JUGGLING college work with caring for a new-born baby on three hours sleep might sound like a challenge too far for some 18-year-olds, but four childcare students from Duchy College Stoke Climsland faced it head-on by looking after computerised babies for 24 hours as part of their course.

The students, who are all in their second year of the Children's Care, Learning and Development BTEC National Diploma, were responsible for soothing their computerised baby's cries by determining whether they needed feeding, burping, rocking or nappy changing.

Electronic bracelets worn by the students and linked to each baby enabled their tutor to check at the end of the experience whether the babies' cries had been responded to within two minutes and if they had missed any feeds.

At the end of the experience the students all received a score out of 100 depending on how well they had looked after their baby.

Victoria Curry, 18, from Tavistock, said: 'The lack of sleep was the hardest thing. It's difficult because you can't just ask somebody else to look after the baby while you have a shower because you are wearing the bracelet.'

Emma Toms-Bird, 18 also from Tavistock, said: 'No baby is the same, they all have different routines and we have to work out what our own baby's routine is.'

Another Tavistock student Stephanie Credicott, 18, said: 'I want to be a nanny when I finish my course so this experience had really helped me understand how to look after a baby.

'It's hard doing it on your own, you have to put the baby first and trying to do college work at the same time as looking after a baby is really difficult.'

Laetitia Mayne, Childcare course manager, said: 'The students did really well. I'd put the babies on the most difficult setting and they were programmed to only give them three hours sleep!

'Nevertheless, they all made it in to class the next day and achieved really good scores, with two students getting 100 per cent.

'This experience gives the students a sense of responsibility and makes them aware of how difficult it is to function in the day after a night of broken sleep.

'It will make them more tolerant, patient and understanding as childcare practitioners. The students were also asked to observe how people responded to them as parents and how they were made to feel, which was really interesting for them.'

After half term students in the first year will get the chance to look after the computerised babies. There are six in total within the interactive nursery at Duchy College Stoke Climsland and these include a drug affected baby, a baby with foetal alcohol syndrome and a shaken baby.

Students also get to experience pregnancy by wearing bumps filled with water to represent the different trimesters.

The bumps even replicate a foetal kick and push on students' bladders to give a realistic experience.

For students who are currently in Year 10 or 11 at school and considering a career in Childcare, Duchy College Stoke Climsland is running two free taster days on April 8 and May 29.

There will also be an information event on Saturday, March 15 for prospective students to find out more about courses on offer.

For more information visit http://www.duchy.ac.uk">www.duchy.ac.uk, call 0845 6050455 or email [email protected]">[email protected]