My daughter started with Carmen and Marta's at 12 months until 3 years old. Her little brother recently started there, aged 11 months. Carmen and Marta have been consistently excellent - providing warm, loving care built around the changing needs of our children and family.

We felt my daughter gained so much being there: new experiences and socialisation, but also strong relationships with the childminders. As a baby she was always cautious with strangers, so it was wonderful to see her quickly develop trust and affection for Carmen and Marta, and to see her needs met with such warmth and genuine concern for her wellbeing. Carmen and Marta have been consistently kind, patient and above all warm - helping us ride out tricky toddler patches with good humour and kindness, and supporting my daughter become the confident child she is today.

We really appreciate the small-but-not-too-small setting, which is a real strength. In particular:
- The presence of more than one childminder gives us confidence on reliability, but the small number of adults allows for consistency of care, and for the children to build really strong bonds and be known as an individual.
- It wasn't overwhelming for her as a baby, but there were several children to form a core social circle as she got older and started having friends rather than just companions - it's wonderful seeing my daughter head into her 'big school' nursery class holding the hands of her friends from C+M.
- There's really good, individual support on developmental milestones, for example around potty training. But also there were often other children at similar stages or just a little further ahead on the journey which means my daughter could also learn from her peers.
- The mix of ages (babies to 3 year olds) worked brilliantly. When she was a baby, my daughter loved having the big kids to play with, and when she graduated to being a 'big kid' herself, she learned to be kind and look out for the little ones in turn.

We also really valued the individualised support that responded so well to where we were as a family. This included things like support preparing my daughter for the arrival of her baby brother and for her eventual transition out of the setting, but also things like flexibility on our days as we managed the changing demands of pregnancy and a newborn, and kindness and understanding for us as parents as we navigated the milestone of leaving our baby for the first time.

We are so pleased our second child is now just starting his time there, so we will be part of the Carmen and Marta family for some time to come.

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