I worry she has no playmates

Op,
Not even airborne?

Trisher you get more of a mix of families in a primary school class than you do at a playgroup.

In primary there are more likely to be families that understand that normal bacteria strengthens the immune system but illnesses weakem it.

Playgroups and soft plays have a disproportunate amount of people who will rock up with poorly kids.

Actually I think that is entirely the wrong idea notanan2 Because parents have to accompany the child to playgroups and soft play they are less likely to take an ill child, whereas when the child starts school they are quite often working and an ill child is sent into school so the parents don't have to take time off work.

At the age of three my twin grandchildren seemed to have permanent colds. Two years later they rarely seem to catch anything. They have been going to nursery since the age of one and have thoroughly enjoyed the contact with other children.

IMO, children benefit enormously by contact with other children. By the time the start school they are used to a degree of independence and have started to develop those so important social skills.

Would it be possible to contact some of the other careers you have already met to arrange play dates? Maybe you could discuss this further with your DD and explain your concerns?

There is no easy answer to this conundrum

Notonan I have to disagree with you I was an only child much loved and well looked after by a nan and granddad who I adored when mum and dad were at work BUT I was a lonely kid without other children around and as I ve got older and talk to my contemporaries and listened to the adventures they had with friends and cousins I realise how much I have missed out
Like Monica said it does impinge on your adult life and although I have lots of friends it has taken me years to build up my confidence in groups and never really felt I ‘belonged’
I have no understanding why the parents aren’t ‘allowed’ to catch colds, even doctors catch colds sometimes I have never heard of a job where you have to sign a clause that says you will never get ill and I don’t understand where attendance allowance comes into it ???
I think the parents are being unreasonable to expect their child to never bring anything home... wait till she’s at school with nits and colds and everything else doing the rounds is she not going to be allowed friends ? You cannot keep anyone cold free
Blimey you’re on a roll notanan why so anti nursery’s ?

notanan It doesn't have to be a play group, a mother and toddler group is just as good.

There are core instinctive relationship skills that a child picks up by being part of a small community of similar aged children. Transient social occasions in parks, shops etc are not at all the same thing.

I had plenty of those kind of opportunities. What I lacked was mixing regularly with the same group other children, learning to attune to how people socialised with each other, and most importantly, built and sustained friendships.

You clearly have no conception of what it is like to go to school and suddenly find your self completely lost in a large group of children, a situation I had never been in before. These children seem comfortable socialising, striking friendships, even transient frienships and moving around each other. While I didn't have clue, what to do or what to say,

I made absolutely sure that my children had opportunities to mix and play with children from a very young age, first with friends with similarly aged children, then play group and mother and toddler groups. The result is that both my children have all that comfort in the presence of other people that I never had and have benefitted immeasurably from being at ease in almost any situation.

Blimey you’re on a roll notanan why so anti nursery’s ?
I have not mentioned nurseries

notanan It doesn't have to be a play group, a mother and toddler group is just as good they're the same thing??

Spot on BlueBelle you addressed everything I was thinking very succinctly.

notanan, you really do not know what you are talking about if you do not know the difference between a play group and a mother and toddler group.

A play group is usually cooperative in management with parents involved in running them but the sessions are usually for half a day and the children in a group with helpers, often parents, plus others. There is usually a curriculum broadly similar to a nursery school

A mother and toddler group is more like a large coffee morning, held once a week with parents and children coming together and each child being in the care of its own responsible adult, It is an opportunity for the adults involved to meet and build networks as well as the children to play ith each other.

My children's play group and mother and toddler group days are long gone, but while I cannot even remember the names or faces of any other parents and children at the playgroup they attended, I met several people at mother and toddler group that remain close friends to this day.

Your definitions are either a bit outdated Monica or else not UK centric. These days playgroup has replaced the "mother and toddler" title and are used interchangably

In the old days "play groups" were run like voluntary preschools.

These days you will rarely see the title "mother and toddler" group. If you go to a "playgroup" it will be parents with their children. Some are structured some are not.

Do keep up if you are going to accuse others of not knowing what they are talking about...

I can only go on what I see advertised in my local village (in the UK) and the toddler and carer group is very much a casual drop in session, run in a very different from any other form of childcare.

The website says: Tursdays 9.30am to 11.30am. Tea/coffee/juice and biscuits.£2.00 per adult/2 children No more information is given but posters round the village make it clear that it is very much a drop-in event.

That's a playgroup/baby carer group so!

Co-op or voluntary preschools these days are just called preschools.

Ours is called 'Early Years'
It's not a drop-in event, they have to be registered, but there are lots of other voluntary groups

Not all of us live in a metropolitan bubble

wait till she’s at school with nits and colds and everything else doing the rounds is she not going to be allowed friends
Oh yes - "Keep your head away from anyone else's head just case!!"

notanan2 but much the same could be said about the first year of primary school. Presumably you wouldn't stop a child going there. They are eventually going to encounter those bugs.
The bugs all used to be saved for the first year of primary school as nurseries etc were not so prevalent years ago.
Along, of course, with measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox etc as we progressed through primary school.

Meeting Europeans and their diseases for the first time has wiped out many in some civilisations because they had not developed any immunity.

Along, of course, with measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox etc as we progressed through primary school.
None of which are "better" to be exposed to as a preschooler than as a school child. All are best completely avoided. None make your immune system stronger!

Exposure to normal germs/bacteria being good does not = exposure to disease and illnesses and viruses being good.

Well, we obviously have vaccinations nowadays, which we did not have when I was a child notanan.
I never said that it was good to be exposed to those - merely that that is what we encountered at primary school.

You may be too young to remember those days.

But argue away as you wish.

Meeting Europeans and their diseases for the first time has wiped out many in some civilisations because they had not developed any immunity.

Including babies. None of those civilisations would have fayred better had they been infants.

The differences in survival of these illnesses were mainly about genetics not early exposure

You may be too young to remember those days.

I remember having one of them (which is now commonly vaccinated against) and my body remains weakened by it to this day!

Luckily I wasnt as small as the Ops GC when I got it so survived.

What has this got to do with the OPs GC though?

Thank you Callistemon I am a country bumpkin, we do things differently here.

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I dont live in a city either what has that got to do with it?

Preschools can no longer be run with the informality of what used to be known as "playgroups". This isnt regional. The word now means something different. Times change. Co-op and voluntary preschools still exist but are called preschools.