ajw, in our FDC home, there are usually only 4 kids. My daughter is the youngest (14 months) and the other children range in age from 18 months to 2.5 years. When she started going, she would stay for say 2 hours and I'd stay there as well as she was not often looked after by other people and I wanted her to get used to it while I was still there. She spends all day with the other older kids, obviously, but she doesnt really interact all that much with the other kids, I suppose because she isnt really up to the stage where she plays much with others. She loves to play by herself. I have never seen the other children snatch a toy from her or be rough with her, but I dont stay during the day anymore as I am at work now. If she's playing with something and it gets taken away from her, she's usually happy as long as she gets something else to play with. She just likes to have something in her hands. Because she is the smallest and youngest, the carer does give her a bit more attention and protection from the other kids. The carer does get them all the sit down together when she reads to them and also for lunch/morning tea/afternoon tea, and they do other activities such as painting and drawing together. They also have special play days where a bunch of carers all meet, and they get extra carers and they all go to the park or something.

Nox, I think it would probably depend on what your child is like. For example, I prefered FDC for my daughter because she gets a bit freaked out in crowds. I thought that being in a day-care centre with 15 other kids in the room would just be too much for her. I would probably look at a daycare centre for her when she is a bit older, say about 3, but for now, she seems to enjoy the FDC. When she started there, I talked to the carer about her routine. I wrote down the approximate times she wakes up, eats, has naps etc and our carer tries to keep as close to it as possible with feeding and napping. The other kids are a little older and have only one nap a day, but Claire has two sleeps a day. I advised the carer of how Claire goes to sleep (ie she has a bottle of EBM and a song then sleep) and she tries to do this. The carer knows we dont do the cry-to-sleep thing and if Claire is crying she takes her back out to the other kids. So she does try to keeep with the routine we have.