At Casa Tierra we firmly believe that for a child to feel confident within our setting, they need to have had a positive experience when joining us. To this end, we have a settling in process and find it works well if it is on consecutive days before they start, where possible. This allows you, as the parent, and your child to familiarise yourselves with our setting and our staff.
Day 1 - Home visit: This lasts approximately one hour and it allows a manager and the key staff member to meet your child in their own environment and for you to show us all their favourite things and how they go to sleep.
Day 2 - 9:00am - 12:30pm: Parent/carer comes in for first 30 mins or so to help settle their child and then the child stays until after lunch.
Day 3 - 9:00am – 3:00pm: Parent/carer comes in for first 20 mins or so then children stay until after PM nap.
Day 4: This is the child’s first full day but we ask that they are collected a little earlier (around 5ish), so they are not seeing too many other parents come to collect before their own come.
If you are returning to work, we recommend trying to settle your child at least a week or two before to minimise stress for the whole family and allow some flexibility with the settling times if need be. If there are two or more parents, we encourage them to be involved in the settling too. For example, if one parent has mostly been at home, it can be easier sometimes if another parent/family member does some of the drop offs in the early days when it is a little more emotional for all!