in March 2022 Babies 🇬🇧

Child playing alone at nursery

So my daughter started nursery this week. She’s only going in for like two hours so for as it was just her settling in sessions but the teacher told us she’s playing alone and hasn’t made any friends yet. I’m abit worried but she’s only been there like 2 hours everyday. Surely that’s abit soon for her to be making friends and she’s only 3. I also noticed that no other kids really played with each other they played next to each other but not together if you know what I mean. It didn’t really bother me until she highlighted it. How long did it take everyone’s children to start making friends at nursery

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I would not worry, the more she’s there and more settled she becomes she will start exploring playing with others and making friendships. Children can start to play off of what other children do/say anywhere between 2-4yr then this develops into proper playing with each other the more their play skills develop. I work in a nursery and with my own LO find after a few weeks or so they’ve settled into nursery and getting familiar with staff and children then they tend to developed some “friendships” (being aware of others/may seek them out to play alongside/“with”) Or your LO might be a social butterfly and after a full session may of made a “friend”

My daughter started nursery (2.5 hours a day) a day before her 3rd birthday and made a friend on the first day of being there! She's always been really sociable though 😊 she's nearly 4 now and in a school nursery full time and has made lots of friends there as well quite quickly 😊

At nursery I don’t actually know who she plays with, if anyone, but she does mention some of her ‘friends’. She’s been going since she was 1. But we go to a play group every Friday since she was 6 months old, so she’s known the other children for a while. She doesn’t play with them, maybe now and again they run after each other. They play alongside them on occasion. She will ask to play with the person running the group or me. Some kids are super outgoing, making friends with anyone, some are less so and need time to adjust.

A lot of kids play adjacent at this age rather than together. Nursery should give her time to settle in! She's 3, she's just started nursery in a new environment & they want her to have made friends in the first week? 🙄

Yeah I wouldn’t be concerned about this at all! She is only just 3 it’s not really expected that she should be playing with others yet, she’s still settling in and finding her way about.