The Early Years Alliance charity, which represents nurseries, preschools and childminders, wants a review of the grades given by Ofsted inspectors.
The charity took a snapshot survey of early years' staff, which revealed many of them found inspections stressful.
Ofsted says it knows "inspections can be challenging", and wants them to be "as constructive as possible".
Teaching unions have called for inspections to be paused after head teacher Ruth Perry took her own life.
Nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are inspected against a different set of standards from schools, but also receive one overall grade.
They are marked as outstanding, good, requires improvement or the lowest grade of inadequate, which can lead to a school's closure if the council decides to withdraw funding.
