Nurseries can damage your toddlers, says parenting guru

Placing children younger than three in a nursery environment can damage their social development, a high-profile parenting expert has warned.

Steve Biddulph, the Australian author and child guru who has sold more than four million books worldwide, has called for the British government to introduce policies that will enable mothers to stay at home with their babies.

The advice is a complete volte-face for Mr Biddulph, who was previously an outspoken believer in nursery care. In a new book, he claims to have changed his mind after seeing increased evidence of anti-social behaviour, aggressive tendencies and other problems among children who spent their earliest years being cared for away from home.

Mr Biddulph, whose previous bestsellers include Raising Boys and Raising Girls, admitted his argument was "confrontational" but said that in his experience, nurseries were "often a disastrous disappointment". He said: "The best nurseries struggled to meet the needs of very young children in a group setting. The worst were negligent, frightening and bleak. A nightmare of bewildering loneliness that was heartbreaking to watch."

In the new book, Raising Babies: Should Under 3s Go to Nursery? he argues that nothing can replace one-to-one contact with a parent, and that infants' brains need this loving influence to develop properly.

Currently, 250,000 children under the age of three attend nurseries full or part-time in Britain.