From next year, every nursery assistant or childminder will, for the first time, have a legal duty to assess and record key stages of development in the child they are looking after, writes Debbie Andalo.
The early years foundation curriculum, which will also be adopted by teachers in school reception classes, applies to all children from birth to five years old that are looked after in a care or education setting.
Anybody with professional responsibility for a child under the age of five will have to monitor their progress towards 69 early learning goals, recording them against more than 500 development milestones.
Carers will, for example, be expected to record whether a baby gurgles, can play with its own fingers and toes, or makes changing patterns with their finger through spilt juice.
The initiative has triggered a mixed reaction from parents and childcare professionals.
Childcare practitioners - childminders and those working in pre-school nurseries - seem generally in favour, provided they are not expected to pick up the bill for staff training.
The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, on the other hand, thinks it is a " really sad" initiative that is likely to increase a child's stress levels.
Some parent bloggers wonder if the move is another attempt by the government to get mothers back to work, while another blogger suggests:
And it seems most of our leaders are still "babbling", if only we could get them to move onto the finger painting curriculum target then there might be a hope that eventually they could progress to meaningful adulthood.
In reply to its critics, the government says that having a statutory early years foundation curriculum is a way of ensuring and safeguarding high standards of a child's early education and care.
So are ministers right - is judging whether your child reaches 500 different milestones before its fifth birthday the way to reassure parents about the quality of their care and education? Or is this a step too far by the nanny state?
