AIBU to expect nursery to get on with it?

[Adelina15]

DD, age 2.5 attends a full time day nursery. Last week we were on holiday in U.S., came home on Sunday. On Monday we slept in (probably jetlagged, exhausted aftrr the travelling etc) and we didnt get DD dropped off until 11.40am. Staff asked if she needed a lunch- yes- it was 11.40am- presumed lunch was at least after 12.

On collecting her staff 'had a word' about phoning in if she was going to be late so they could keep her a lunch. Explained that we had slept in but I would endevour to do this in future. Again when I dropped her off this morning the manager reinforced that we should phone if late, but then threw in about the days she visits her grandparents.

Once every 6-8 weeks DD spends a day with her grandparents. Nursery are always told 2-3 days in advance that DD will be having a day off. This has never been an issue.

AIBU to think I pay enough for her nursery place, which is over the odds locally, to not listen crap like that? Shes been going for 2 years without issue. AIBU to be pissed off?

Should they have set her a place at the table and took the food out along with the others just in case she turned up mid meal?

Willow they should make the lunch because it's paid for , the time to prepare the lunch is paid for.
It's irrelevant if the child is there to eat it.

Look at their policies. At my dd's nursery, yes, you needed to phone in if you were late. Like 15 minutes late to drop off, no big deal, but later than that yes. They sometimes went for walks and if you had arrived and no one was there, there would have been no way to get in touch with them, or they might have just had to cancel the walk for the morning to wait around for you. It's common courtesy. For the record, we were in the U.S. over the summer, we still managed to get up and get going to work and nursery the next morning.

As for days off, ours requests to know about days off before the start of the month. Obviously, if it's something last minute, you can't plan for it. But if you know it happens every few weeks, just plan in advance and tell them. They won't want to have staff just sitting around if they aren't needed so it helps them to plan their staffing, supplies, meals, etc.

If nursery built in a discount for absent days into their fees there'd be an incentive to give them notice. As I'm paying full price anyway, I don't worry too much about giving advance notice, I'll just mention it the week before
^ this^
I’m a childminder, I am not bothered if parents give me 6 months notice they are going on holiday or phone me in the morning to say they aren’t coming in today. They pay for the place and I wouldn’t resell it to someone else as that would be highly unethical (charging twice for the same place). So the ops nursery moaning about her going to grandparents and not giving notice is more about the nursery trying to make a quick buck tbh, if the grandparents fall through and op needs the place, if she is paying she should still be able to use the place-however much notice she has given.

It is good manners to let me know though, a quick phone call or text in the morning so I’m not waiting about for a child or in this example, before going away mentioning that the flight times home mean that we probably will be late in on the first day back, but they would still be needing the place.
If a family don’t turn up, I tend to give them an hour and then phone to check all is ok. I’m surprised this isn’t common in nurseries to be honest. All the schools we’ve used have had a policy that if you haven’t made contact by 9.30they will phone you to check what’s going on.

🙄

Yes you should have called the nursery to let them know your child would be late but would require a meal. Get used to it now because once they reach school age school expect to be informed of lateness or absence before 8.40am every day the child is either late or absent. If the child is not registered in school by 9.20am they assume the child will not be needing a meal if a phone call s not recieve. It's basic good manners and essential to running a nursery or school which have many more children to care for than just your child.

Well I think you should probably have let them know that you were going to be late, due to issues with lunch etc., and also so they knew what was happening with your DD. Most nurseries seem to have lunch quite early, so if you arrived 11.40 they were probably already getting the lunches ready, or serving them.

That said, it was obviously a one-off, you have said you will contact them in future, so there was no need for them to keep going on about it. I don't agree with pp who said you were lucky they took her, you have paid for the place, but it would have been a courtesy to let them know what was happening.

As for the days off to see grandparents thing, YANBU, I don't understand what their problem is with that. You have been letting them know in advance and you pay for those days anyway. Like a pp said, it is probably to do with their staffing levels but that's not really your problem.

I meant a month!!!