AIBU to think the nursery staff not good?

[SunnyG0507]

My son is 22 months now and has been this nursery since he was one. It’s a big nursery with good reviews online, so lots of kids and we completely understand the staff are very busy and not able to keep an eye on him all the time. So when he got the food allergy occurred on his 3rd day at the nursery but nobody noticed it nor thought it was seriously bad until we picked up him( although we have emphased on his health condition from the very first day and provided Priton just in case.. in the end we had to go to A & E that day), and when he got hurt on his face but no one noticed it nor knew what happened until we picked up him, etc., we tried to think they were just some unexpected accidents and wouldn’t happen again. We thought perhaps our little boy just needed some time to settle in and learned to be more independent.

However, I’m feeling more and more unhappy with the nursery staff recently. My son was moved to the toddler room at 20 months - the kids are usually staying in the baby room until 2 years old but the staff said he was “ready” to move room. Not sure whether they just need more places in the baby room as we noticed a sudden increasing number of the new babies, but we just chose to believe the staff and let him move to the toddler room, staying with kids ~ 2-3 years old. In the recent two months after moving room, my son had dirty clothes every day because the toddlers are not provided with any bibs during lunch/snack time anymore and they use the normal cups not their own ones(e.g straw cups) to drink water. We are still trying to train him for these, so being messy is acceptable and we do prepare extra clothes every day for him. However, the staff just simply took off his dirty jumper and trousers but not put on the clean ones properly, which is quite often. For example, one day when I came earlier a bit I saw they were all sitting in the dinning area. My son was only wearing a thin long sleeve T shirt and shoes, with no jumper nor trousers on at all, when all the other bigger kids were all well dressed and eating their snacks. His dirty cloths were just on the next table but no one get the clean ones for him. The staff didn't expect we were so early and explained he just took off the clothes because they were dirty. Or like today , a really windy and cold day. When picking up him, I noticed he was only wearing a thin T shirt inside his coat when playing in the garden for don’t know how long and again with no jumper on inside the coat, clean or dirty. His hands and face was extremely cold. Again, nobody noticed that he didn’t wear cloth properly and it took a long time for the staff to actually find out where his jumper was. How hard it could be to put on a clean jumper for him after taking off the dirty one? I don’t know, but the only thing I could do was asking politely the nursery staff again and again like every other morning to put on the clean clothes for him as we do prepare for this changing. The staff always said yes, happy or not, but just kept forgetting.

My son was apparently uncomfortable this evening and I felt really guilty and still wanted to cry now. AIBU to think the nursery staff is really not good and want to change to another nursery? Or is it just normal that all the nursery staff are like this?

What's your son's allergy? I'm just thinking what's so bad for A&E yet treatable with piraton

To me OP, you sound like a fusspot. Moving up a room a but early is fine. My DD was moved up early because she was ready and tbh a bit rough with the smaller ones.

The indoor lack of clothes isn't an issue. Nurseries are warm places and your child will be running around getting hot.

The outdoor clothes isn't a major issue if at all either. Its hardly been freezing weather and a t-shirt and coat for a busy 2 year old is fine IMO. They will let you know if they're cold by their mood. If your child is playing happily then they're fine.

It sounds worlds apart from either Nursery we have used. I’d move him.

Find a new nursery. The first nursery I put my son in at 8 months, I had similar concerns and he was always unhappy there. Moved him at 12 months and it's the best thing I did. Trust your instincts. The staff at his current nursery actually seem to like children, whereas at his previous nursery they just seemed like they were doing a job.

It still makes me upset to think about how unhappy he was at the first nursery and how they treated him when he was only a baby. Things like coming to collect him and he was soaking wet and freezing cold from had to toe and no one knew why. They kept trying to move him on to more solid food at 8 months and kept saying he was behind with his eating because he needed his food blended still!! Didn't use a bib for him the whole time he was there so his clothes would be caked in food, but they wouldn't even bother changing him. I came to collect him early once and he was screaming on the floor looking up at one of the nursery girls with his arms outstretched...I carried on peering through the door for 30 seconds and she didn't turn round to pick him up or even acknowledge he was crying. When I came in she went bright red, picked him up and started cooing at him... And then told me he had just started crying. What made me decide to take him out was when I discovered that his key worker was only in the room on 1 of his 3 nursery days?!! So as a small baby on 2 of those days he had no key worker looking out for him. The thought of that still makes me want to cry even thinking about it.

I never regretted the decision - not all nurseries are like that OP.

I agree with above post from nursery manager.

Your child deserves to be well cared and look after properly. Good luck.

To me OP, you sound like a fusspot

You are NOT a fusspot for caring about your child OP.

Nor should he be freezing cold or his allergies not taken seriously.

Dd is in nursery and honestly feel shes treated as shes the most important child there. One of my friends has ds there and feels the same. Ive hidden around the corner in the corridor and wat hed how their treated dd and the other children and each child is treated as special and unique. Thats a good nursery. Yours doesnt sound it. Move him

We had a similar experience with DD’s first nursery OP. First impressions were great, but as time went on cracks started to show.. lack of clothing changes, absent key worker, moving rooms too early. On one or two occasions when we were early picking her up, we noticed that she wasn’t being included in group activities and when we asked why their reason was because she didn’t want to it was probably because she was unable (just turned 2 in a room with 3-4 year olds). The final straw came when 3 days in a row they’d failed to notice that she’d had a poo and by the time we picked her up it had all dried and stuck to her and her skin was raw. We complained to the manager and were allowed to leave without giving the usual 4 week notice.

Like a PP has said, it make me want to cry knowing we left her there for as long as we did. She was clearly so unhappy. But moving her was the best thing we ever did and she’s now thriving and such a happy child

Get him out. Hope you find a nicer one, some are better than others OP.

To me OP, you sound like a fusspot.

I don't think so, it's way below the standard I'd be happy with. I'd have taken my child out of here the day I took them to A&E.

Move him. I took my son from his nursery after a couple of weeks when a chain of events occurred that were simply not good enough.

He had no key worker assigned , staff wouldn't take my son from me to help him settle in the morning (they were sitting chatting) and there was one big reason that might be outting as it's so specific. They put his health in danger though.

Trust yourself and find a new setting.

Good luck.

A childminder will only have 3 young children under school age in the day, and may have another 3 under 8s before and after school.

Move him.

When looking for a nursery for my DS we found one that would let us not pay over school holidays (I was a teacher at the time.) I took him for his first two hour trial, left him there and when I went back, no one greeted me at the door, so I walked straight in, passed two members of staff sitting at a table with two little girls painting and over to my son who was crying by himself on the floor. I sat down with him, tried to get him to play with the toys in front of him and only then did the student, not even a staff member, came over and said he'd been fine. No one told me what he'd done for those two hours or what he had eaten.

I picked him up, walked out, no one said a word.

He was due back the following Monday but it didn't feel right - I was a nursery teacher and it just wasn't right, but I didn't want to be that parent so made DP come with me on the Monday in case it was just me being a bit PFB. We dropped him off, then came to pick him up half an hour early to see how they treated him when they weren't expecting anyone.

We gained access to the site again without anyone noticing, and watched in at the window. DS was sitting wedged between the sink and a chair, red in the face, shattered and screaming. On the other side of the table was a woman sitting with two little girls, painting, looking mightily pissed off, and I saw her roll her eyes and say to him "it's not that bad!" and continue to ignore him.

Honestly, I have never seen DP so angry. There's no need to treatany child like that, let alone a little one just settling in. We removed him and never went back and I sent a very strongly worded email to head office (it was a chain.)

DS has been going to a little nursery on a working farm for over a year now and while it might be rough and ready, the staff love those children and it is a joy to see. Find another nursery OP.

Thanks all! I've decided to move him and hopefully I can find a place soon. Just been informed by one nursery this mornings that they are full and can only be put on the waiting list.

Saturdaynightgin, we got the same bad experience here. I can hardly see/talk to DS's key worker when drop off and pick up, though some other staff will say a bit daily routine info to me. There was once when I was there to pick up him, I found he was the only one sitting in the corner, playing some blocks by his own with eyes full of tears, while many other older kids( but they were in the same room) were sitting in a circle far away from him, doing nothing together with one staff. I was not sure what happened there, like was he being punished to have a cooling time?! and then I was told he just didn't want to sit together after 20 mins story telling ( though there was no book on the staff's hand at the moment) and just wanted to play the blocks by his own. How could someone keep a 22 months kid sitting there for 20mins doing nothing, or even just listening to stories?He was still not quite able to fully speak a sentence! Felt so bad that day.

I may be over concerned to some people, but my concerns build up from many things from the last 10 months. The nursery does have a good operational business, like you can find this ads everywhere and they encouraged the parents to write good reviews online for them, so the parents with the best reviews chosen could win £100! Many good reviews appeared online during that time and increased its score on some websites. However considering what we had there, I just couldn't write anything good enough for that £100.

You describe this as a "big nursery". I'm sorry, it doesn't sound like it to me. I didn't think the nursery we used was especially big, but it had a baby room, a 1-2s room, 2-3s and the preschool room. What that meant was, the baby room was pretty much for non-walkers. 1-2s was young toddlers in need of definite naps and lots of help. 2-3s were getting more independent. Smaller nurseries might not have 4 separate areas, but what you are describing sounds totally unrealistic.

I liked our nursery but hadn't felt comfortable about the baby room for some reason, so went with a childminder at first for my youngest (as we'd already experienced with the older one). He went to a mix of childminder and nursery as a young toddler.

Good luck sorting out a better provision for your child!

If definitely look into a child minder. She will have a small group of children and you can talk to her about his needs much more easily. Plus he has continuity with the same carer each day.

Sounds like all style over substance, unfortunately this happenes a lots
Have a look at the onese which maybe are that great looking, my experience is that they invest more money in the staff rather than buildings

Also leave your own review once he’s left