Nursery pick up etiquette

[picksitallup]

What's the right thing to do here ? I realise that they staff are very busy, but is it OK when picking up to have a quick chat with the key worker, asking how the day has been ?

I don't want to be that mum. But I tend to ask. But now the settling in stage is coming to an end, perhaps I shouldn't ask anymore and just get my child and leave?

• the not they

Do they provide a communication book?

Our nursery provide a verbal handover at end of day, varies in detail. Sometimes it's "DD had a good day, we painted, played in garden etc" or if significant events happened then we are alerted like:
DD had a toilet accident
DD bumped head
DD argued with another child
DD has been tired / emotional.
All food and significant evens logged on an app called ParentZone

At my DC's daycare they come over and tell me about their day. It's not an in depth blow by blow account because obviously they are busy, but they do tell me how things have gone, if they napped, if they were unsettled etc. I never ask for this, they just do it. I think I'd be put out if they didn't, but then that could just be because I've become used to it.

Mine provide an online log they update in the evening, with stuff like nap/ what they ate and nappies. But it has no detail about how the day went and what they did.

Do you mean just something like ‘has Eva had a nice day?’ And the worker says ‘oh yes, she’s been outside, been smiling lots, very happy girl today?’ Or are you chatting for ages?

At every nursery I’ve worked in we’d provide a little bit of ‘she/he has been fine and done this and that and been happy’ or ‘she/he was a bit tired today blah blah’ just to be friendly and update the parent. But not a long conversation, if a parent wants to talk for 20 minutes about their child’s development etc I’d expect them to take time out of the day and ask for a key worker appointment.

@Kanaloa

Do you mean just something like ‘has Eva had a nice day?’ And the worker says ‘oh yes, she’s been outside, been smiling lots, very happy girl today?’ Or are you chatting for ages?

At every nursery I’ve worked in we’d provide a little bit of ‘she/he has been fine and done this and that and been happy’ or ‘she/he was a bit tired today blah blah’ just to be friendly and update the parent. But not a long conversation, if a parent wants to talk for 20 minutes about their child’s development etc I’d expect them to take time out of the day and ask for a key worker appointment.

Yeah just something like that. How was she today ? Is she making friends ? Being good ? Having fun ?

Ohh it’s fine I’m sure!! I manage a nursery and our policy is if you want to talk to the key worker a bit - come a little early - don’t expect a chat if you come at 1 minute to closing time for example 🙈🙈🙈

Alternatively if you want a bigger catch up you can arrange a time for the key worker to phone you during the week (we get the key worker to come to the office so you can chat properly)

Well in thah case it’s totally normal. I would never like to just silently hand a child over to their parent and walk away! So I always prefer to say oh she was good and happy doing xyz see you next week blah blah.

At my DDs baby nursery before she was 2 I had more detailed feedback about her day plus also a communication book. Now she is at a school nursery and the conversation is there but extremely brief, just whether she had a nice day and what activities they did that day.

I think it would be perfectly normal/fine/common in every scenario to ask 'has everything been ok?'.

You want to know - if anything has not gone well. Rather than 'how has her day been'.

Everything been alright? is a neater way of saying- has anything gone badly for her today? Which I guess is what you really want to know? :-)

When the eldest was little I wanted to know how she’d napped as she was a terrible sleeper. Apart from that if she was happy and had eaten I only needed to know anything ‘bad’, e.g. injury, upset.

Some nurseries have an app for this, which seems to save time at pick up but I suspect is much more time consuming for staff in the day.