Actually wwyd, re: toddler at nursery with new staff.

[mumofsnotbags]

Sorry for posting here but i only have until tomorrow to decide what to do in this case. This may be long but dont want to drip feed.

My ds goes to nursery twice a week full days. He is now 19 months. When he started it was a council run nursery, all the staff lovely, never ever had a problem with anything. Then in December it was sold to 2 women who have taken it over privately. In their "wisdom" they got rid of all the experienced staff (9 people) and kept on only 2 part time. He is currently in the 0-2 room and the staff who know him have been moved to an older age group room.

Basically my only fears were that i didnt want really young inexperienced girls looking after him. Im paying money for teenagers to get experience around him and make mistakes on my child in the process. If they had kept the 2 girls in the same room as him who know his (and the other childrens) routine, i dont think i'd have a problem. Luckily there were 2 young girls and 3 older ladies who knew what they were doing, are really lovely, the 2 young ones always seem to be really quiet, chatting to themselves etc. There also working really long hours 8-6 each day as the same ones are there in the evening whi i passed him to in the morning.

Its now been 3 weeks, we had an issue on the 1st wk, he would come home hungry, tired and screaming, totally out of character, he was also really grubby, I made a comment 1 day about how rotten he was and he was brought home clean from then on. The crying has eased off also.

Fast forward to yesterday i dropped him off, there were 2 new young girls in the rm, only 1 of them said hello to my ds and acknowledged me, as for the others 1 was reading to 1 child, 2 were chatting to each other laughing. my oh picks him up usual time of half 4 and he has just a vest and trousers. He asks were his top is and the manager went to get it saying he had spilt food down him. When he came home i looked at his trousers, they were, like his shoes, covered in mud, wet and something white too like paint or yoghurt. If i knew how to id upload a picture of them as they are disgusting. Im now worried they let him sit around in wet dirty clothing. His legs were freezing when he got in, so god knows how long theyve let him sit like that for. yet they saw fit to take off his top as he spilt a bit of food on it, nothing in comparison to the state of his trousers. Im worried this will just carry on like this so my options are:

a. Go in and see the manager, take in the trousers (even though dp says she was there so has already seen them and done nothing) say its unacceptable etc.

b. Give the girls the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was a 1 time thing, mention it to 1 of them and ask them not to let it happen again.

c. dont bother at all with them and change his nursery.

Since the changeover they have taken on more children quite a few are rough which i expect from that age but i do expect them to be properly supervised also.

Im no good with confrontation at all so need help, what would you do? really sorry this is long!

My dc3 is with a childminder - a mother with two school aged children of her own. Dd goes from 8-4 a couple of days a week. The childminder does a school run, then takes the mindees to playgroups, parks, soft play etc. They go home for lunch and then usually play at home in the afternoon until it is time for the school run again. The children are cared for in a home environment, but experience other activities and socialise with lots of other children. My dd is always happy to go and talks fondly of her childminder.

If you think the nursery deserves a complaint about incompetent staff, you really should complain to the nursery and to ofsted. It is not right that little children are cared for in inadequate settings.

All I'd say about childminders is really check them out first. I went to a toddler group and there I met a lot of child minders who were lovely and some I wouldn't leave my cat with!

If it were me, I'd be looking for a new nursery now. You expect them to come back a bit grubby after a full day at nursery but not with wet trousers and a vest in Winter. Also the fact that he is unsettled, hungry, tired etc would ring alarm bells with me.
It sounds like a different place than the one you signed up for and I would remove him straight away.

You asked what childminders do. I'm a childminder. I do all kinds of things with the children I care for. Today, we have been to the local garden centre and looked at the toys they sell, we then had a snack and play in their cafe/toy area. We visited the shoe shop and I got my mindees feet measured as the parents had asked me too. Home for lunch (I provide a proper dinner at lunch time, today, it was roast beef with veg). A nap for the baby after lunch while the older children had a short rest with a story, we did jigsaws, pictures and some threading before going to pick the older children up from school. Home for a snack, then we made some fairy cakes for tomorrow's lunch.

I don't have an assistant, but my DH is sometimes around. He isn't left with the children but has been crb checked as be lives on the premises. The children I look after are like part of the family and just kind of slot in with my own children, doing similar activities and being looked after in the same way. Childminders, like parents are all different, so it is best to visit as many as you can and make sure you are on the same page with regards to how you want your dc to be cared for.

I wouldn't write off all nurseries just because this one has gone down hill. You could have similar issues with a childminder.

You need to go and look at some other nurseries and childminders and go with what you feel most comfortable with.

My DS has been at a private nursery since he was 8 months old and he's now 4. I am already dreading him leaving to start school because he is so happy there and he is looked after so well.

As someone above^^ said. Don't write off all nurseries but I would definitely change to another one. In my opinion the experienced staff have been got rid of because they cost more than trainee nursery staff (think apprentice wage as opposed to nmw)which I feel have been brought in, in order for the nursery to make a better profit.

I'd find a new nursery as fast as I could. It's just not worth taking a chance, follow your instincts - the current place is no longer good enough for your child. Move him. He's what matters.
:)

Thankyou for all your replies!

I took him in this morning, 2 new staff again that id never seen before and the 1 lady who is obviously in charge (only reason i think this is that she wears a uniform, the rest are young trainees in black own clothes). I asked to have a word with the manager and said basically what i've wrote here already, asked about the feeding thing as he gets so dirty from when he tries to feed himself which he cannot do yet, hes also coming home starving like hes not been fed at all. I took in the trousers with me and she too was horrified with them and ive left them there to show whoever was meant to be looking after him on monday - dont think she was in this morning.

But, the thing is that when my oh picked him up on monday evening he told me she was in the same room anyway, sitting down talking to the other children, so she would have seen him as he was running about. I dont know why but i expected her to do what she did and pretend she was shocked and didnt know anything about it, which is why i purposely didnt wash them so i could show them and she couldnt just brush it off.

I know im going to move him now. as somone said and hit the nail on the head its not the nursery i signed up to, its completely changed. There are 2 seperate rooms for different ages. For the past week or 2 the older kids room has less and less children in it, today i went past and there was just 1 little boy on his own. It used to be so noisy and full of children. They have certainly made a mistake getting rid of the more experienced staff members in. After late snack around 4ish they would all sit down on the carpet and the staff would read them stories or put on little plays with puppets winding them down for the day, he was so much calmer and happier coming home. He used to be so giggly Now you go in to collect him and the kids are all charging around with toys being hyper, which i think is part of him screaming and crying when he comes in.

Ive not wrote off nurseries completely, in fact i think i do prefer that atmosphere for him, having lots of children around his own age. I was given a list of recommended cm's in my area, the top one on the list is the same lady who lives in my st which is a good sign!

I just wondered though for the cm's or people who use them, what happens if they are sick, or their own children are sick? what would happen to my ds then?

Please could people refrain from the 'I know of one crap nursery therefore let's assume they are all crap' nonsense? People use nurseries or childminders and each will have their own preference based on their children's needs/personalities. The OP is understandably unhappy with the changes that have been made to this one, but she originally made the decision to use said nursery and everything was fine to begin with. There's nothing wrong with nurseries per se. Thank you.

That said, OP, I would not be happy with these changes either and would be seriously considering moving my child, either to another nursery or to a CM if that's now the more convenient/attractive option.

Im still looking for nurseries in my local area, most of them i did go to see last year before deciding on the 1 he's currently in.

Out of the 3 i saw this was the best one, and i say WAS, not is! Luckily ive found another council run nursery not too far away, about 10 min car journey so just waiting to hear back from them if they have any places.

I was planning on giving this nursery the benefit of the doubt and waiting until the end of feb at least, but going in today and seeing the new nursery staff, more young girls who sit there looking like a rabbit in the headlights when you ask them a question made me realise i dont want to leave him there anymore, plus everyones replies helped too, i thought i was being a bit over dramatic.