My child choked at nursery

[Meerkat33]

Told that she put an acorn in her mouth and they had to back pat it out. I am really scared of sending her back. What do I do?

How old is your child?

4

It sounds like they responded quickly and appropriately. No one can watch a child constantly.

what would make you need from them to feel more comfortable?

There will be acorns everywhere at the moment- you can’t keep your child away because of this- you just need to continually reinforce to your child not to put things like acorns in their mouth. The incident may have scared them enough to not do it again anyway.

These things happen and are terrifying but it could have easily been on your watch. You won’t be that close to your 4 year old at the park that they couldn’t have done it with you.

Surely at 4 they should understand not to be putting random objects in their mouths? Were they playing outside? I don’t think you can entirely blame the nursery.

Children put stuff in their mouths. I presume they were outside and they can't reasonably remove all the small things children could potentially choke on from outside, and they can't be watched like hawks 24/7. Hasn't every parent experienced the "holy shit no don't put that worm/bug/toy/whatever in your mouth" moment?

They handled it promptly and appropriately, they let you know, no harm came to your child. I don't know what else you expect them to do, muzzle the kids during play?

Has she said why she did it?

I nearly choked on a mint imperial once and my dad had to tip me upside down over a bin in the street and thump my back - all on his watch. No one is safe everywhere, it sounds like they responded really quickly and kept your child safe.

You tell her not to do it again. Four is plenty old enough to understand choking hazards.

Have you spoken with your child about why she put it in her mouth? it's not really usual four year old behaviour.

I appreciate you're nervous but they did the right thing and hopefully she's not going to do it again.

I don't. I'm just scared because she doesn't do this at home but seems to do it there. She said she didn't mean to do it and wanted to see what it was like.
It happened at lunchtime. She'd had packed lunch and said she wanted hot dinners like the other kids so i don't know if she was acting up a bit

Does she have developmental delays or learning difficulties? If not it's likely a one off moment of silliness that she won't repeat.
If she does have struggles with understanding things then you need to work with nursery to get a risk assessment in place to cover how they will reduce the risks with choking hazards.
It's not uncommon to have in place even with older children in schools if they have additional needs, so a nursery should definitely have policies in place to manage risks once they've identified a child as being likely to put things in their mouth.

They behaved appropriately.

Children do weird things. She’s fine.

They observed her in the moment and patted it out. I’m not sure what else you would have expected them to do? They sound like they are vigilant which is what you would want.

In that case I would have a very serious chat with your child about never putting things other than food in their mouth - no acorns, no marbles etc.
This incident will probably have given them enough of a shock not to do it again. Luckily the nursery staff were so vigilant and acted quickly.

Well done to the nursery. They sound excellent. You could perhaps send a card saying thanks?

Not to scare you OP but at my workplace we had a child choke on a marble and had back blows. The parent was advised to get him checked over, have you had her checked over since the accident?

It sounds like the nursery acted correctly.

This isn’t a child who has choked on unsafe food - they weren’t feeding whole grapes to babies, or having the children run around with lollies. They can’t realistically stop all 4 yr olds from putting anything in their mouths. My then 10 month old once put a snail in her mouth 🤮 I was sitting on the grass next to her. She didn’t choke, but she could have. I had to fish it out.

Surely the important thing is that they knew what to do to get the acorn out

There are thousands of children at just turned 4 who are in reception school classes with 30 kids to one teacher and school playgrounds will have lots of acorns etc on at the moment. I mean this nicely but this really isn't the fault of the nursery. You need to have a very serious conversation with your child, even if it upsets them. They need to be told off for this because it's so, so dangerous and they are old enough to know this. You need to focus on that rather than the nursery.

In terms of what you should do:

Say thank you, perhaps take a box of chocolates in to the nursery. Their fast action saved her life. It was probably quite traumatic for them.

Have a very firm word with your child about putting things that aren't food into her mouth. Keep a close eye on her (I'm sure nursery will do too now). Hopefully this will have scared her enough to stop her doing it again.

So is she regularly putting things in her mouth in nursery?

Unfortunately these things happen. My son had a scare like this at nursery under similar circumstances. He was just over 2.5 at the time. It's scary and very unnerving because obviously anything happening to your child is your worst nightmare and the knee jerk reaction to that type of scare is to want to keep them close and I felt the same way. However, staff can't have eyes in the back of their heads and it sounds like they were on top of it very quickly and acted appropriately. If you're worried, the best thing you can actually do is teach your child what to do if they start to choke and how to stay calm and get themselves help.

Hopefully this will help her understand not to put non food items in her mouth. Unless this is a regular occurrence?

Thank you for relating to my feelings. My rational head and emotions are in combat.