About our programme

For those groups meeting in the parks we will notify you the day prior to the session via email and on the day via WhatsApp to you and your nanny of the back up venue address. Please ensure you and your nanny’s contact details are current!

Well, we would love to start one for you! Just email us and we are happy to start a group if we have four nannies and little ones join.

From 4 or 5 months or when your baby is able to sit supported in your nanny’s lap. Toddler groups are from one year of age to three. As the programme is written by an OT, all the activities have been tried and tested and the facilitators have been trained in early learning, we come alongside each nanny and child pair and adapt the activities to suit your child’s developmental stage. We love showing your nanny how best to scaffold your child’s learning. That is, provide just enough support for your child to complete the task at hand and achieve success. ‘Just the right challenge’ ensures children are not bored (task too easy) or frustrated (task too hard). Nannies learn how important their role is in laying the foundation as in the building below for every stage of development.

Choruses of ‘Me do it’ become the celebrated norm! We also maximise the learning potential of every activity, encouraging individual children to focus on the aspects they enjoy, for example the sensory aspects or the doing and moving aspects. Lastly some children come for two years to our toddler group – whilst this is a wide age range (1-3 years), learning theories from the best educational centres in the world also show how ‘older teaching younger’ is very beneficial. Isn’t it amazing how much younger siblings learn from older siblings? Same principle!

We focus on a developmental area for six weeks, for example Sensory Development. The activities that your child and nanny engage in together are then visible explanations of how and what children learn for our discussion time with the nannies. Nannies receive a certificate after every six weeks.

Missed sessions are unfortunately forfeited as materials are purchased in advance. You are welcome to email us regarding joining another group nearby in that week to make up a session.

About your child

While a crèche is not dependent on taxi strikes or illness, the reality is that there is never one to one care and you have to consider what paediatricians term Crèche Syndrome. With a professionally selected and properly trained Nanny you have the potential for such wonderful 1-2-1 help that the odd days when gran or a neighbour or the crèche has to step in is worth it.

While crèches start out looking cheaper, many a mom has said that they spend double their crèche fees per month, once for the crèche and once to the doctor. This is because according to paediatricians your baby can be sick every three weeks when exposed to a daily group environment and so your annual leave gets used up with doctor visits and an ill baby needing to stay at home – which is no fun!

Psychologists call the first two years the attachment period of our babies. This is when our babies either learn trust or mistrust. Consistently having their needs met in a ONE on ONE loving environment lets you baby know that “I am safe, I am loved” and is the cornerstone to health, wellbeing and development. It is particularly Individual stimulation of your child that is paramount to their overall development. The good news is that children can safely attach to more than one CONSISTENT caregiver and it helps that your nanny will be providing love and attention in your environment at home.

That said, these early relationships also form the basis of successful social emotional development for life, because as a child nears three they are able cognitively and emotionally to relate to other children. Relating to others is also dependent on language skills which are sufficiently developed at this stage to then enter a playschool environment. Children enjoy being around other children, known as parallel play but do not really interact with them constructively.

Lastly, some of the latest research may be suggesting that sending your child too early to crèche affects their ability to focus due to the high levels of stimulation.

Lara co-founded Play Sense with Meg Faure in 2016. This was out of a desire to create home-based play groups of no more than 6 little ones from 2 years of age.

They can come with nanny until they are settled. Find out more about our play based groups www.playsense.org

We run throughout the year, only taking a break for the first week in July and then mid December to mid January. If you are going on holiday and email us in the preceding month we are able to invoice you only for the sessions you plan to attend.