To complain about DS nursery key worker

[Thegracefuloctopus]

DS is 13 months and has been in nursery since he was 9 months. The 1st nursery he was in we pulled him out of after 3 weeks because the nursery was too big and for a number of reasons, we weren't happy with it.
We moved him to a small nursery that has 6 members of staff accross two rooms.
We have loved this nursery so so much and really got on with it. However, recently we have found one particular member of staff is slacking massively and its creating a bit of tension.
This week the manager has been off and these things have escolated.
We have an online system where they keep track of what DS has done that day. DS has a key worked who we shall call A. He is the staff member we have noticed a difference in.
Whenever A uploads details onto DS file, it's not specific. Such as I find it unlikely that DS has gone to sleep at 12.23 every day, which makes me question what of the information is true.
We have also noticed a drop in the updates of what DS is doing in his day. We used to get "DS has been making prints today with brocoli, making them into trees". We now get nothing.
This week dh got there to find DS in soaking wet clothes in the garden, no coat on (despite me sending him with one) and eating mud. There were 10 children of varying ages in the garden and A was the only member of staff. Another was cleaning inside the nursery.
I did drop off and handed DS over with a large lack of conversation, just "what time did he get up" and then walking off.
Yesterday, DH picked DS up to be told "we've put him in some socks we found, we don't know if they are his but he took his off and we couldn't find his" I had noticed the pair of socks that morning drying on the drying rack. DS has now come home in them and they arnt his. There are spare socks in DS bag and I found the socks I sent him in that day in his bag too. AIBU to think you shouldn't put a child in a pair of dirty socks from another child, full well knowing they don't belong to the child you're giving them to?
We have also noticed A speaking to the children in a snappy way, such as "I'm not picking you up" despite the child crying with his arms up. Child in question is not much older than DS.
So, WIBU to mention it to the manager and ask why standards have slipped recently, especially with this staff member. and really question the socks thing.

@Marshmallow91 - yeah me too! If you're looking for childcare maybe find a childminder. I don't think OP is unreasonable at all?! Those sound like very sloppy standards to me

Hi op I wouldn't be happy about this atall, definitely speak to the manager. I would present the incidents just as they were rather than mentioning that particular key worker.

Please consider a childminder. Your baby will get far more attention, in a home from home setting. My son absolutely adored his and I felt so much happier knowing it was just him and a few others at her house.

This is why we pulled our Daugher out of nursery after a two hour visit. It isn’t like the care you give at home, it can’t be. There will be times they don’t get a cuddle, feel anxious, want their mum, are safe but overlooked. Some people can cope with that, some (like me) can’t. I suspect you are more like me, and nursery is not the place for you or your child.

We got a nanny. Is this an option? It only starts to work financially when you have two but if you get the right one it’s an absolute dream. We has the most wonderful nanny who became part of our family and my kids loved her and thrived in her care. If that’s out of the question I’d consider a childminder. Nurseries are not, and can not, give the level of care and scrutiny you want. I wouldn’t be happy either.

The sock thing is the least of your issues. DS came home in someone else's socks today. He'd taken his off and put them in his mouth (he does this at home too), the was a spare pair in his bag but they were right in the bottom, they'd changed his clothes after lunch and missed them. Last week he had a set of clothes in a nappy bag in his backpack because he got wet in the garden, no problem. My concerns would be the lack of updates, the seemingly falsified records and the attitude of the staff member to the children in particular.

Today in the baby room there were four under 18 months and three staff, I'm more than happy with the care he gets generally, when he'd had a bad night's sleep a few weeks ago his key worker rocked him to sleep in her arms and then stroked his hair to keep him settled so he could catch up on some rest while the others joined the older room for story time. Not all nurseries are bad.

I don't understand all the posters saying the OP is being unreasonable. Nurseries are charting between £60-£90 a day to provide a good service. It is also the most important service you will ever pay for.
They are taking care of babies and toddlers that are completely and utterly vulnerable.

My baby went to a childminder from 13 months. She had 6 children in her care and worked with an assistant. I have never once turned up and him appear inadequately cared for. If he is wet she changes his clothes, he comes home in his own clothes. Maybe once in the 2.5 years has he had the wrong trousers on where she went into the wrong bag.
I get between 30-60 photos every week plus a written diary of what he has done that day, every day!!
I have a great relationship with my childminder and am always understanding if she is ill (very rare) or makes a mistake with something (forgetting to send home his hat etc) but absolutely wouldn't settle for anything less in terms of his care!!
A 1 to 10 ratio is disgraceful for a 13 month old, anything could happen and why should a baby be left eating mud or soaking wet?

@GleamInYourEyes
Not picking up an under-2 who wants a cuddle isn't appropriate
Since you have no idea of the circumstances, you can't know that. Some children want to carried all the time and that just isn't appropriate on a 1:3 ratio where other children need care too. Plus think of the poor staffs' backs!

Staff shouldn't be in a nursery setting if they aren't willing to look after little ones, even when they're clingy. In particular they should go on training to learn how to lift correctly if backs are an issue. You won't wean a child off being picked up by shouting at them, you will just damage their self esteem. What you need to do is crouch down and say "we'll just have a cuddle right now and I'll pick you up after snack", or "X wants a cuddle too, would you two like to cuddle each other? Let me show you how...", or "I need to carry this over there, I can't cuddle you but you can hold my hand", in an extreme case "I'm sorry but we have to wait until Y comes back for the other children, I'm looking forward to our cuddle then. Now can you show me how you climb the slide / draw me a picture / help Z with the duplo?". By the way, anybody can cuddle 3 little kids at once with no training at all, they just need to sit in the soft area of the room to let the kids climb on; I've easily picked up DN along with DS when they both needed a cuddle and had 2 of DS's little friends climb on me with him for a story. The child is upset or feeling vulnerable to want a cuddle, they are too young to control emotions on their own. There are so many options that don't involve snapping at a child, it's unnecessary.

Clown but nursery care can provide the things you're talking about. My DD is in nursery and we get detailed info at handover, an app that has all those details on it anyway, observations get uploaded to the app too. She gets excellent care, is very happy there and has strong bonds with a few of the staff (she cried the other day when her keyworker left the room to collect her own child from another room of the nursery!). Lots of the staff in my nursery have their own children in the nursery in other rooms. Occasionally she will come home with other children's clothes or hers will go with someone else but that's partly because they do quite a lot of outfit changing as they do quite a lot of messy play type activities and encourage self-feeding. It's quite a large nursery and I'm not surprised clothes get mixed up especially as it's mostly clothes that don't have names written in them. I don't worry about that at all because I want the practitioners to focus on providing excellent care not wasting time emptying out children's backpacks to make sure they wear their own socks when a child like mine will be crying the whole time they're getting changed (she does with us and anyone else who changes her) so their focus is to do it as fast as possible to minimise distress. Which is as it should be. It's not true that nursery care is somehow always substandard and childminders always better. There are good and bad of both! And then nursery has the added advantage that it will never let you down for illness or any other reason. So that's why I chose excellent nursery care over excellent childminder care. But there is excellency in both, it depends on the setting.

And I agree with MRex. The staff in the baby room at our DD's nursery are frequently cuddling multiple children at once or walking around holding sleeping babies because if they put them down they will wake etc. DD took a few months to settle into the nap routine there in a cot etc so she would be rocked and cuddled to sleep in the rocking chair and held the whole duration of a nap gently moving to being out down asleep to them being patted to sleep etc. Theres no reason why a good nursery with appropriate staffing levels can't provide care like that. It's not true that all nurseries do not.

You sound like VERY hard work.

No, she doesn't. Her son is 13 months old, so is unable to speak up if he is not being well treated. It's therefore really important to be able to trust the people who are taking care of him.

OP: I think you need to have a conversation with the nursery manager, but I would also be looking at other options. One staff member for ten children (including children your son's age) is concerning.

I don't know if you're being u reasonable but I wouldn't like the online system. How much time would they spend updating that when they could be interacting with the children ?

They are over ratio and really shouldn't be open if they can't bring in bank staff to cover absences.

I also think that they sound really short staffed. Personally, I wouldn’t be too worried about the socks or the updating of the online records, but if they are saying they will update parents via the online system, then really i guess it should be correct. I’m a cm and don’t do a daily diary for this reason. I don’t have time and would rather spend my time with the children rather than on paperwork for the parents, especially if they aren’t filling it in accurately. I can believe that a child would be asleep at pretty much the same time each day though. In my setting, one baby goes down every day at 12.45, he needs a 2 hour nap, I go to school at 3, so that the time he goes to bed. Every day, straight after lunch, nappy, story and singing. We have it down to a fine art.

He should have had a coat on if playing outside and it was cold and there should have been more than 1 member of staff if there were 10 children out there.

Unfortunately, you don’t know the reason the otherchild was crying. It might be that he is used to being carried around all the time at home and this is unsustainable for the majority of settings. Despite the pp above saying that it is possible to cuddle more than one child at a time, it can be a really hard lesson for a child to learn that they have to go down sometimes. Childcare workers are only human and although it’s not great, the snapping that you heard might have been at the end of a long, hard day, where the setting was understaffed, several grumpy baby’s and staff feeling very undervalued, under appreciated and over whelmed with everything they had to do.

Please speak to the nursery though. If they don’t know you are unhappy/what the issues are they can’t put them right and make it better.

It's always worth to chat to the nursery if you aren't feeling 100% comfortable about how things are.

A decent nursery manager will never mind, and will take the things that are concerning seriously and reassure you about the things that may be an over reaction.

It's so hard with your first, especially when they are that little. Your anxiety is high anyway and it's natural to lean towards being overly concerned.

I promise that a lot of what worries you now, you will laugh at yourself for later - I've been there!

It's so hard with your first, especially when they are that little. Your anxiety is high anyway and it's natural to lean towards being overly concerned.

How incredibly patronising and rude. Concern about 10 kids with one adult isn't about anxiety, nor is it being "overly" concerned. It's against the law, and the law was defined that way because it isn't possible to provide adequate care to that many very young children alone. Nurseries cost a fortune, they should put some of that money into adequate staffing levels at the very least. I'd guess you're a parent of an older child who's simply forgotten how vulnerable non-verbal babies are.

@Marshmallow91 The only inreasonable thing about the OPs post were 10 kids in the garden without proper clothing and superivion- I would be upset at that too, but this should have been sorted with the other worker who was inside and avoided. The rest is just being a bit precious. I know when you put a child in nursery you are anxious and want to know everything, but at the end of the day, it's not that important. My son poured water all over himself at mealtime, got changed and we got a wrong top to wash, no biggie, we returned it and they found our one, hardly a high negligence on the behalf of the stuff. Think of it like this, staff are busy and I'd rather they spent time with children than fill in logs/booklets and give us all the info what baby did minute by minute.

@MonaLisaDoesntSmile

Sorry, I was referring to that, I should have been clearer sorry!

I wouldn't have a problem with the other stuff either- my little one goes through loads of clothing changes per day because she completely covers herself in water and food so I understand mistakes can easily happen!