Nursery staff smoking

[Badgergirl123]

Went to see an otherwise nice nursery for DD who will be a year old when she starts. On way in and way out we saw two different nursery nurses smoking as they left the building for a break. Put me right off (I'm an ex-smoker, I know we're the most judgy!) DH doesn't think it's a big deal but it bothers me that they'll be staff who smell of smoke and also that they weren't even being discreet about it.

AIBU?

My fil smokes, when my mil comes round she makes my boys smell horrible with cuddling them, her clothes reek as he smokes in the house. This would defo put me off the nursery.

Placemats

How dare she! She should be discreet about it!

The thing is your little one could start nursery where none of the workers smoke, but staff could leave and new staff could potentially be smokers.

I would expect most early years settings to have a policy on smoking which is available, along with other policies, to prospective parents.

health visitors can mark down in the red book that babies are at risk of second and third hand smoke by a parent that smokes outside

Do they though? They didn't write anything smoke in mine even though DP is a smoker.

It would bother me a bit, but then I'm not so hot on second hand smoke etc that I would tell my friend she couldn't be close to my kid after a cigarette or anything like that.

I don't think it's great, and I'm a smoker, though for this reason I don't smoke once I've had a shower until I finish work. I'm a mental health nurse and I think I need to act as a role model, at least during working hours.

Yabu.

compared to all the other pollution, pollen and toxins around.

but on MN (and smoking threads in particular), not being an overly anxious paranoid helicopter parent means I don't care about my children's health as much as everyone else. oh well.

I used to be a teacher. We were not allowed to smoke anywhere on site, break time or not. Smoking on site by any of the staff would put me off that nursery.

Yabu.
compared to all the other pollution, pollen and toxins around

Yes, there is lots of crappy pollution, allergy triggers and all sorts of stuff that can have a negative impact on your health. Lots of them are pretty unavoidable, but it is becoming increasingly possible to avoid cigarette smoke, surely this is a good thing.

In lots of workplaces (not just working with children) there are policies around smoking in order to minimise the impact on others.

I don't get why it is 'paranoid 'helicopter parenting'.

I'd really hate to be cared by someone who stank of smoke. It's not like anyone actually needs to smoke.

I’m in two minds about this. Firstly smoking is legal and unlikely to be banned as the tax take from it is too high. Although it is getting harder to be a smoker as the price of cigarettes keeps going up and smoking is banned in more places. I would be worried about the links to SIDS if I was to put a very small baby in a nursery though. I’d ask what the policy on smoking is and if the smokers were kept away from the very small babies. Also if the smokers were expected to cover/change out of their uniforms while smoking and wash their hands and brush their teeth after smoking.

As other people have said, you may visit other nurseries and not see staff smoking, doesn’t mean they aren’t, you just haven’t seen them.

1 in 5 of the population smoke or vape, so it’s hard to avoid it.