To ask what you would think here?

[Stressful00]

Work in a baby room at a nursery.
Today we were one staff member down as they were off sick. We had 8 babies all day.
I noticed throughout the afternoon that my normally lovely and calm colleague seemed red faced and stressed. I told her so and she snapped at me saying she had been 'doing everything.' and felt like she had no support. . I was also in the room but working on a new art display which took up most of the morning and also some of the afternoon. I was in the room but not engaged with the kids as such because I was doing that. However, when I noticed she was stressed later on, I said I would take over the washing up so not like she had no support. I did also come back a few minutes late after lunch but was on an important call.
Aibu to ask what you would think here? Unfortunately displays and work like that needs to be done.

You sound very blasé about being back late from lunch - you were on a personal call in work time, to her detriment. She might have been less pissed off about that if you weren’t exuding the same “oh but it was important” entitlement as you are here!

You should have left the wall display, priorities. One staff member is not able to adequately care for 8 babies, no wonder your colleague was stressed & why was one staff member in the kitchen most of the time? was she making bottles or something?
I think with the two recent tragedies where babies have died at nursery you should have left the art display it really isn't important, not even to Ofsted at the expense of caring for the children. The room was effectively under ratio for most of the day, safeguarding failure & you would all have been at fault if an incident had occurred as well as management.

God. If this really is not reverse I hope your colleague reports you. Your priority is the babies . Not a fucking art display.

reverses are so dull

What would I think

1. That surely this has got to be a reverse
2. If not, that you should have pulled your weight in caring for the 8 babies in your room!
3. That I would not want some one who prioritised doing art displays all.morning and some of the afternoon being involved in caring for any of my children.

Completely unprofessional and unsupportive of you to fart about with an art display, when you're short staffed.

So when this 1 member of staff changed the nappy of one baby, the other 7 were left all alone???
And when they needed feeding ????

I don't get this. No one can see 1:8 as standard/workable and certainly not anyone who has done any quals in childcare.

Many moons ago I used to work in a nursery and by gosh it’s hard work for very little pay!!

When you work with children and babies it’s so very obvious when a colleague is coasting or not pulling their weight. We had one such colleague and I used to dread sharing with her, couldn’t do nappy rota because her back hurt, couldn’t run the hoover round after lunch because of the same, but she was always on board for the fun stuff like doing the displays or art with the children at table time. I was young back then sitting a the low tables used to even hurt my back, but hers was apparently fine even though she couldn’t do nappies or hoover! Used to drive us mad. Wouldn’t have bothered my colleagues or myself if it had on fact been genuine (I covered a colleagues duties for months when she had broken her wrist, and did the same for another who had torn a ligament) but it just wasn’t genuine and we all knew, including the manager.

Now if this isn’t a reverse, I am not saying you are coasting or wilfully doing anything like that but perhaps take a bit more notice of what you do and just make sure you are pitching in. In your position I would pull said colleague aside tomorrow and apologise and say you got a bit caught up in doing the display and that you’ve realised you should have been helping with the other duties too. If she’s normally calm and lovely I’m sure she will accept you apology.

The number of times I've stayed behind to put up a display because we've been short staffed in school.... my choice 100% but I'd never leave my staff to struggle (even more so in a bloody baby room in a nursery) while I did a display - and I LOVE putting displays up so not like the display is a chore to me!!

This is either untrue or a reverse.

As if you wouldn’t understand to prioritise looking after babies over a bloody display….I don’t want to believe this is real!

Do you really want to cop to leaving one staff member alone with 8 babies while you pissed about doing arts and crafts alone when a baby has just died through negligence at a different nursery? Really? I hope to god you’re trolling.

You need to find a different job with less responsibility, seriously wtf

If you cannot seriously see why you were out of order it genuinely worries me

How did one person feed 8 bottles?

I hope the red-faced staff member is figuring out how to report the nursery.

im not an expert in ratios, but from observing the staff at my DD’s nursery, I seriously doubt a staff member in the kitchen counts towards the ratio

Ratios for babies are minimum 1 adult to 3 and no one should ever be on their own with even one child let alone 8!!!

Arse has rightly been handed to you here op

No excuse for doing a ‘display’ for most of the day, and coming back late from lunch, and not taking care of the babies which is your main job, leaving it all to lovely colleague who had enough of you. Lazy.

You should be fired ASAP.

Whether or not this is a reverse the one thing I could say is that the colleague carng for the babies should have explicitly told the other colleague to leave the art display for a different day and help with the babies. Yes it should have been obvious but since they hadn't caught on by themselves they should have been explicitly told.