Is knowledge produced in and improved by professional work at stake when it is increasingly regulated by state and market? This question is the main starting point of the suggested paper. Through empirical studies of professional care work/social work in nurseries and preschools I will address the issue of how this professional work field on the one hand has become increasingly instrumental in the sense that it is increasingly divided into routine based work and knowledge based work, as a result of regulations from state and market as well as an emphasis on theoretical upgrading of the field in general. A consequence of this development has meant that the professionals instead of reflecting collectively on their work, they are more inclined to focus on documentation and visibility of their work. On the other hand and in order to point to new paths of development, I will give an insight into how the routines and everyday practices in professional care work/social work are a source for developing  a knowledge base instead of destroying it. By giving an empirical insight into the bodily and subjectively based aspects of this type of work, I will suggest a concept of professional identity and professional knowledge which involves routines and unnoticed aspects the everyday practice. My analysis takes its point of departure in observations and interviews in a combined nursery and preschool. In following the professionals in their work we get an invaluable insight into how the unnoticed and taken for granted aspects of their every day practice generates an important knowledge base in the interaction between the professionals.