About expectations of nursery for a baby

[Saladeeta]

DD has been at nursery for a month now.

Its a lovely charity run nursery.

My elder dd didn't go to nursery till 2.5 so maybe I'm just not used to it. We've moved areas so couldn't use the old nursery. I am hugely respectful of the wonderful job early years professionals do- I'm just not sure if my expectations are wrong for nursery for a baby this age (11 months).

I often got there and despite the weather she's been changed but not had a vest put on, despite spares.
She's come home with quite bad nappy rash, next day they tell me to bring more cream but it turns out they've misplaced it and then not using any despite the soreness.
Key worker often not in the room as covers other parts of the nursery, looks bewildered when I looked concerned.
Different staff members in the room most days, noone gets up to take my baby, even someone does come up,they don't introduce themselves.
I arrive to find her outside in the garden at half five with a streaming cold without her waterproof suit thingy she's got, bottom and legs wet.
Staff pranking each other, laughing about how toys were put in their cars with vodka bottles. This is on site, in front of parents during work hours.
They have put DD to sleep in the bouncer for naps despite me repeatedly asking them not to.
Dirty milk bottles left about over night.
Filthy and I mean filthy bumbo seats uncleaned.
They haven't listened to me about how she eats, IE picking up little bits off the tray at a time and keep telling me how she's a fussy eater and won't eat anything. She's not fussy at home remotely.

Do I need to get a grip?

OP - don't let them make you question your decision or feel guilty. You're her mother, you know best. How dare they try to tell you what is the best fit for you and your daughter - you know better than they do what you both need. They're just trying to get you to stay because they're worried you'll make a complaint and cause a fuss for them, and they want your money.

When we moved DD from the awful nursery, there was an interim period of a few weeks before the new nursery place came up. We put her with a CM - I posted here about it at the time, as like you, my instincts were just telling me she wasn't that great. When I gave her notice and said we were moving to the nursery we got all the same treatment as you're getting - lots of excuses and claims that I wasn't acting in DD's best interest, the new nursery wouldn't be right for her, etc etc. It really upset me but DH was much more level headed about it and just saw it as further confirmation we were doing the right thing. So are you. DD is so so so happy in her new nursery and I haven't regretted moving her for a second - I'm sure your DD will be the same

OP, so glad you are getting your baby out of there. And don't forget to get in touch with Ofstead for the sake of all the other children with less observant parents.

Diarrhoea might be because she is not getting enough to drink and the stool is getting compacted and then suddenly coming out with relatively undigested food on top in the form of diarrhoea, which sometimes happens, I think.

Glad you are able to switch nurseries, OP, and please do consider a formal complaint to OFSTED to make sure the other children are properly cared for as well.

Personally speaking I think nurseries should be inspected annually, in a completely different way from schools.

So glad you're moving her OP.

I moved DD from her first nursery as I wasn't happy and I reported them to ofsted. I wish I'd done it far sooner though. I couldn't believe the difference when I moved her. first nursery had a TV that seemed to be on ALL DAY. She often came home in wet nappies and staff didn't seem that interested. I kept kidding myself everything was OK until the day I turned up an hour or so earlier than usual to pick her up walked into her room and there were no children there. I checked the garden assuming her gropu were outside - no children. Started hunting other rooms and when I opened the door to pre-school found at least 40 children in there with one member of staff reading a book. Suffice to say it was absolutely bl**dy cahos. I grabbed DD, stormed into the staff room and read the riot act to the staff who were all sitting about drinking tea. They tried to tell me they were all on a scheduled break.

DD never went back and I phoned ofsted the same day and found her a new nursery place 3 weeks later.

8 years later and my DS (3) is now in another nursery. Apart from some problems when he changed room which have now been ironed out he's been so happy All the staff know him by name - even the kitchen staff. He obviously likes the staff - there are plenty of hugs even from the staff who don't work in his room. Its clean, it smells nice, he always comes home clean though he's pretty well potty trained now. He had moderate speech delay and the nursery were brilliant at helping him and working with the speech therapist - now he chats away all day long :)

Knowing what a good nursery is like I now look back on DD's first place and feel appalled with myself for sedning her there for as long as I did.

I hope your dd is very happy in her new nursery.

I found, back in the day, when my dd used nursery, that everyone spoke highly of their child's nursery, including myself, of course. But as my nursery was very expensive I took off to look at the other nurseries that had been recommended to me, god they were vile.

Is it some self-preservation mechanism us mothers have, wanting to believe the best of the place where we leave our little ones?

Fortunately there seems to be a lot more government supervision going nowadays.