AIBU for being mad at nursery re. Carseat storage?

[Claudine4]

Hi all.
LG #2 (10 months) has just started nursery today! My husband and I are both shift workers and apart from rare days whoever drops off doesn't pick up due to the shifts.
My husband dropped her off this morning and left the carseat there. No biggie right?
I picked her up and they told me that we couldn't leave the carseat there because they didn't have a dedicated storage room.
Now, I didn't ask when registering her if we could leave the carseat, but I've never known a nursery to not allow you to leave a pram/carseat! I toured a lot and all the other nurseries in the area have storage for prams/carseats - I guess I just forgot to ask 🤦‍♀️ We can't afford to buy another seat and have one in each car. AIBU being mad at them?
I'll probably have a word tomorrow and say we'll have to move her somewhere else if we can't sort out something out until she grows out of the size 0 carseat (we have two of the size 1/2/3 seats already) so it won't be a problem in 3 months but I don't want to come across as a drama queen...
Thanks for any input/advice!

I got a really good silvercross carseat on Facebook market place for free. You could try that to get a spare.

I’ve only ever worked in one nursery that had a storage shed outside for prams and car seats. One of my enduring memories is a mum coming in raging because she had this brand new peachy coloured pram, I think it was called an icandy or something. She came storming in that there was a big scrape/dirty mark down one side which hadn’t been there previously. Whether the mark/damage was there in the morning I don’t actually know. Probably it wasn’t.

Either way, storing expensive items for parents is just a lot of unnecessary hassle.

Get a Joie stages for one of the cars? It will grow with the child from stage 0/1/2 (maybe 3?). If she’s going to grow out of her seat anyway then at least you have it. It will rf until 18kg too, which is much safer. Surely getting another car seat now is better than disrupting your dd by moving her nursery?

Although I would say you’re slightly BU at ‘being mad’ at the nursery. Unless they’ve advertised that they do offer storage and they’re now refusing, then why would you be mad at them? They don’t offer that service. If it was so important to you then you really should have asked when you were looking round nurseries.

Two cars two child seats.

I've worked in 50 million nurseries due to being old and doing a lot of supply work. Only 1 had a specific clean dry place for prams/seats etc. A few more had outdoor covered places. A few could accomodate the occasional parent with seat. The majority had nothing. My current place is a bit short of equipment due to having nowhere to put stuff. We have to turn down free things people want to give us.
Probably best if you left to find somewhere else. I'm sure the nursery would be happy for you if you left to find the perfect place.

You are being ridiculous... imagine if everyone turned up randomly with a carpet or pram and expected nursery to store it for them! They'd need an extra room - what a waste of space! Just because the occasional nursery may allow this does NOT mean that all, or even most, do. Why on earth would you not have checked this when choosing nurseries? You are bonkers to be 'mad' at the nursery, but I'm sure you can already see that from this thread's response...

‘Which is kind of the point I'm making... most families ues have one parent who does drop off and pick up but we just can't work that way’

That isn’t true. Im in London and in most cases it’s one parent doing drop off and the other picking up.

I have twins and we have 5 car seats between us, 2 for each of our cars and one with my husbands parents for emergency pick ups incase we are both in office etc

definitely wouldn’t be able to store car seats

Which is kind of the point I'm making... most families ues have one parent who does drop off and pick up but we just can't work that way

No, loads id families I know have different people doing pickup and drop off. Myself included. I do it more often, but my husband does a lot of pickups, often at short notice. We obviously bought a second carseat - would have made no sense not to. I know they're pricey, but to say you'd rather move your child to a different nursery rather than get a second car seat...?!

Thanks everyone for your input.

Clearly most agree its unreasonable for nurseries to store carseats/prams. And obviously my fault, I should've checked, honestly just a stupid and expensive oversight. I posted this to get some insight as everywhere else I looked had storage and sometimes it's hard to see another perspective. I'm not sure if this nursery will work for us in the long run, we do need to have onsite storage for other reasons too, but you've given me enough to help in the meantime. (I don't want to go into too personal details, but there's other reasons for needing to leave a carseat/pram onsite).

To everyone who made helpful suggestions, thank you very much! I'm going to ask some trusted friends if they've got a spare carseat and if not DH and I will just drive home before going to work and leave the carseat there.

To everyone who made nasty comments, I hope you have a good night and feel really good about yourself 🫠

I have twins and we have 5 car seats between us, 2 for each of our cars and one with my husbands parents for emergency pick ups incase we are both in office etc

Yeh, we have 4 (2 kids close in age) for our two cars. The extra one for grandparents is a smart idea! Car seats are expensive but one of the most fundamentally important items parents buy when they have a child!

I think you’re unreasonable as you didn’t bother to check and are now upset they don’t have that facility. Both of our nurseries did have a storage shed though. I couldn’t be bothered to have an argument over this. Ask around and you’re likely to
find a friend or colleague with a spare, or just buy a new one

I didn't know that a nursery not storing car seats was a thing. The nursery my DC went to over 10 years ago had somewhere to store prams and car seats. Lots of parents needed the facility because it was right next to a major hospital so lots of shift workers with different parents picking up and dropping off.

I thought they all had a storage area outside - like a little shed - for buggies, that you could easily leave a car seat in. Maybe that’s just in London where most people will be rushing onwards to get a train/ tube/ bus, rather than doing their commute by car.

When my ds was a baby sometimes we did drop him in his car seat - I could drop him off asleep in the stage 0 car seat if he happened to fall asleep on the way - we (one of us) did tend to be doing the nursery run by car contrary to what I’ve said about about “most people”.

Still reading, nursery has a pram store. essentially a little shed so only ever take the fold up buggy if we know we need it, there's only 6 babies though and I imagine they would help to accommodate shifts where they could. I remember at least 1 family drop off with the car seat

Very normal for nurseries to have a pushchair shed where you could leave the carseat. Those who say it's bizarre probably don't know it as they never had a need for it. All 30 will never arrive in buggies and require storage, a very small number would. So little self-doubt on mumsnet.

Our nursery has outside storage for folded up buggies - but you have to assume they'll get bumped around as people get theirs which is parked behind yours etc. I wouldn't want to risk a car seat getting moved about in a shed tbh, they are bulky and only polystyrene inside and need to be kept reasonably free of being dropped.

@surreygirl1987 yep, the extra one is really helpful as grandparents are close by. Given how often one can be sent home for sickness etc , luckily statistically we only get the call for one, so it helps us out a lot

I think leaving it at home would be a much better option regardless.
It's so easy to damage a car seat (dropping it, or knocking into it etc) which could make it very unsafe for your little one. You have no way of knowing what's happened to the seat while it's been out of your sight, I wouldn't risk it.

All nurseries I looked at have this! How else do parents with no car do drop off then go straight to work, which is typically the reason for needing childcare? Car seats less often as typically you can leave in car it came in, but typically applies to prams

I was intrigued when I read this as I wondered how they managed to collect twins with one spare car seat but that makes sense now!

Try getting a second hand car seat on Facebook marketplace, sometimes people give them away for free

Sorry it isn't that expensive for car seats either...we have 3 in both our cars for our 3 babies

It really depends on the car seat - sure, you can get a nania one for £35 - but those fall apart in collisions over 30mph. Graco and Joie are good, cheaper options though - around £70 for one which will last til they are of age for a high backed booster unless they are really tall/heavy/don’t sit well in their seat

I’ve used a few private and two council nursery’s and it’s never something that’s been allowed in the ones I’ve used, I think it’s a health and safety risk. Our current council nursery has an outdoor pram bike scooter park that you can use at your own risk though