Toddler room upstairs

[Chelledam]

I posted a while ago in a different area of this forum about an idea we had of moving our toddlers to an upstairs area. I had feedback from one other user but wondered if anyone else could share their thoughts and experiences. If your toddlers are based upstairs how effective is this? What works well and what doesn’t. How did parents take to the idea? Any other thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[finleysmaid]

I'm not sure if I can be of much help as I haven't worked like this but lots of the town based provision does. Going up and down stairs seems to be the issue....lots of them have a don't carry children down the stairs rule but how this works with children who are not very coordinated I  know one of them has a low handrail for the children to hang on to. Another has the babies upstairs and has purchased those large baby 'trolleys' which are kept downstairs for fire evacuations and outings.I guess as long as you risk assess the ingress and egress and fire proceedures then it should be ok. How many movements a day would you need and would parents come up to collect or you go down? and how would you offer access for the children to the outside?

One of our children used to attend a nursery in London and the garden was on the roof. The parents didn't seem to mind at all!

[mundia]

Hi there. It can work, but as Finleysmaid said,  you'd need to consider the up and down.  To be honest my experience of working with settings that choose thus option,  they often have less opportunity to go outside, just due to logistics. The same is often true when baby rooms are upstairs.  Having said that I have also seen babies  going up and down stairs quite happily with the right support.

Personally I'd tend towards pre schoolers upstairs because it's probably easier for them to be independent on stairs to get outside. But you will probably have other things to consider such as space available,  children ( or staff or parents) with mobility difficulties and so you will need to look at the bigger picture.  

Can you talk it through as a team, look at the pros and cons,  evacuations, and any other things that are important,  then give it a trial period to see what else is thrown up.

Let us know what you decide. 

[PaseyLtd]

I currently go to two nurseries who have their toddlers upstairs and there doesn't seem to be any issues at either of them!  

They both have no carrying children on the stairs policies and also risk assessment and clear guidelines for staff regarding using the stairs with children.  It seems to work well for both of them and parents don't seem to query it at all,  just accept that when the children are two, they move to the room upstairs.

The children respond well to holding on as they walk up/down, the littlest ones holding the hand of a member of staff too with additional support offered from management when needed.

What would you be gaining by moving your toddlers upstairs? 

 

[Louise1984]

I previously worked as management in a nursery which orginally had pre school up stairs, as a management team we decided the pre school room would benefit more if they were downstairs able to free flow from garden area. We moved toddler upstairs, this did not seem to have a major impact. We risk assessed and one staff member would take only two toddlers down the stairs at any one time. Our admin or management team member in the office that day would help with bringing the toddlers downstairs when they wanted to go into the garden, so that did not impact on their time outside either. We were also an outstanding nursery. I think if you have all your team on board and risk asssent etc there shouldn’t be any problems. Good luck.