Ideas

[Mustang]

How is your Nursery staffed. Volunteer or paid position. What duties do require of your Nursery Coordinator, besides the obvious.

[mheavrin]

We use a rotation list for ladies to be in charge of the nursery. This is a volunteer position. We really don't have a nursery coordinator. Our ladies group President keeps up with the rotation list and notifies each lady the week before it's her turn to serve in the nursery. We are a small country church so we haven't had any need to go beyond this point.

[Heather]

Ours is much the same as the previous post--we have a schedule coordinator, but one of the moms takes care of cleaning the toys, updating the nursery when it needs a little sprucing up, etc.

Currently, though, my husband (the pastor) has just about completed our church's child protection policy. It specifies our churches policies concerning our children through their teen years, and is intended to protect both the children and the workers. The normal--you need two workers in the nursery for accountability, no teens without their parents, and we don't allow teen boys to work in the nursery. Children are not to pick up other children from the nursery, only parents unless different arrangements have been made. Usual common sense things.

As far as workers, we try not to keep the same person in there all the time, as everyone needs the fellowship of other believers at church, and they also need the instruction from the pulpit. This is how we handle it at our current church, but I've been in other places where things are done differently. This seems to work well here.

Heather

[Mustang]

I'm curious...about how many do you have in the nursery?

[Heather]

We have about 10 on a good day. And can you believe that only one is a boy?

[PastorsWife]

Our nursery is all volunteers. If you are a regular attendee (and know the Lord) and have children in the nursery, you must help out in the rotation. Other ladies with no children also volunteer. (Each volunteer with children in the nursery does one Sunday a.m., one p.m. service and one Wed.) We also always have two ladies present for accountability. Every toy that is played with is cleaned at the end of service, playpen sheets are changed, blankets that lined swings are changed, trash cans changed, etc. by the workers that were in that day. We post the worker's rotation in our church bulletin by the month. We also have a large calendar in the hallway by the nursery that lists who is in on which day. We also have a sign in sheet where you put down the child's name, if they can have a snack, if you mind their diaper changed, etc. Then parent's sign out their child when picked up. Something else we do that is helpful is write on each diaper the child's name so when diaper changing time comes around you just look on the counter for the name of the kid. Pacifiers and sippys are always labeled too. Hope this helps.

[PastorsWife]

By the way we have around 10 or so like you Heather, but ours is only one girl!!!!

[Reva]

Because of insurance purposes nursery workers should have a background check. A husband/wife team should not be together in the nursery. Our policy does not allow anyone under 16 be a helper.

[TTart]

You know, I know you all have good churches but seeing your rules make me thankful for my small church. I do have a couple of questions Why no teen boys in nursery? Why no husband/wife team in nursery? Why no one 16 and under can't be a helper?
To me it is sad that these kids can't learn about small children. I am just curious thats why I am asking.

[PastorsWife]

We do use teen helpers in our nursery and toddler rooms. Our church has been blessed with lots of teens and we like to see them as involved as possible. (This past Sat. we had a spring cleaning work day and a lot of our kids showed up and helped. And without them, we wouldn't have gotten as much done!) But with our infants, only an adult works with them. Right now we have three new borns and it takes a lot for a Mom to leave them in a nursery, so we are extra careful.

To answer your other question... Several ladies with children in our nursery prefer the workers to remain female. I personally agree. When my kids were small I would have preferred another lady to change my baby rather than a man. This is just my preference as I have friends who attend churches where husband and wife teams do the nursery.

Now our next class up which is 3-6 yr. olds is a rotation of husband/wife teams.

Blessings!