AIBU to want more photos from my child’s nursery

[HelloWorld2577]

To keep it brief. I’ve had multiple children attend this nursery over the past 5 years. My daughter is now there and has been for the past two years.

When my other children attended the nursery they would do daily posts which included a mixture of individual posts with photos of just my child and group posts where you could see what all the class were doing. Either way they were updating the app (tapestry) daily or at the very least 3 out of 5 days a week.

My older child left there last year and since the posts have really deteriorated. I’ve just had a look and since coming back from Christmas (my daughter attends full time) there have only been 2 group posts, one of those posts she wasn’t in it, and one you could see the back of her head.

I know it may sound trivial but I find it very frustrating that they charge £75 a day and I don’t even get to see what my daughters doing at nursery, I also have mum guilt for working full time & some mornings she struggles to go in so would put me at ease to just see what she’s doing. I raised it with management after my older child left and said I wasn’t getting many photos or updates on the app and they simply said they don’t have time to do individual posts now so they are trying to take photos of all children to post on one group post. This itself I find an issue because there are usually between 50 and 80 photos per group post and then I have to go through every photo like a detective searching for the side of my child’s head! It’s frustrating. when I raised it previously they said they were trying to do a couple of group posts a week but as I said above they’ve only done 2 posts over the last 3 weeks.

AIBU? I really want to raise it again but I don’t want to be one of those parents!! I understand they’re busy but if every other nursery do it why can’t they? It just seems lazy?!

How do I bring it up AGAIN?!

I totally agree. My daughter only goes two days a week but I’m lucky if I get one post with a 2/3 photos once a month at the moment! It was at least once a week when she started in April last year. I’d love to see what she does all day as she’s too young to tell me anything herself

It's nice to see photos but it's not that important. I used to get daily pictures of my DS but they are so busy now I'm lucky to get 1 a week but they have around 40 children a day.
I work in toddlers and some days we have 24 children and it's a struggle to take photos and keep all the children engaged and safe and deal with toilet accidents and stop children fighting over a toy and answer the phone.
If nursery teachers look sleepy as a PP suggests it's not because they are sat on their arse all day it's because they have been rushed off their feet all day.

I’d rather they pay attention to the children than taking photos all day.
Get a private nanny if you want photos…
Honestly, do you have tons of nursery pictures from your childhood?

I'm early 40s and tbh i'm cringing at people going on about not getting enough posts. Childcare is not about posts. Childcare is a happy, well looked after child who is encouraged in their development. None of that needs or involves posts or pictures outside of special occasions.

I get wanting to see what your kid has been doing. I love the photos my son's nursery shares. There's the back of my kid / side of him / sometimes his smiling face. They have a lot on, group photos are enough. If you wanted a photoshoot everyday pay for a Nanny and the fulltime wage of 1 person you can micromanage. There's more than just.your kid at this nursery.

I think for me, it's more that its changed than the amount of photos etc in itself.

Ds goes to nursery full time, we get a morning and afternoon drop of pics every day and sometimes more than that if he's doing something funny or they're having some one to one time if he's woken up from a nap before the others for example.

I really look forward to getting these during the day, it's nice to see wee moments of his day, that he's interacting with the other children and looks relaxed, happy and engaged. We pay nearly a grand a month to send him so I don't think it's too much to expect that the work being done with him is documented and parents kept updated in this way.

If he was in a nursery that just didn't do that I'd not worry about it, that's their policy. But if they've gradually stopped then to me that would signify a loss of staff and a lower ratio, a loss of direction from management which could affect other areas, or a group that are struggling a bit.

I have to document evidence of my work as a youth worker for funders and taking pics takes two seconds so I don't think it's asking too much. Could you speak to the nursery staff about it and just mention you'd noticed a difference and ask them if their policy or approach to photos has changed. The other thing might be that they've children in the same room as your wee one who cannot be photographed for safeguarding reasons so they may have stopped doing it as much to reduce that risk.

As a nursery teacher of under two's, I disagree completely with your comment. We do not look 'sleepy and lethargic' and most of the time we are in fact 'rushed off our feet'.
You make it sound like we're lazy layabouts.
My nursery does do much more than this woman's child's nursery it would seem. We do a daily post including a brief description of the children's day and a selection of photos showing the entire class enjoying various points of their day.
We also do a weekly observation per child which includes the child taking part in an activity planned specifically for them to focus and bring forward their learning using their current interests.
We ensure we do this effectively by deploying staff correctly during the day to make optimal use of our time whilst maintaining staff to child ratios. This means we can do what we need to whilst maintaining the best possible care for the children.
I'm assuming most nurseries will do, or aspire to do the same.

It takes time to upload your photos and notes. It’s better for teachers to be present than spend time sending off lots of pictures

I can imagine the mn post 'i walked in to nursery to collect my child, and the staff were messing about on their phones'. Lead balloon i reckon.

Or 'I went to collect my child and they had a broken finger when I asked what happened they had no idea as they were taking pictures of a star painting'

Is it any wonder people abhor working with the general public. You can't win.

Just thinking out loud also, to those parents who are so attached to the pictures, when they go to school you get none/very few. You have to trust the people you are leaving them with. And if you don't, don't put them in that setting.

Wow!

Shows you how much you know.

As an early years worker in Scotland, all photos we add to childrens learning journals involve observations of learning, skills the child is learning or should learn , it includes experiences and outcomes which involve matching what the child is learning, has learned, to a traffic lights system so that we can track their learning, enabling us to know what next steps we are working on .

We aren’t just there to take photos and babysit,, post like this make me feel very undervalued. Thankfully the children in our care make us feel appreciated .

If it's any consolation, i loved and very much appreciated my daughter's early years carers/educators. Mercifully, they spent their time with my child, nurturing and educating her. Not swooping at her with phones!

We don't get any photos at all, just a chat at the door, but both DC lobe their nursery. I'd love photos but I don't think it's necessary. That said I'd worry about the sudden decline because it suggests they have staff shortages that they didn't previously. Yanbu

I think their job is caring for children not solving 'mummy guilt'

I think with nursery and teaching the children are possibly the easy part it is the grown ups that probably cause more issues

OP in the nicest possible way, you need to work on your mum guilt and stop thinking that a few photos will resolve that.
Photos are a snapshot in time, they're not a true reflection of what has happened in a day.
As an aside, £75 a day sounds like a bargain. We were nearly paying that much ten years ago.

This I'm afraid. I know you feel it's part of the service of a modern day nursery but honestly it's not necessarily a reflection of a good day had by your little one..its more of an Instagram version of their day. Taking photos (that have to be staged as they can't include certain children) is time consuming and for this purpose would be used as evidence to provide you with an update of their day. Doesn't mean much though. You are right in asking for a more detailed update about the day from the key worker , maybe ask if they could do this ?

I took my granddaughter to a playgroup for a while. All the parents and childminders were far too busy filming their cherubs to actually engage with their children. Such a shame.

That post you quoted made me so angry, too.

People think we sit on our arses all day colouring in and singing nursery rhymes.

I cried in the toilets at work today because of how stressed out I was. Cried in bed last night as well because yesterday was also full of stress. And it's not the wonderful, sweet children that cause the issues, it's the adults.

We are not valued. The work we do is seen as babysitting. It's minimum wage. No appreciation. No consideration.

Just babysitters.

She didnt just put her kids in a centre that meets guidelines she put her kids in one that also does specific updates on the kids during the week

I used to work in childcare, and the pressure was there to document and record so much that the joy of the job disappeared. If the balance has swung the other way, then I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, but why not speak to the staff and ask why it’s changed.

Never had any guilt working FT. Nadda.kids in nursery 11h day. Presumed Guilt and wretched handwringing is not for me.Haven’t observed it in other colleagues (workplace nursery)

Oh dear. I don’t know where to start with this one but I’ll try.. You are paying for childcare not a bloody photoshoot to alleviate your mum guilt, that’s for you to deal with and calling childcare workers lazy is just incredibly ignorant. We work so hard but it’s never enough for some parents. Your child is not the only one in the building you know, we have to look after quite a few children at the same time and their parents are often just as entitled as you seem to be. You want someone following your little one around all day posting stuff every five minutes? Pay for a nanny.

Get a nanny if you want this. Sorry but nursery is care by ratios. The other 2/3 kids and yous could injure themselves in the several times you want the key worker to be sat taking and uploading pictures.