AIBU to think my twins shouldn’t have been kicked out of nursery?

[Twinningmum]

I feel a bit crap. I have twin boys who have just turned 2, they have significant speech delay and had a hard time when they were born in SCBU.

One of my boys is also physically delayed, he’s still at the cruising stage. Well on the advice of other people I wanted to put them in nursery for a couple hours on Fridays so they could socialise with older kids and maybe that would help with their speech. The nursery agreed that this was a good idea and that they help kids with speech issues all the time.

I told the nursery manager/owner of my twins delays, she said that was fine, that they should be able to be able to handle it.

Today was the first day and I thought it couldn’t be that bad, it would only be from 12:30-3:30. I told her to call me if she couldn’t handle it, that I would come to pick them up early.

When I went to pick them up, she said they were too much work. She said they were so delayed and gave them an age range of 8-20 months. We had moved so things were not on the ball with the health visitor. I told her I tried to get an earlier health visitor appointment, but I wasn’t given one so they haven’t had their 2 year assessment. We paid for a private speech therapist. Our gp agreed they should see a paed, but the receptionists at the paed office said we would need to wait for approval(don’t even understand this because we had a gp referral??) and then we were told it was an 18 week wait after we were approved which took another 3 weeks. The whole thing makes me feel like shit. I honestly wouldn’t have even signed them up for nursery if I wasn’t just trying to help their speech.

Still, I had a feeling that this would happen. I don’t know why the nursery manager said she would take them after I explained their issues to her multiple times. Anyways, now they’ve been kicked out, I don’t think any of this has been fair at all and it has made me feel horrible.

It's called an informal exclusion and if you were so inclined a call to ofsted might set the manager straight. But, she's done you a favour, if the staff are the same as her, go elsewhere.

It happened to us too. They were calling me after 1.5 hrs of a 3 hr session for me to pick up. (DD did 2 a week at 2. Plus we were paying.) She had to go for her speech plus was being assessed for ASC and peads were keen on her going. She was asessed at 8-16 months for some things too.

Staff were lovely but after 6 months I was so close to pulling her out. I mentioned the informal exclusion and also whether a refund for missed hours would be available. They stepped up, SENCo was involved from month 4 so that helped. They were always very caring which is why I stuck with them, maybe too caring in that they were trying to cuddle her to calm her down which doesn't help in some meltdown situations.

See how it goes, OP and it will get better.

I am so sorry OP this should have been handled much more sensitively

I cant imagine how devastating this feels. . Dont give up, it just wasnt the right place for them which doesnt mean that they wont find the suitable environment for them.
Given that you explained their delays they should have ensured that they were capable of taking the boys on.

The only way I can in any way compare this to my life in my case I was entirely negligent and at fault was when my dd was young and occasionally wet the bed at night. We only had a shower, no bath, so normally dry or not, I would stand her up in the kitchen sink and rinse/sponge her down from the waist.

Except this one morning, she seemed dry so I just dressed her. Got myself ready, dropped her off at the childminders and got myself to work.
That evening the lovely lady who ran the childcare asked to talk to me and told me that they could smell wee from her. I guarantee you, if the ground could have swallowed me It would not have been soon enough. I called my Dad that night and he came over but the point I'm trying to make is that anything about your children will absolutely knock you out if you don't stand back up.
But that place is not the place where you stand back up.
I'm so sorry that you had to hear that. Genuinely. It would break my heart.

You can stand back up!

There's an amazing saying which I believe is of Japanese origin.

Fall down 7 times. Stand up 8.

It's that simple honey. Just stand up again.

Op try private day care that has a nursery. You will find more flexibility

Please don't think all Nurseries are like this.

My DD has a Global Developmental Delay between 6 and 8 months. She also has a physical delay of 12 months. Didn't walk until a few weeks before turning 2 and now at age 3 really struggles. She can't jump, waddles a lot with walking and is constantly falling over.

She's been at her Nursery since 14 months old and they regularly go above and beyond to help her. They do her SALT exercises, they also do her physio and have recently taking her swimming to a private hyropool to help with her muscle strength. She's stayed in rooms a bit longer than normal but has always been accommodated - she is now at the preschool with her correct age group but they still accomdate her and change activities to suit her, a few weeks ago she had an operation and couldn't get her hair or ears wet so instead changed the entire rooms water play activity to something different so she wasn't left out and didn't get ill from spillages.

I'm going to be so sad when she leaves next year as they really are the best Nursery.

Sounds like they have done you a favour and given you an escape from an awful nursrery. View a few with your twins, one or two will stand out as really being right for them