Am I right to be unhappy with DD Nursery?

[MickeyMouseShithouse]

DD(3yo) started nursery the beginning of this month. And the first day was great, we had a first day report online and was all fine. But after the first week these things have happened:

Weve just mastered potty training and got out of nappies full time (nursery know this as when we went for a look around she was still in nappies and they asked)
DD came home with wet/soiled clothes, and I said “that’s ok, you can try and make it to the toilet next time” and DD said “teacher said no X, Wait X!” I tried not to ask any leading questions so I just said “teacher said no? Why did she say no?” And DD again said “teach said no when I need a wee” - DD was quite upset with herself as she never has accidents at home or while we’re out, or while I leave her with family so I didn’t think it would happen easily at nursery.

She also comes home most days when I ask her “have you had a good day?” She says “girl push me by the sink and I hurt my bum” - she was doing the actions and a girl had obviously pushed her over and she’s hurt herself. I picked DD up the next day and she started crying saying her bum hurts, so I pressed on my bum and she again said it was sore and was crying so I assume it’s from being pushed over in the toilets. She did say the girl said sorry when asked by the teacher - but I wasn’t told anything at pick up.

she’s mentioned a few times that kids have pushed her, taken things from her, she sounded like she was trying to say a teacher made her give another child a toy she was playing with but as a 3yo I’m unsure of how much truth was in that one!

at pick up, the teachers literally just open the door, send the child out, then close the door without saying really anything at all or giving me a chance to catch them.. which has now made me feel a bit awkward if I did want to try and catch them for a chat.

I asked DD outright if she likes her nursery or if she’d like to go to a different time, and she asks everyday now if she can go to a different nursery.. but always seems happy coming out and going in, she never throws a fuss about going otherwise I wouldn’t send her at all. I need to work but if it was a massive issue she would be out no questions asked.

today; she came out of nursery and said “teacher said you didn’t give me any pants mummy! Your naughty mummy I have no pants in my bag!” - DD had no pants on under her leggings.. and in her bag (a normal small rucksack no no hidden magic pockets) are 3 spare changes of pants along with two changes of clothes and a bag of wet clothes. - so I feel a bit annoyed that they might have called me naughty to my DD for not sending her with pants.. when I have!

she also hasn’t touched her lunch today, there’s one small bit mark out of one quarter of her Sandwhich, she’s not eaten anything else, not even touched it. She can’t give me an answer why but she came through the door crying that she was hungry and didn’t want to wait for dinner, that’s when I checked her bag and lunchbox..

is this normal? I have friends who send their children to other nursery’s (too far to travel for us) who get written reports/notes uploaded every day, and photos uploaded weekly.

I just feel like the communication is rubbish, but am I expecting too much?

I have booked in to see a new nursery tomorrow which DD is excited about. - but it is further away than I’d have liked, we’re quite rural and the current nursery is 2 minutes from the house and on my route to work. The other is in the complete opposite direction and a bit of a pain in the arse road to get too, but it does have good reviews so I’ll make it work.

I just don’t want to move her to another nursery and have the same treatment and find out that it’s all normal.

sorry for waffling on, I’m a bit mixed emotions on this as I want her to be happy 🫠

Small children not understanding social rules and pushing/snatching/believing they're the centre of the universe is all normal, you'll get a little bit of that in every nursery but the staff should be managing this and should be vigilant to it. They might not inform you of every incident as some will be inconsequential (e.g., Child A takes a toy from Child B, Child A is encouraged to give it back and reminded about kind hands/sharing) but anything that results in an injury or is more serious should definitely be notified to you.

The rest of it sounds like shitty staff to be honest. I'd say speak to them about your concerns but rhe fact you have concerns is enough to warrant looking at other nurseries. You need to be able to trust the people you're leaving your DC with and they're not inspiring confidence in you then you're not going to be happy, your DC isn't going to be happy, and it would be better to go elsewhere.

I wouldn't be happy with what you've listed here. There are loads of red flags I would pull her out- nurseries aren't supposed to be like this.

I would say that no discussion on pick up is a marker for there being lots else not being up to the standard you would want. I don't think it's normal and certainly not my experience.

It is hard to know when you get most of your info from a three yr old but that's why the communication at pick up is so important.

I would be looking for another option.

My 3 year old grandaughter comes up with some tall tes about who said what and why.

Are you sure she's not engrossed in what she's doing and just forgets, if its new?

Yes there are some things I wouldnt be happy with, and some i'd take with a pinch of salt

Is it a pre-school or a nursery?

It doesn't sound like a brilliant environment tbh, the lack of communication from staff would be an issue for me. I would expect either a handover, info written down in a notebook, or an online equivalent. From the nursery we used we would get details about what was eaten, toilet trips, accidents etc etc. plus photos every now and then of activities they'd done.

The wait thing, it could've been a case of the nursery worker was in the middle of something ie holding a baby or something similar and said to wait (as they can't just drop what they're doing that very second) and your wee one hasnt made it in time.

Kids do push each other at times unfortunately.

None of the stuff you've mentioned sounds overly bad.

I’m not in the UK but I get a handover at pick up (and I give them one at drop off) about sleep/eating/toilet and sometimes generally a bit about the day. The snatching etc I think is a bit normal but the lack of communication from staff seems reall shit and I’d be knocking on the door asking about the day and the issues you’ve mentioned here. Ask at the other nursery about the handovers and say you want one every day, if they say yes no prob I’d be tempted to change. X

Or it could be that DD starting peeing and was told to wait. I’d ask them about it.

The having to wait thing is normal - if the toilet is already in use for example or the staff member is dealing with a first aid incident. Obviously it’s not fair to make them wait ages but you have no idea of the circumstances. They have to learn to ask before they’re desperate, it’s all part of learning.

I wouldn’t be impressed by the communication though. None of what you mentioned sounds wrong in isolation, but all the things together would concern me and I’d probably move. But make that decision yourself- don’t ask your child, she’s not got the maturity or perspective needed and she’ll probably tell you what she thinks you want to hear.

If you asked her if she wanted to live on the moon she'd probably say yes.

I think it can be a bit of culture shock starting nursery, when DD2.5 started she came home with tales of kids pushing and snatching but I actually think she will have been the instigator as she was learning how to act socially with peers. It settled after a few weeks and she has flourished and loves it 9 months on. The wee incident sounds like miscommunication, I wonder if she held on as was unsure of where the toilets were then started to wee and the teacher said no?

Our nursery doesn’t have an app or diary or suchlike but I just ask the teacher at handover any questions I have, we all line up get called to the doors one by one and most parents tend to have a 2-3min chat each. They also do a parents evening each term and the manager always responds to any email queries.

Am I right in thinking that it’s a school nursery? The limited communication on pick up is normal. And rightly or wrongly they tend to expect full potty training so they would expect them to be able to wait, not forever, but a few minutes because the toilet is busy, they’re in the middle of an activity, the class have gone somewhere etc. Ditto lunches, you pack it and it’s down to the child whether or not they eat it. Presuming all the children are new the sharing and snatching happens and it needs time to resolve, I would expect the teachers to be on it though.

It can be a bit of a shock if you haven’t done nursery before but it’s also a transition to starting school so can be very positive.

we all line up get called to the doors one by one and most parents tend to have a 2-3min chat each.
How many in the nursery? With only 10 children that's 20-30 minutes chat.

OP if the toilets aren't actually in the room with the children then there are loads of reasons why you might need a child to wait. If other children are already at the toilet then they may need to wait until that group is back because of adult to child ratios.
They learn to ask a bit sooner or hold it a bit better as they get used to it. At my dc's preschool when one child asked, they normally did a shout out if anyone else needed to go, so there'd be a wait while a couple more children came, for example, so it wasn't a straight go off as soon as ask. She'll get used to that.

You do get a bit of pushing and shoving-but also some children talk more about it. With my eldest she would tell me what crafts they'd done and who she'd sat next to, and what they'd talked about and the story. Dd2 used to tell me who pushed who, who bit, who shouted, who threw the sand etc. (DS told me what he'd eaten and nothing more!) I don't think the behaviour was any worse for dd2, or it wasn't when I was helping with the group, just how she reported it.
You have to assess whether that's the case.
But it's not so much about the behaviour as how they'd dealt with it. I'd guess, for example, that the time she was told to hand the toy over that either she'd snatched the toy first, or it was a popular toy that they all take turns (ours used to have an egg timer that they used for such things). That's as I'd expect it to be dealt with.

Yes, have a talk to the nursery and see what is going on, but there's nothing that would really worry me here as a basis. I'd want to know more before pulling her out because you could find the same (or different) issues elsewhere. No place is perfect, but you have to decide what is worth having concerns over and what isn't.

@MargaretThursday no idea tbh, I think there’s about 50 children split across the 4 age groups and as it’s a private nursery the pick ups are staggered, when I go there’s normally about 3-4 in front of me.

Thanks all, I am trying to take a pinch of salt with what DD says as I know there might be different or missing context.

The toilets are in the room with the kids. I’m just worried that she comes home most days with at least one set of wet clothes, sometimes two. We’re able to go out for days out, or if she goes to anyone house for the day she doesn’t have accidents so it’s a lot of accidents to be having for us.

I also wasn’t leaving the decision for her to move up to her, I just asked if she liked her nursery or if she would like to go to a different one because I wanted to gauge how she feels about being at this nursery and whether she’s happy. As I’m also aware that’s she’s been there less than a month and if we do have to pull her out and restart it’s probably quite a lot for her to take on board😫

I’ll compose an email for the nursery and perhaps ask about communication and what’s to be expected - the reason I made this post was to see if I was just being a bit precious but it sounds like there are some reasons to be concerned. I just didn’t want to ‘moan’ and look like ‘that’ parent if it’s normal 🙈

thanks for all the replies!