Nursery World - Overnight care: Bedtime story

As more parents are unable to be at home with their children at night, Anne Wiltsher asks who's taking over

When nursery owner Melanie Rowley took part in a radio phone-in programme recently, she was asked a question that illustrates the moral panic that overnight care for young children can arouse. 'I was asked if I would provide overnight care for the child of a prostitute,' she says. 'I said I didn't know how I would respond.'

As owner of Playdays Nursery in Wolverhampton, Mrs Rowley is the proprietor of one of three nurseries known to Nursery World to have either just started, or to be about to provide, overnight care for young children. The Hollies Nursery in Southwold, Suffolk, was registered in February and the Harlequin Nursery in Glasgow began taking children in April. Both have ten places. A fourth nursery run by the Cranbrook Group near Gatwick airport has been providing four overnight places, mainly for the children of airport workers, for as long as five years (see news, Nursery World, 5 April 2000).

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