Nursery Closures and COVID-19 — How Can Little Ones Help Parents Deal With Closures of Nurseries

Since the day COVID-19 became a threat to every child’s precious life, the UK Government has taken actions to ensure the safety of all these little ones. For starters, all primary and secondary schools, as well as further education colleges, are closed for an indefinite length of time. Moreover, despite the nursery closures, the UK government highlights the law that babies, toddlers and young children should never be left alone as the parents could be prosecuted in doing so.

On the other hand, responsible parents today are struggling to make the ends meet. Due to the viral and on-going COVID-19 epidemic, thousands of breadwinners are forced to stay and work from home. Since your child is either stuck at home or the nursery closes because of the lockdown, dear parents particularly need to be hands-on with everything in the house especially minding the children’s daily activities. And probably you are one who desperately needs a nanny to focus more on the things you must take care of during the day.

During this pandemic, Little Ones are offering temporary nanny, housekeeping or tutor services that the family could hire just until the situation comes back to normal. These temporary child carers and housekeepers will help with your children and keep your house well-organised and clean. They are happy to be in either a full-time or part-time position even in short period of time.

Would you like to talk with one of our expert consultants? You can call us on 0207 183 0309 or send us an email to c.sousa@littleoneslondon.co.uk

PARENTS STRUGGLE AT HOME

Working from home could give you a comfortable place to keep your nose to the grindstone. But according to most mothers, they always struggle with balance. Working from home can be easier than a straight shift of 9 am to 6 pm in the office but it comes with challenges as well. The straight shift in the office will allow you to focus solely on your job but working at home could split your concentration in half. Imagine taking a client’s call whilst your children are having their typical tantrums! Not easy at all. That’s why summer holidays could be very challenging at times.

Growing children normally face the stage wherein they physically and mentally struggle to let their parents know how they feel specifically toddlers who couldn’t find their words yet. These lead to different behavioural problems which is something the parents get to manage whilst working at home. These problems — full-blown tantrums, disobedience and lack of respect, continuous whining, food-related problems, aggression, and impulsive attitude — are common from two-year-olds and above. After all, it’s the parents' main responsibility to begin the teaching at home. So whilst they are handling documents and online tasks, they’d probably have to deal with their crying children who don't like to eat broccoli or their toddlers who don’t want to sleep even though it’s past their bedtime. This is a serious call for a nanny, isn’t it?

What’s even more complicated is how you would explain the current situation to your children like how people die every day, how you as a family couldn’t go out, and why you all need to disinfect all the time. Children are also under confusion and anxiety at the moment. Not that they understand everything, it’s because they don’t understand a thing of what’s going on.

Even if you come up with the best and simplest form of explanation, there’s always gonna be a question — why? You can’t attend to your children’s questions all the time, especially not when you’re in a meeting, right? Again, there’s a critical need for a professional nanny.

HOW CAN NANNIES HELP?

It’s not that parents don’t take responsibility for their children, they need a hand. Nannies are, first of all, sought after because parents got too many on their plate. Therefore, how can nannies help?

Nannies take training with these specific types of circumstances. Some training would include child psychology, learning about the particular attitude and how to handle them.

Initially, nannies could help a growing child develop trust. When a child is already familiar with the nanny, most likely they’d be comfortable to do anything — role playing, telling stories, or basically just talking — which the parents will pretty much appreciate. Once the nanny somehow made the children feel loved and cared for, gained the trust of the children and got to know the children’s mood swings, the nanny will be able to take commands and authority over the child, of course, with warm and genuine compassion. This will allow the nanny to manage the difficult situation with children’s behavioural problems.

It is reassuring to see that the nanny could provide one-on-one care for the children so that these little ones don’t have to look for other children to play with. Unlike in the nursery setting with more than twenty unique individuals and one teacher to oversee them, having a nanny will give the children the constant attention they require. When the parents see that the nanny could take the children well, they will give full confidence of leaving the children with the nanny’s care whilst they are busy working. This will give the parents all the focus they need for work and attend to their children’s needs at the same time.

When it comes to the present status, the nanny could give all effort in answering the children’s questions without hesitating even when they have to talk about it all day. Giving the children update in the plain uncomplicated way could lessen their confusion and anxiety that they are having.

HOW CAN LITTLE ONES PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR YOUR NANNY NEEDS?

Little Ones, claimed to be the UK's leading nanny, childcare and domestic placement provider, has been giving training and OCN London accredited courses for almost six years. This is to help their nannies deliver the highest quality of service they could give to the family they’re working for.

Hence, Little Ones UK gathers the best candidates that any family will be compatible to work with. What the company has are warm, friendly, and hard-working candidates — whatever position they are registered in — that will help out each family in looking after their children in the best way possible. The reputation of Little Ones UK is entirely owed to the company’s professional nannies, nanny housekeepers, au pairs, and carers in both live in and live out positions worldwide. Before the nannies are assigned, the company ensures they are safe and will be a positive addition to the family.

Little Ones Uk’s nannies are the solution to the nursery closure along with the trouble of the parents while working at home. What can these nannies do to help your children cope with stress and anxiety brought by COVID-19 and reassure them that everything’s going to be okay?

• Keep the children engaged. There are several fun activities that the nanny could do to play with these young ones. One can do card games, board games, hide and seek, role-playing, cooking or baking activities, quizzes, puzzles, and art activities like drawing and doing colouring books.
• Make them feel safe. As mentioned, once you gain the trust and attention of the children, they will possibly react to your words and follow you around. This is the time that you reassure them with the most soothing and encouraging words and display good examples of being calm, positive and strong. Tell the children that their family is healthy and that their parents will do everything they can to protect their family. Most importantly, offer them love and affection.
• Try to do and continue school work and activities. With the nursery and school closures due to the outbreak, most children weren’t able to finish their classes and they were left with a number of unfinished school activities. This is the right time to keep them focused on their lessons so they could progress and learn despite the uneasy situation.
• Learn new skills. Either motor skills or mental skills like problem-solving, it’s up to the nanny. These additional knowledge are very useful and in fact, could help them figure out what they want when they grow up. There are lots of new possible things to learn like playing musical instruments, making art crafts, singing or dancing.
• Teaching first aid and preventive measures. As early as two to three-years-old, children could learn how to supposedly keep themselves safe. Talk to them about what they can do or not do around the house and the consequences of each, talk to them about their fears and talk to them about how they could make themselves virus-free.
• Explain social distancing. Children, especially toddlers, wouldn’t fully understand why they wouldn’t be allowed to go out and see their playmates. This is the time you tell them about the social distancing and why it could help them out.

HOW WILL YOU CONTACT LITTLE ONES?

If you wish to try out Little Ones Nannies and other services, you can check out our website or call us on 0207 183 0309 for more information. You can also send us your enquiry to c.sousa@littleoneslondon.co.uk. For updates, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.