This article explores dilemmatic aspects of language policies in apreschool group in which three languages (Swedish, Romani and Arabic) arespoken on an everyday basis. The article highlights the interplay between policydecisions on the societal level, the teachers’interpretations of these policies, aswell as language practices on the micro level. The preschool group is seen as acomplex context for negotiating language policies and expectations regardinglanguage use. The theoretical framework builds on Billig’s work on ideologicaland everyday dilemmas that we argue are detectable at both levels of theanalysis. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that the explicitlanguage policy formulated in the Swedish preschool curriculum leads, inpractice, to ideological, pedagogical and everyday dilemmas. Moreover, anunwillingness to set rules for children’s language choice combined with thecentral position of free play in Swedish preschool practice has led to a situationin which children fall short of their potential to develop bilingual competence.