Coat gone 'missing' from pre school

[lulubells]

My daughters coat has mysteriously dissappeared from her nursery. The nursery say a parent or someone by have taken it home by accident. I'm totally WTF! I've written her name in it so fingers crossed it come back. Anyone else have any experience of this. I'm livid.

Are you trying to ascertain whether you are unreasonable to be annoyed or is it unreasonable to steal another child's coat? YANBU on both counts surely?

DD threw her scarf in the bin in the playground last year in nursery.... just for fun as a game. Then couldn't fish it out and didn't have the presence of mind to ask an adult to help. At 3pm, confession was made but bins had been long emptied so scarf was collateral damage.

So it's also worth having a good search in the playground for abandoned garments in playhouses, hanging off the fence, shoved behind some piece of equipment etc etc

Years ago I remember reading a book where children were sewn into their underwear at the start of the winter..... every so often I think their parents might have had a point.

Livid? Save your energy. If your kid was to get through nursery without something going missing it would be a genuine miracle.

DD has lost various items of uniform this year already. It's all named with special name tags (My mum insisted on it) still havent found the stuff yet. Luckily she has plenty of uniform.

The cost may be similar to another child's or even the same. So easily done.

Not quite sure who you're livid with, the Nursery staff or the parent who may have taken it home (either accidentally or deliberately).

It's most annoying when you give up hope of ever getting an item back again, buy something to replace it, have that go missing, buy another one, have that go missing, buy another one, then get to the end of term and have them all turn up at once... just as your DC has a growth spurt!

It's life, but not as we adults know it.

I think you're overreacting and overthinking it. Someone has probably taken the coat home by accident - the name is in it, it should make its way back. It's not always the same person that leaves or picks a child up from nursery, I leave my niece into nursery school, her dad or her granny sometimes picks her up, I'm not always sure what coat if any she had with her.

Lifting a coat that looks like another child's is a really easy thing to do and not a nefarious criminal mastermind out to deprive your child of its coat.

My kids (3 at primary) have been really lucky with regards to losing things. But my ever vigilant 10 year old lost her jumper last week - she put it down in the playground and it "disappeared". She looked and checked lost property a couple of times and then a few days later it miraculously appeared in her classroom on her chair. It's part and parcel of going to nursery/school.

It's normal, ds4's coat disappeared for about a week this term but did turn up again. Dd's wellies (they keep a pair at school) have also gone missing twice and then returned again some days later.

Once one of my boys had a very distinctive stripey coat, it vanished and a bit later I saw a kid wearing it... At one point child took the coat off as they were playing, I walked over picked it up and yes it was our one as I label everything. Love sharpie marker pens. Just as I was picking coat up parent said that's my son's, I showed her the written in name.. No its ours. She muttered something a out a mix up.

A lot of the time things are lost in cloakroom chaos, kids take the wrong stuff home etc, my own kids have done it. If I can I will get a message to the rightful owner or I wash it and put it back on their peg the next day.

I do remain amazed at the amount of people who don't label stuff, our school has piles of stuff not labelled. They put it out in boxes for parents to look through and even lay it out on tables etc. Then they give a warning that anything not claimed by end of the school year will be donated to charity.

I can understand confusion about identical uniforms, but otherwise it sounds like buying cheap crap for pre-school is the only solution unfortunately.

I would be fuming too OP.

Dd came out of class one day looking as though she'd suddenly shrunk. Her coat was down to her knees and her hands didn't reach the end of her sleeves.

She'd put her coat down on the playground fence next to an identical one belonging to another child. Presumably that child's parents must have wondered how she'd managed to outgrow her coat in a single day.

The other child had already left so they swapped back the following day.

Buy a really distinctive coat, turn the coat inside, use a laundry pen and write her name on the arms.

If another kid turns up wearing it, you can turn it inside out to prove if it is your DD's. It worked for another poster on here when another kid turned up at sports day in her DD's distinctive coat and she turned it inside out and watched the mother, who was charging towards her to grab the coat, suddenly fade away as words relating to theft were mentioned.

It happens it's a pain in the arse though. Just ask nursery to mention it to the parents or send an email. Dd's rainbows do this if girls go home with the wrong thing. Have a nursery coat and a home coat. The nursery coat doesn't have to be expensive, pop into a charity shop and see if they have one. Dd's school coat was £2.50 and has lasted really well, it means she has a nice one for home that won't get lost.

Dd's friends had the same coat they picked up the wrong coat discovered that the gloves in the pocket were my theirs so just swapped the gloves with each other rather than the coats.

As everyone has said this kind of thing is normal. So far this year my son has lost his PE shoes (which turned up after a month) and his tie, which is still missing. We have also had other kids clothes end up in our house. Calm down and hopefully it will turn up soon.

I put names inside the sleeves too suspicious, me?

That works. I also bought a bright Boden jacket on ebay for dd so she could recognise it in the cloakroom and I could spot her in playgrounds.

The time to be livid is when you discover your DC's classmate wearing the treasured item with his/her nametape sewn over the top of your DC's one. and you will thank yourself for the second nametape sewn secretly into the sideseam which they didn't spot

Oh dear, annoying yes but 'livid' and 'fuming' - really??

School is going to raise your stress levels through the roof then. If you've been used to private nursery where staff would take the time to search for things, put out emails etc to find stuff, then pre school and school comes as a bit of a shock as it's pretty much a free for all.

You really just need to label things and hope for the best. If stuff disappears keep checking lost property and maybe try to get mobile numbers of parents in your child's group so you can send a text out if no luck with lost property.

Second what everyone else is saying. It happens all the time. Guarantee that it will have been lifted by a Gran/Aunt/Dad whatever who didn't drop off and wasn't really sure what their child had on.

Standard. Happens all the time. Have a hunt at pre-school. In my experience, it tends to have been put in another group's area. DD's very clearly labelled with sewn on name tags because I'm overly cautious about these things wellies were discovered (by her) in the purple Crickets box instead of the Orange Crickets box! (names of insects have been changed to protect the innocent).

It'll turn up OP, plenty more important things to get upset over.

It happens all the time, but more in the early years, than later. Or maybe I just got more determined about labelling everything - if the child can take it off, then I label it. Sewing labels in seems to help, rather than writing a name.

Some parents will return things and a few will not. Either they are too lazy or your child's things are better quality.

To be fair, its mostly not malicious. Coats often look similar. You might be picking up your grandchild and all you know is that they have a pink coat with a hood, so if it fits and the child doesn't volunteer it's not theirs, then you might not check more fully. That's why labels need to be unmissable - not tucked away on a seem.

cocktail ditto I write inside the collar, inside the cuffs and at the bottom hem inside the clothes. Basically I write in about three places on each item. I do write on the tag as well but they can be cut out so... I just put kids surname as it's double barrel and we hand stuff down.

DS once lost a tuba.

I think we peaked that day.

I had this with a pair of shoes at pre-school.
DS's shoes were quite new and the pair he came home in was exactly the same shoe but well worn and one size SMALLER.
I hassled the pre-school about it as at 4yrs, I don't expect kids to be responsible for looking after their belongings as you would an older child.
The manager sent out a text to all the parents but after 2 weeks, I bought him another pair of shoes and the pre-school refunded me the full cost.
The school was in a naice area and there were only 8 boys in that session. The shoes had his name written inside and two smiley faces on the outside that face each other when the shoes are on the correct foot (to help DS get them on the right way round).

Fair enough stuff goes missing at school, but I think it's reasonable to expect staff at nursery and pre-school to have more responsibility for these things.

It happens. This week DS came back with someone else's coat. We said it was 'on a sleepover' and it was returned the following day.