To expect nursery to know how my child injured their head?

[feignglorious]

When I arrived to collect almost 4yo from nursery, there was an accident form describing an injury to his left under eye area - apparently he tripped and banged it on a table and it was a bit red.

When I saw him, his under eye was fine, but there was fairly extensive bruising over the forehead area on the same side, which staff apparently hadn't noticed.

Staff member who witnessed and recorded the eye injury was adamant that his forehead was not bruised at the time of that injury, and that the way he fell means he couldn't have injured his forehead at that time. Nobody seems to know how his forehead got hurt, including almost 4yo himself.

AIBU to expect a nursery to have noticed an incident that caused this type of bruising? (I'm genuinely asking here, very happy to be told this isn't a reasonable expectation).

If he didn’t cry or tell someone if he banged then unless they were watching him at the time they wouldn’t necessarily know.

You can't watch kids every second and by 4 it's actually good to step back. He doesn't even know himself how he did it so unlikely he had a reaction at the time. Maybe the worker just missed it because of the angle she was at though. These things do happen. I'm sore he sometimes sustains bruises with you that you don't see happening?!

Yes, remember, if he is 4, then he will be in either a 1:8 or1:13 ratio, in theory, but in reality for a lot of the time, much higher as in many rooms one child takes up most of one adult's attention, so the others get less. This means that no-one is being watched every second of every minute of every hour. Goodness, when I was just looking after my own 3, or sometimes just one of them, they could develop a bruise by the end of the day, that I had not noticed them doing.

It is very easy for children to bruise themselves without an adult knowing, if the child didn't cry / seek help or reassurance.

YABU.

It's easy to miss.

Wouldn't necessarily notice something happen unless child got upset or told an adult, especially with a 4yo as some can have quite rough rough and tumble at that age. Surprised they don't notice the bruising before you picked up though. Could it be a leaked bruise from the initial bump?

Thank you, this is reassuring and makes sense.

Yes, he does get plenty of bumps and bruises without me knowing where they're from - but they tend to be on knees, elbows etc. I can't think of a time he's had a big head bruise and I've been unaware that he's fallen / bashed his head. But I get that it's more likely for that sort of thing to go unnoticed in higher child:adult ratios.

V. helpful, thank you everybody. I'm feeling better.