To think nurseries are not safe for young babies

Thanks for sharing this and thank you for your hard work.

If we’re being honest even those of us at home with our babies aren’t there 100% emotionally. Especially with any additional children. When I had my second someone told me to go to the one who could be sorted the quickest first it was great advice.

Surely it's understandable for parents to be nervous given the (thankfully rare) recent cases? They weren't just neglect.

Incidentally, what is the plan to remove so many babies in the event of a fire?

I work in a huge nursery, we can have upto 36 babies a day across 2 huge rooms and I can hand on heart say the babies are safe. Out of all the staff, we are all first aid trained, follow our policies 100% and follow safe sleep guidance. We do a lockdown procedure every 3 months incase we ever need it, and fire drills once a month. Emotionally yes there are times which are hard for both the staff and the babies as a 1:3 ratio can be hard but never has their safety been jeopardised due to this.

It makes me sad to see mums nervous to put their children in nurseries but I also can’t talk for every other setting out there.

And this is exactly why I never chose to leave my babies at a nursery setting. It was personal choice, I know that lots of mums have no qualms over it but IMHO babies under the age of 1 should be with me, their mum. I don't know what the fuck might happen once I walk out of the door at nursery and they're too young to ask for help. It's sickening what that evil woman did - fucking sickening. Poor baby

I'd say that exact 99% are there as they didn't manage to find anything else; very far from brilliant.

i personally don't think babies benefit from nurseries up until 2-2.5yrs old. Nursery is a necessity for the parents to be able to work.

I have viewed quite a few good and outstanding nurseries and opted for a nanny until my DC crossed 2 yrs old line; I found the nurseries quite underwhelming and nursery heads unconvincing.

Totally agree. Reading Genevieve's story was just so heartbreaking and frustrating at the same time. I don't understand why nobody else decided to check on her in the 90 minutes she was left unattended essentially.
My DD goes to nursery 3 sessions a week and all children are checked for the whole of nap time. DD is 2 and doesn't usually have a nap but I'd be more than happy for her to have one if she needed as she would be well looked after.

99.9% of nursery staff are brilliant at what they do, and provide excellent care

Unlikely! Much more likely - like any other job - to be a normal distribution, where most are perfectly average, a few are brilliant and a few are awful. Just like anything else: teachers, doctors, accountants, whatever. Unfortunately for these poor parents, they encountered someone at the far tail.

Indeed. One of the branches I worked in was staffed by mostly inexperienced teengers (they were cheap) who quite often just didn't give a shit/like to stand around and gossip/ignore the kids. One dad bought his little girl in for the first time (she was about maybe 7 months old) and the nursery worker put her on a playmat and just left her there, saying "bye bye daddy, see you later!", then promptly turned around and walked off. The poor dad looked utterly torn, so stopped what I was doing and promptly scooped her up (which we were'nt supposed to do - children "aren't to be picked up and need to learn to be independant") but I didn't give a shit about the stupid no pick-up rule then, the poor little thing was sobbing her heart out. That was just one instance in a daily does of instances across numerous nurseries I banked at.

I consider myself very lucky that a) I didn’t have to deliver my babies in a UK hospital, and b) I was able to stay at home with my DC past the baby stage, because I didn’t live in the uk when my DC were small.

I think the real question here is “why?”

Why is UK maternity care so bad?
Why is our cost of living so high, our accommodation so costly, that it takes 2 adults to put a roof over your head, and it’s not an option to stay at home longer to look after your babies?
Why is childcare so expensive, but the people working there, are earning NMW?
Why is it that this country does not have a better set up for 0-5 years, the future of our country.

Having worked across a number of nurseries, I would never, ever put my own baby in one, were I to ever have children again.

Absolutely agree. I think only people with experience working in nurseries realise how inexperienced a lot of the staff can be too, and quite how little time there is for each child.

Sometimes, babies will be involved in tragic accidents which could have happened anywhere. Sometimes, the standard of care in nurseries will fall below inadequate and into very unsaI worked supply in a number of nurseries and they were all very careful to ensure that the ratio was correct. If one person needed to leave the room, they'd wait until another person came back- even if it was just to pop to the office to get something.

My daughter (Covid baby, limited interaction with other children at that point) started nursery at 14 months, absolutely loved it and had a rapid spurt in development.

I've seen this on here a lot, and honestly we used a childminder and had the most incredible experience, she was amazing and my little girl really thrived with her so that really wasn't my experience.

99.9% of nursery staff are brilliant at what they do, and provide excellent care, and as someone up thread says, it's two (very tragic) cases out of millions of children who attend nursery every day, so I don't think it's fair to say nurseries are unsafe environments for children.

It is not about making working mothers feeling guilty! It is about shining light on Nursery's in general.
You drop your child at the door and they are left with mostly unqualified staff, staff who are young & in experienced.

In my personal experience of being in a nursery setting, I would never send my child.
Staff were rude not only to fellow colleagues but children also. Rough in manner and lacking all empathy. Not all is true on the update app they personally send you ' Ben ate all his food' = He hardly ate, we didn't encourage him because we couldn't be arsed.'
What I saw with my own eyes was disgusting. Needless to say, I removed myself from the work place, had a conversation with the manager and learnt months later that this 'well known' nursery was rated inadequate!

Yes, the workers work hard, they earn very little for so much work to be done throughout the day. They are not going to be bright as button's after burnout. They only put on a happy face when meeting parents.

On a small scale you get the one adult that generally as a passion for working with children, sadly they push the good ones away.

The news story is beyond tragic. It should never had happened

I believe that the situation will only get worse. Too many children now, what with the free funding roll out and not enough eyes on the ball!

My child started going to nursery full time Mon to Fri from the age of just over 10 months old. I feel immensely grateful to all staff at his nursery. He's thriving. All of them are just amazing. I don't expect development or social skills and etc. from nursery. All I want from his nursery is providing my child with a safe environment. That's it. I see his nusery as my coparenting partner and they're doing a wonderful job, far far better than what I could have done.

Why are you surprised then that people know people in the same circumstances as you?

In my family there’s probably an even spilt of FT and PT work amongst the parents.

I’ve noticed on threads like this that people so against nurseries always seem to ‘know’ someone who sends their babies for 50-60 hours a week.

in reality, most mothers go back to work part time and the majority of babies go to nursery part time.

Mine does go full time but not for 50-60 hours, especially now I’m on maternity leave.

How on earth do you attribute a child's mental health problems later in life to nursery? Many children attend nursery full time just fine and don't have mental health problems. So surely if it was nursery, there would be a very clear link and all children attending nursery would experience it? You sound very jealous of this other couples lifestyle and clearly you regard them as selfish for choosing to work and provide for their little one to have a better life. I wonder how their child will feel like about it later in life? Let's be honest, they won't even remember their early years as who does. I'm assuming you plan to send your child to school? My mum was a SAHM and to be honest I chose the opposite because she had zero financial independence from my father and her life revolved around me which wasn't healthy for her or me either. She didn't have much choice because nurseries weren't great in the 80s or didn't exist. Also I wanted to demonstrate to my kids that I can provide and work hard, which I do. Also regarding getting ill a lot, some children have better immune systems than others, but actually both of mine went to nursery three days a week and barely had any school time off due to already having had all the bugs at nursery...unlike some of their friends who didn't go to nursery and had to have a lot of time otf. So they'd actually built their immune system up a bit earlier. Ultimately what's right for you won't be right for someone else. As more parents choose to work I predict there will be higher demand for good nurseries and hopefully this will drive standards further up. The government could help here.

I think that’s unusual. Most people don’t even finish work until 5.30 so nurseries have to stay open later.

I wonder whether your experience is typical, or whether mine is.

I'm a SAHM. I spent plenty of time around local childminders at toddler groups and would often see them out and about in town and in playgrounds.

I never saw then ignoring a child who needed help. They were generally more attentive to and interacted more with 'their' children than I did with mine at playgroups - I usually viewed them as a time for my children to play with others or independently whilst I chatted to adults and kept an eye on them from sone metres away!

The worst were a bit lazy perhaps at times, but fine. The best were excellent.

My views on who is best to look after small children would generally be seen as antediluvian on here; if anything I'm more prejudiced against daycare of any kind than likely to defend it out of bias.

And I didn't love that even with the best childminders, children often were in a pram or a car for the kind of journeys they could walk, simply because it wouldn't be safe to have 5 toddlers and preschoolers walking loose down a high street.

But those childminders were all fine, and mostly they were really good.

Although it does make me wonder though why some peoples first response is that "it's guilt tripping working mothers!". Likely these people DO feel guilty for sending their child to nursery and they get a little defensive when the subject is brought up. (They shouldn't though, theres nothing to feel guilty about.)

I'm not a fan of being told what I should and shouldn't feel guilty about. I sent DS to nursery 2/3 days a week from 15 months. I had my reasons and at the time I thought it was right, but now looking back I massively regret it. It wasn't right and I feel guilty. At around 3 years I think they start seeing the benefits of small amounts of time at nursery. Why can't we feel guilty about the things we do that aren't right? That we are forced to do them by the system doesn't mean we should try and squash the feeling alerting us to the wrongness of the situation.

On the actual news: devastating. Of course it makes one weary of sending their baby to a nursery.

These stories are very tragic and horrifying, but as PP have said they are extremely rare.

We used nursery for our two DC from 9 and 12 months respectively, 3 days per week. The staff could not have been more lovely and caring, we still see one of them on the way to school and DS will run and hug her. They were very affectionate and dedicated, and as the DC got older they also enjoyed the social setting, having other toddlers to play with.

I actually preferred the idea of my babies/toddlers being in a nursery than being out and about all over the place on school runs etc with childminders. But working parents need childcare and go with what they are comfortable with in their own situations.

I think it’s fair to say there’s likely to be a bias of parents who SAH with their kids given were posting in the middle of the day - those are the people who have time on their hands to engage with a post like this.

I wish I had stayed at home, I didn’t need to go back to work and had a husband who supported me either way. But I had some fears re “just being a mum” and somehow being reduced as a person because of that.

I work 3 days. My kids are in childcare from 8-5 2 days and the third day my parents collect them for tea and have them for a couple of hours.

I think my eldest would have benefited not being in childcare, but he was also the hardest work and I got PND and PDA with my second and would have struggled immensely did he not continue with nursery whilst my youngest was a baby.

I imagine nurseries are safer, statistically because they are purpose built buildings and the staff literally just have to care for the kids. They aren’t also cooking dinner, doing housework and looking after themselves.

I have been to stay and plays with my sons and wondered how on earth they keep them occupied in the same room day in, day out but both my children are enthusiastic about nursery etc so they must enjoy their time there.

I always make sure my time with my kids is lots of active play and being outdoors which is something nursery isn’t so good for.