so much better for everybody else? Why are they angels at school when they come home and they terrorize me? Well, because they feel safe with you. Right? We know that we know that. The reason that they explode and all these feelings come out with the primary caregiver is because they feel safe to do that. So I'm not saying babies and nurseries don't feel safe, but they don't have that relationship to say, Whoa, I don't want to go to sleep right now and scream in my face and the same way that they will with a parent. And I also think there's a lot to be said. Have a mob mentality, right? You've got 15 toddlers or going into a sleep room lying down on a mat and go into sleep. It's kind of just like the herd like, 

Emma Pickett  50:10

yeah, you say to parents, you know what people are giving up then refeeding to sleep for naptime. And they're like, Well, my two and a half year old just is not going to nap. Now. They absolutely refuse. And like, yeah, you have to hire 15 Little people to come, come and fly down next to them. Yeah, when everyone else is doing it, it's got that, you know, peer pressure, but also, they're super tired. I mean, being a nursery environment is, is tough going. I mean, if we've worked in offices that had that level of stimulation, you know, or do audio and visual stimulation, we'd be taking naps in the workplace every day. 

Molly Morgan  50:41

They're not only in there. I just Yeah, I just think it's just so different. And some babies and children do struggle with sleep at childcare when they first sex limb, which is completely normal. We I tend to compare it to, you know, if you were as an adult, were in a different environment that you didn't necessarily quite feel safe. And yet you didn't know everybody there yet. You know, I can't even think of a real life example, maybe like a hotel room that you weren't really sure about. Some of us would like just pass out asleep and just sleep so sound or light, or some of us would feel quite vulnerable. And being asleep is vulnerability. So we would fight that sleep because we'd want to stay alert, and we'd want to stay aware. So it's normal for it to go either way. It's normal for them to have like three hour mother's naps at nursery when they're not quite sure the patient and it's normal for them to refuse sleep at nursery when they don't quite feel safe yet. But I can safely say, I've never had to say to a parent, your child is not settling in and is not sleeping like we it's always worked. They've always settled down. And it's always got that point where they will sleep at nursery.

Emma Pickett  51:49

Yeah. But I would say that if a practitioner says to you, they're not settling. And I think it's because you're breastfeeding to sleep at home. Oh, that's that's there's something going on there for that practitioner. That's about the professionals precious about breastfeeding. That's not based on logic that's not based on the experience of the hundreds of people that replied to my Instagram post talking about this. That's about the the anti breastfeeding prejudice of that practitioner

Molly Morgan  52:14

of breastfeeding and prejudice, I will openly admit, before I had the training I had, we'd like get a form that says, Oh, baby settling in there exclusively breastfed and we will go, that's gonna be a tricky one. That's going to be tough like we would we would think that. And I hate that I hate that I had that mentality. But I think if you've not breastfed, or you've not got lactation education, or you've not got training in this subject, society does have that prejudice in a way and it does have that breastfed babies are more clinging or better babies or this bread. Breastfed babies are that and it's so wrong. And it's so not true. But it does exist. So I think finding practitioners that don't have that breastfeeding prejudice reaction is so important to supporting your breastfeeding journey. 

Emma Pickett  53:01

Yeah, because if they've got it, they're going to believe certain things are going to happen. There's a labeling theory, self fulfilling prophecy thing. Let's talk about certain age groups. So let's imagine someone's returning to full time work. Their baby is four months old. And they want to continuously breastfeed and just exclusive breast milk feeding. First of all, Is that doable? And what do they need to think about? What What kind of some practical considerations?

Molly Morgan  53:25

Yeah, I mean, it's totally doable. I think, what we were talking about before, if the parents really struggling with them taking express milk in any way, shape, or form, or they simply don't really want their child to take express milk, can they make sure the setting is close to their work so they can pop in, and that the nursery setting is comfortable with that? This is probably more your topic than mine. But I would say even from four months old, we can be offering sippy cups of breast milk we can be offering, you know, I've spoon fed breastfed babies before, you know, like there shouldn't be pressure from the setting for it to be a cradle hold and a bottle going in the baby's mouth, can that milk get into them in other way shapes or forms? And I think at this age, they're not going to be consuming solids. So it is really important they are getting breast milk through the day, whether that's directly from the mother or in an unexpressed form.

Emma Pickett  54:17

Yeah, I think sometimes settings are kind of like all takes a long time to do something other than a bottle. You know, you can you can you can hand a four month old a bottle and sort of keep an eye on someone else at the same time. Cut feeding really needs that one to one adult support and you know, spoon feeding finger feeding you literally have to be right there. So yeah. So you know, it may be that that influences your decision about how you know how you're going to run child care. In those early months. You might start with a child minder or nanny and then move to something else when the child gets older. But you're right to point out that bottles are not essential. Even at four months. You can cut feed, you can use finger feeding. There's a video produced by the IBM the association of breastfeeding mothers copy on bottles that kind of outline some of the options and cup cup feeding can happen from newborn absolutely can happen at formal easing, and pumping. Basically talk to someone talk to your local peer support team called National breastfeeding helpline, get in touch with a breastfeeding counselor, get someone to help you talk through your pumping, you know, how do you store your milk, your what you're wanting insulated bag with freezer, freezer blocks, if you're going to be moving around, if you're at home, it's not hard, if you're working from home, it's just a case of, you know, setting up your pumping system. So you might even be able to work while you're pumping. And you may not necessarily have to pump every two or three hours, you may find that you can pump a little bit less frequently and get into a groove that feels absolutely achievable. And also your baby may take less breast milk when you're not with them, and may take more when you're with them. And that's okay, you know, four months or babies sometimes sleep through the night and don't have milk for, you know, eight to 10 hours. So I'm not we're not saying they shouldn't have milk when they're in childcare, we would expect a four month old to need milk and childcare. But if they only take, you know, 2030 meals at a time, just enough to keep hydrated and keep them okay. And then when they see you they have massive big breastfeeds all through the evening. And and you know, overnight and in the morning that might work. 

Molly Morgan  56:09

And can can they you know structure it so that the if the child is really struggling to take milk or setting, can they do half days rather than four days, can they do four half days rather than two full days, you know if that's the setup, because then that just might make that transition a bit easier. And they're the length of time they go in without breast milk a lot smaller.

Emma Pickett  56:26

Yeah, that's a good tip. And returning to work at nine months different story, it's very possible for a nine month old baby to not need any breast milk in the childcare setting. And drink water, eat solids and just have breast milk when they're with you. And if you're going back to work at nine months, you may not need to pump at all. You might pump a little bit for comfort, depending on your breast health and storage capacity. But but you may absolutely not need to give any milk at all. And that might work.

Molly Morgan  56:51

Even nine month old babies in the setting. I was in that formula fed some of them wouldn't have a bottle during the day, they would have a morning bottle with their mom, maybe a lunchtime bottle, maybe not maybe just a sippy cup or formula. Milk when they get home and milk through the night. And that was perfectly fine as well.

Emma Pickett  57:09

Yeah, yeah. Thinking about bottles, I mean, do childcare settings. I mean, did you come across childcare settings, you said oh, we do expect a bottle, we really are uncomfortable about cups. Is it normal to go into a setting and say my child doesn't take a bottle, but they do drink from a cup and I'm expecting you to be okay with that, should we assume that that should be fine. 

Molly Morgan  57:31

The setting I worked in was absolutely fine with it. They had no problem at all with sippy cups. They've got lots of different cups available. One of the settings locally that I emailed were really great. And they were really keen to have say how supported they were breastfeeding. But they said, We want to ensure the child can take a bottle. So I went back and I said, Well, is there an age limit on this? You know, is this rigid? Is this strict? And they said No, there's not an age limit on it. It's very much about where the child's at with their development and whether they need the milk. It just kind of felt a little bit like they hadn't come across it, that they hadn't dealt with that. And they weren't really sure what they were talking about in terms of bottles, which is a bit of a shame, but everything else was good.

Emma Pickett  58:17

Yeah, yeah, I think sometimes it just takes the one parent whose baby's a bit different for, you know, policies to shift and childcare settings to realize it's just about meeting flexible people at the end of the day, no good childcare settings should be able to be child centered, definitely. So it's super normal to feel a bit wobbly about the idea of going back to work. And also it's really normal for your child to feel a bit wobbly. Having said that, though, I also want you to raise a little flag for it's also not unusual for people to feel quite excited about the idea. We focus a lot on I know you're going to feel really sad and and some parents thinking Well, I actually I'm quite looking forward to it. I've had a really intense few months, I'm quite looking forward to saying hello to that work side of me again and having some time to focus on me and be with it among adults. So don't feel guilty if that is also what you're what you're feeling. But But let's focus on the emotional wobbly side. You know, a well attached child is going to feel a bit wobbly when they start childcare, you know, the ones that run off and don't look back as as culture we sort of celebrate them but that's not necessarily a great sign we actually want them to be a little bit miffed. What would a typical settling in process look like? Let's let's imagine that we're talking about 12 months old. What does a typical settling process look like?

Molly Morgan  59:33

It honestly varies from setting to setting I've worked in settings where they literally just start and there's not really a process the setting I worked in I actually really liked their settling in process. I know it's been very up and down with my opinion of the setting but they ticked different boxes. definitely impressed this was great they did an hour, parent and baby in the room before COVID times. Filling out like in detail settle in forms, whilst baby has little play, then there would be an hour where the baby was dropped off, left without the parent for a good play. What I would wary of is settings that are then like, Okay, now you're paying for a whole day no matter how long your child is here for, you know, is there a bit of flexibility? We're doing some half days before full days, etc?

Emma Pickett  1:00:25

Yeah. So red flag would be we expect a whole day red flag would certainly be you're not going to come in the room. And I mean, sometimes I hear people saying, No, we only started out and he used to get really upset. He wouldn't regulate. I used to come and pick him up, they just would phone me and tell me to come and get him. Yeah, it during the settling and process? I mean, is it? Would it be normal to expect a childcare setting to do that? Could you say to them? If he isn't settling, please call me? Or do they just not tell you what sort of what communication should be expected?

Molly Morgan  1:00:59

I think it should be a parental preference thing. So we would have parents that would say, Look, if he's really really struggling, please, can you just do everything you can to help unsettle him because that's their preference. But then there would be parents that would say, if he is really upset, I want to be called straightaway. And from a child development perspective, I would say that's probably the best approach to have. Because we don't want that baby to feel like mum or dad's never coming back. And that if they're really upset, people will think that responding to that and going to them is going to No, they'll never get used to it. They're blah, blah, blah, is a really positive reinforcement thing, right? We need them to remember that mommy or daddy will come if they need them. So I think definitely having that conversation, explaining your boundaries and being really firm with if they get to this level I need to be called. 

Emma Pickett  1:01:57

Yeah, I guess a lot of it, as I said, comes back down to what's your working situation? What's are you going back to work the minute your baby starts nursery or have you got maybe a week when there isn't an overlap, and you could be at home and around. 

Molly Morgan  1:02:11

And I think that would be a really good idea. Actually, I would definitely recommend that to parents is to have a good couple of weeks buffer time before you're rigid and going back to work so that you can be available if they need you. And you can facilitate those few hours at a time and build up before you head back to work. Because heading back to work can be really stressful in itself and you kind of want to have the headspace to focus on the settling rather than going back to work and your child settling into nursery. 

Emma Pickett  1:02:37

Yeah. Is there anything we haven't talked about Molly that you sent we need to talk about in terms of particularly starting nursery with a breastfed child? We haven't talked a lot about child minders or nannies. But I think some of the things that, you know, obviously, the red flag stuff and, and the comfort around eating breast milk and the flexibility and the flexibility with the settling in process. All that stuff should apply to nannies and child minders as well, 

Molly Morgan  1:02:59

I actually think when you're looking for a nanny, their attitude and opinion on breastfeeding is more important because they're one to one with a child. And I am part of a massive nanny forum on Facebook. And I posted in there that I was coming to chat to you about this. And I wanted to gather people's sort of opinions and preconceptions of breastfed babies. And, as expected, I had only positive responses, because I think people know that they're going to get backlash, if they are commenting something negative like that. I spoke to an amazing nanny who said she'd had no previous experience with breastfeeding, but she knew how important it was to the mother. So she did a four mile round trip, walking with the baby to take baby to mums work twice a day, so the baby could feed. And she was so happy and supportive of that. And I just thought that Oh, amazing. That's so amazing, because there's a lot of old school nannies out there that are not supportive of breastfeeding and complain about it. And, you know, again, it's that thing we were saying before, some nannies were saying that they would be really supportive of breastfeeding, but they would rather the parent not breastfeed during the day. And I thought, well, that's the benefit of a nanny, write the babies in their own home with the nanny, if you're not supportive of that that's not great. And that it was purely from a selfish perspective, because they didn't want to have to deal with settling the baby back down after the mom had come in to breastfeed. But then lots of other landings were like, We never had a problem with that. They'd come in, they'd feed they were in their own home. That was a really good bit of bonding time. And then the baby would be full and happy for the rest of the day. And that worked really, really great for us. So I think with nannies the attitude around breastfeeding and the support around breastfeeding is is going to be more important and more detrimental to somebody's breastfeeding relationship because they're going to have that influence on that parent who might be feeling a little bit vulnerable, might be second guessing themselves and questioning it if you've got a child care professional coming into your I would say, you need to stop breastfeeding or you need to do this, they're probably going to listen in a way because that's what a childcare professional saying. So I think, definitely, if you're looking for a nanny, have those early conversations. And like you said before, even if you're not planning to still be breastfeeding, have those conversations, because it's really important with anything parenting related that a nanny and a parent is aligned, because that nanny is going to have so much influence on you and your child. 

Emma Pickett  1:05:28

Yeah, yeah. And, particularly, as you say, so many people don't expect to be natural turn breastfeeding. Yeah, back to work at 1415 months. And when they get on their child to they suddenly realize that, that he's got some issues with longer term breastfeeding. And I've had one family I've been supporting in the last year whose nanny would be whispering little things to the three year old, without the mum realizing and the little three year old was starting to say anti breastfeeding things. And little did they know that's where they come from. And that's, you know, that I'm not that is an exception, as I said, my best buddy is a nanny. And that's the last thing she would ever do, even though she doesn't have personal experience of natural turn breastfeeding, because good nannies are parents centered, and they respect the culture of the parent and the beliefs and ethos is of the parents.

Molly Morgan  1:06:09

that's the main thing for me, you know, if I went into a nanny job, and for whatever reason, the way they parent really didn't align with me, or how I would want to work, I wouldn't take the job. Because it's really important that as a nanny, I uphold those values and those things for that parent. So if I'm not comfortable doing that, then I won't take the job. You have to it has to be compatible. And these questions have to be asked early on, like I had a response to that post I did as a nanny that was like, Yeah, I'm really supportive of breastfeeding. However, when it got to, I was not okay with it anymore. Because the second mom got home from work. The two year old, was ripping her top off, didn't care about the mom and was just trying to get to her boobs. And I thought, and she said she had a problem with that. And I thought, Well, firstly, if the mom doesn't have a problem with that is none of your business. And secondly, that's not a breastfeeding problem. That's a boundaries and a breastfeeding manners thing that can be spoke about and can be worked on. The answer to that isn't to stop breastfeeding. It's if you had a child that every day, you know, was grabbing their plate of dinner and shoving it in their face and not using the knife and fork, you wouldn't stop feeding them, you would teach them some manners around it, which, you know, perfectly acceptable to do a breastfeeding. 

Emma Pickett  1:07:27

Yeah. 100% As you say, the mother might not even be bothered, but even if it was, the answer is not to stop breastfeeding. No, I can't I definitely would embroider that and a pillow. What you just said. Thank you so much for your time today. I feel like we could go on for another hour about this. So I'm tempted to suggest maybe we do a q&a about this another time because because you've got so many, you know, contacts here and lots of useful information. So if you're up for that, let's let's let's do another episode, which is just questions and answers from parents about starting nursery as breastfeeding moms and dads because I think that will be super useful. Thank you for your time today. Molly really appreciated.

Molly Morgan  1:08:02

Thank you so much, Emma, lovely to chat to you.

Emma Pickett  1:08:09

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett IBCLC and on Twitter @MakesMilk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist. And leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast. This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.