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3 year old and nursery

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Sparkleandshine

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Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi, I'm looking for advice. My 3 year old daughter is type 1, I've registered her for a local nursery but when I spoke to the nursery about her care needs with insulin and the rest, they were stumped and it freaked me out. I've become anxious with the thought of her now going to any nursery, but she's 3 and asks to go to school. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place with my own fears. Has anyone else experienced this? I've then come to the conclusion that it's only law for 5 years and older to go to school, but I'd be selfish holding her back. Thank you for reading.
 
Welcome @Sparkleandshine 🙂 I find it hard to believe the law only applies to 5 year olds. After all, most children are still 4 when they start school.

Have you spoken to her DSN for advice? Is she on injections, or a pump? How long would you want her to go to nursery - that is, how many hours per day?

It might be worth you giving Diabetes U.K. a call (telephone number top right of this page) while you wait for replies here (I’m Type 1 but none of my children are)
 
There is no reason why your daughter shouldn’t be able to go to nursery. You need to get a care plan made and speak to the nursery boss about staff training (no need for all of them to be trained, just one plus a back up in case they are away)
Hospitals quite often have training days for schools, don’t know how they are doing it with current restrictions but your DSN should be able to advise. Good luck
 
Inka said:
Welcome @Sparkleandshine 🙂 I find it hard to believe the law only applies to 5 year olds. After all, most children are still 4 when they start school.

Have you spoken to her DSN for advice? Is she on injections, or a pump? How long would you want her to go to nursery - that is, how many hours per day?

It might be worth you giving Diabetes U.K. a call (telephone number top right of this page) while you wait for replies here (I’m Type 1 but none of my children are)
Click to expand...

Hi and thank you. She's still on injections, diagnosed with t1 March 7th of this year. They've spoken of a pump but more towards the near future. They have offered her 3 hour mornings, but I wanted only 2 your mornings. She's been great at adapting, better than her dad and me. It's been easier I think because of how well she's taken to her new lifestyle. When I called the nursery, the lady on the phone was quite flippant, and stammered quite a lot when I told her about the diabetics team coming out, and her reply was they would need to come on the weekend. It was off putting and scared me, and now it's added onto my anxiety with letting her go. I can't shake the fear of the unknown if she goes.
 
Sally71 said:
There is no reason why your daughter shouldn’t be able to go to nursery. You need to get a care plan made and speak to the nursery boss about staff training (no need for all of them to be trained, just one plus a back up in case they are away)
Hospitals quite often have training days for schools, don’t know how they are doing it with current restrictions but your DSN should be able to advise. Good luck
Click to expand...
The diabetics team have spoken about going out to a nursery and teaching them when she has a placement. It's my own fears holding me back from letting her go. I'm lucky for now as they have no available spaces until September, but the thought already consumes me and it's months away. I wanted to know if this was a natural feeling from mum's of children with type 1 and it's something that will pass, or if I'm creating a problem within myself that I'd need help with to over come.
 
It’s completely understandable that you’re worried about her. The nursery have done nothing to assuage your fears. As I said, my children don’t have diabetes but one does have another medical problem. When they started nursery, I arranged a kind of staggered start and that helped. I also stressed they could ring me at any time and that I wouldn’t mind at all even if the reason they called turned out to be nothing.

But if her team are going in to educate the nursery, then that should be ok. They’ll be watching out to make sure they understand.
 
Sparkleandshine said:
The diabetics team have spoken about going out to a nursery and teaching them when she has a placement. It's my own fears holding me back from letting her go. I'm lucky for now as they have no available spaces until September, but the thought already consumes me and it's months away. I wanted to know if this was a natural feeling from mum's of children with type 1 and it's something that will pass, or if I'm creating a problem within myself that I'd need help with to over come.
Click to expand...
Well it’s natural that you’d feel a bit nervous handing her over to someone else, and I do sort of get where you are coming from, you have to let her live her life though and there’s very little that she can’t do because of diabetes. If you keep her at home you’re just making your anxiety worse when she does have to go to school. My daughter wasn’t quite that young when she was diagnosed, but she was in hospital the last 3 days of term at the end of year 1 in school, we then had the 6 weeks summer holidays to get our heads round it all and then had to send her off into year 2 with a new teacher and new medical problem. Yes it was hard, but we got through it because we had to.

The advantage of your daughter not going until September is that you have plenty of time to plan for it. Speak to the diabetes team and get them to contact the nursery to fix a date for training. Also ask them to help you to write a care plan (basically details everything the staff need to know about how to look after your daughter - hypos, highs, what to do about insulin if they provide food, emergency contact numbers etc etc). Maybe arrange a date to go into the nursery yourself and show them the equipment she has and what food or drink she prefers to use for hypo treatments etc, and go through the care plan with them if you have made one, and don’t leave until you are happy they understand at least the basics. I went into school on the inset day before the beginning of term, took my daughter with me and had a meeting with her new teacher which I didn’t allow to finish until I was happy that she understood at least 1. What to do at dinner time 2. What to do with a hypo or if there was any indication she wasn’t very well, and 3. Why we have to do all of this. Then I think the nurses went in a couple of days later. And we got through OK , there were some minor misunderstandings but no disasters. Please try not to worry too much (easier said than done I know!) and I hope you can get everything sorted. Good luck 🙂
 
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