Notes from Mary
Weekly thoughts on play, food, learning and the small things that matter most in the early years.
Hot, sticky nights are the bit that wears everyone out fastest. Five simple things — none of them medical — that forty years have taught me make the difference between a rough night and a good one.
London is in the middle of a heatwave, and small children feel it more than we do. Here's the practical, no-fuss routine I use to keep little ones cool, hydrated and comfortable — through the hot days and the muggy evenings too.
The bit parents worry about most. How settling-in actually works, why it's gradual, and the small things that turn a tearful first week into a confident one — from forty years of doing it.
Paradise Park, Freightliners Farm, the library, the Zoo, the Transport Museum — where we go most weeks and what your child is actually learning while it just looks like a fun day out.
You know the funded hours exist — but how do they actually work with a childminder, in Islington, alongside what you'd otherwise pay? The practical, local version.
A parent's list of the weekly groups, rhyme times and play sessions worth knowing about in N7 and around Islington — including the free one I run myself.
Practical, plain-English advice from forty years of childminding: what to ask on a visit, how childminders compare to nurseries, and the local resources that actually help.
Play isn't a break from learning — in the early years, it is the learning. Here's how a typical week of play looks at our setting, and what your child is actually building underneath.
Forget the Pinterest perfection — this is what 40 years of feeding small humans has taught me about practical, balanced lunches that toddlers will actually eat.
Government funded childcare can feel like alphabet soup. Here's what the 15 and 30 hours offers actually mean, who qualifies, and what to do next.