For this to make my blood run cold...

[FluentRubyDog]

First of all, kudos to all the nursery workers, it's hard, hard work for next to no reward and without you so many things wouldn't be possible.

But then this happens...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-69026072

And you wonder how many of these monsters will end up "working" with our babies, what with the increase in the government paid hours? How many will be properly vetted/trained?

Any reassurance from parents with little ones already in nursery from 9 months of age? This is making me seriously reconsider return to work as opposed to being a SAHM for a few years!

My little girl starts nursery this week, and I completely understand your worry - I could not stop thinking about this news story and that poor little girl.

I plan to directly ask the nursery about their safe sleep training and policies around naptimes

This is one of the most shocking stories

It was obvious from the little details we knew at the start she was guilty.

My daughter was in nursery from around 10 months until she went to school and we, of course, had no problems.

The reason things like this are so shocking are because they don't happen that often. If babies were being killed on regular basis at nurseries across the land, there'd be a much bigger problem happening. But luckily, that isn't the case.

I know that is no consolation to the parents of children have been harmed in care settings, but that's the only thing I can take away from it. It's a rare thing that in all likelihood will not happen to the vast, vast majority of people.

It's a bit like planes crashing. People get nervous about flying in case the plane crashes, but plane crashes are so rare in comparison to the thousands of flights that happen daily, that the chances of it happening to you are incredibly slim.

This is a very sensible post.

It's a bit hard to count on statistics and invoke common sense when your DC are involved, though...

I work in various baby rooms in nurseries as bank staff, and I’ve never, ever seen anything remotely like this thank god. There ARE safe sleep policies and in my experience they are meticulously adhered to. The circumstances in which this happened should never have been allowed in the first place- the ratio should strictly be 1:3. I have seen nursery staff become tired/express verbal frustration (more of a ‘what am I doing wrong?’ than anything else) at the fact that a baby won’t stop crying or won’t settle at anything or eat/take a bottle, but these staff members are always told to take five/go and do some admin even if it means pulling a member of staff from another room (not to the detriment of their ratios) or someone from the office temporarily. This nursery sounds like it was in absolute chaos at the way it was being run- not that there can ever be an excuse to have treated a helpless baby as this woman did. One of the saddest thing is that it sounds like she mocked the poor child, I can’t imagine ever seeing a member of staff do something like that- if I did I’d whistleblow without a moment’s hesitation.

With regards to the ratio thing however- I want to point out that the 1:3 doesn’t count in the same way if babies/children are seated in a high chair or at a table eating or if they are sleeping. This is how most nurseries are able to organise staff lunch breaks. I wonder if this was over a designated ‘sleep time’ but this poor baby wouldn’t settle, others woke, and no one got back in time to marry up the ratios again (not that she should ever have been overseeing ten in the first place but I wonder if some of them were meant to be asleep)

Yes but we put our kids in cars don’t we ?
More kids are killed in road accidents than in a nursery setting.

That woman is a pustule on the arse of humanity and I hope she lives the rest of her turgid life in absolute misery.

I think one of the things that's particularly unsettling about it is that it wasn't deliberate- that someone could kill your baby just by being a spiteful moron rather than because they set out to do so.

It's very rare for babies to be killed in a nursery, but simply the verbal comments and general mistreatment was awful. I think that is what frightens me, that is something that could go unnoticed for years - even the parents of this girl had thought she'd had a good day at nursery when the cctv later showed that she was yelled at and had things thrown at her.

My older dd is at school now and when she was in nursery she had a period when she suddenly became reluctant to go in (she'd never shown that before). Shortly afterwards a member of staff left and she was fine after that. I'll never know what really happened and it's something I worry about even though she is much older.

I read about this story during the trial and the way that baby girl died has haunted me. If an employee with a toxic personality is never reprimanded, their attitude comes to dominate the entire workplace. There needs to be some kind of law in place which obliges staff to report colleagues who bully and abuse young children. I understand the concerns about privacy and safety when it comes to CCTV and children, but there also needs to be the mechanism in place where nursery staff know they can be monitored and listened to at any time.

I know that most children go to nursery safely but there are enough of these stories to make parents justifiably worried, especially when the knowledge that babies and toddlers can't verbalise their experiences leaves us with the feeling that most of this abuse goes unrecognised and unreported.

It’s an awful, awful thing. That poor baby. My heart goes out to the parents.

I think there should be CCTV in all nurseries so parents can log in and check their children. I also think staff should be better trained and screened before being employed. Although such cases are thankfully rare, there have been a number of cases of children choking or being injured at nursery, sometimes fatally so. All the cases I’m thinking of were avoidable. You have often young, poorly trained staff looking after more than one baby/child and, frankly, not concentrating. I collected my toddler from nursery once and was shocked by what I saw in the baby room. I wouldn’t have treated my baby like that. It wasn’t criminal or malicious, it was just less care than you’d expect and a casual attitude.

Horrifying. I could barely look at that smiling baby's little face on granada news. I can't imagine how anyone could do that to a defenceless child.
It surely doesn't take an expert to know that strapping a baby face down onto a bean bag and ignoring their cries is a very dangerous thing to do.
My heart breaks for her poor parents x

I understand what you’re saying but parents being able to check in and watch footage at will of not just their child but others is a potential safeguarding nightmare, it’s never going to happen. I work in nurseries that have cctv and ones that don’t but the ones that do have it in place for the staff as well as the children. When I’m working as a nanny I do not work for parents who have cameras set up and can check in to cctv whenever they like. It’s just not a nice environment to work in.

My first started at 5 months, second at 7 months. Needs must. I guess it depends on how you pick your nursery - id assume a setting with multiple staff either abusive or turning a blind eye is not going to have visibly cuddly staff letting a baby sleep on them, or carrying toddlers around on hips.

At our nursery, the ones they have from very small generally have free roam, are cuddled and kissed throughout the day from whoever they love. My 2yo takes herself for breakfast in the baby room to visit her favourite staff each morning!

Of course there are bad apples everywhere, and it's a worry. But the vast majority of nursery staff are there because they love the children. There's much easier work to do for better wages for people apathetic to children.

I guessed it would be about this news story just from the title. Poor defenceless baby.

There was a similar story on our local police page about a primary school teacher who lost her temper with a very young disabled child, who couldn't speak or really move so I don't know how she got so irate with them she physically hurt them. The comments were really strange, half saying they'd had her as a teacher and she'd been wonderful and half saying they'd had her as a teacher and she was satan respawned.

You can't trust anyone.

Yes, I thought about safeguarding/watching others’ children as I wrote it, but I’d hope there was some kind of system where this would work - a log in, a given permission, records kept, a facial recognition for parent, etc.

I’m an Early years teacher and doing some of my placements at nurseries years ago, made me convinced even then, I’d never send my dc to nursery. I was fortunate enough to stay with Dd until school age and teach when Dh returned from work, we were also pretty poor and cut back on everything, I just couldn’t do it

The insistence of this Government sending all our little ones to Nursery as soon as possible means there's a dumbing down of staff. Recruitment is hard enough as it is when you can earn more stacking shelves. I'm incredibly fortunate that I was able to look after my children and I recognise that a lot of people have no choice but in my experience (and it is significant in my line of work) the caliber of staff in a lot of nursery settings is poor.

@NoKnickerElastic that is precisely my point!

As awful as this is you honestly need to get things in perspective.
If you are talking about statistics then your child is more at risk when you are in the car driving to the supermarket - or even from being mowed down by a drunk driver when you're pushing them down the street.

My children went to nursery and were extremely well looked after by well qualified staff who loved their jobs. Ideally give yourself plenty of time to look around for one as waiting lists for popular ones can be long. Be wary or anywhere that's far cheaper than others or staffed mainly by18 year olds. Get recommendations from other parents. Watch how the staff interact with the children.

Think of the positives in terms of socialising with other children, extra experiences (ours had a forest school) and the benefits of the extra income and security that working will bring you as a family

This is an appealling story for what that woman did, but also for the general mismanagement of the nursery. On the day the baby was killed, there were 2 staff members with 11 babies. I hope the owners are prosecuted, too. I also don't know how any other staff member watched her strap a baby on her front to a beanbag and not intervene.

I don't think CCTV for parents is the answer - no one who could do anything else would work in those conditions. It's making early years education a valued and better paid occupation, and expanding provision so parents aren't forced to the only option in a 10 mile radius. Maybe this woman is a monster and would have done what she did regardless, but the child wouldn't have been left for 90 minutes in a better run place.

My friend's daughter started work in a nursery baby room a few months ago. She does have qualifications but I was shocked at how long the working hours are, with only one break all day. Even a parent looking after one baby would struggle to be engaged and vigilant for all that time. Apparently the nursery, which is in a semi-rural area, struggles to get enough staff.

Absolutely horrific, just heartbreaking beyond words.
My anxiety over non-family looking after my child meant I actually quit my job completely when I realised I would otherwise have to hand my then 9-month old over to a stranger. We had no money (I gave up eating lunch levels of no money) but I have zero regrets. I gave up my car, holidays, new clothes but I just could not do it. Others saying it is a highly, highly abnormal event are 100% correct, but on a personal level this statistics mean nothing to me. I literally would wake up sweating in panic as my mat leave ended at the thought of my baby being without me that young. So vulnerable.
We are now at preschool age and I feel so much better about DC attending a preschool able to talk, potty trained and nap-free, so if you are leaning towards SAHM I’d go for it, even if only for 2-3 years.