To think nurseries are not safe for young babies

[Luxell934]

I've read about two very young babies dying in nurseries recently. One who choked after being given inappropriate food and one who was left to smother to death.

As a new mother it's absolutely terrifying to think about, I have also worked myself in nurseries for a number of years. It was a very well respected chain of nurseries and we were always understaffed and over ratio, I remember caring for up to 9 babies with just two staff and were told team leaders were "in the office, if needed" which basically meant get on with it and don't bother us. I also remember feeding 4/5 babies at a time. Looking back I was so young that I didn't speak up.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13438725/Nursery-nurse-Kate-Roughley-manslaughter-convicted.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqennjjllpqo

That's two cases out of the literal millions of children in nursery.

You’ll get flack for this thread. I disagree that lots of them are unsafe, far from it. However I think they’re the best environment for babies? Absolutely not

Maybe 10% of nurseries are decent for under 2s. In the others they don’t get the attention they need, it’s bright and overstimulating and staff turnover is very high. I’ve worked in early years across a number of settings so feel confident in making this judgement.

This case is tragic and horrifying but very, very rare.

Those cases are very sad, but babies will also die at home. And many babies are safe in nursery. Think about how many people are killed on the roads each day, and yet everyone keeps driving,

I have no doubt sub standard care takes place in some childcare settings even if not as extreme as this.

However, I am confident in our nursery. The baby area is clearly visible as I walk through to collect my older child and I have never seen anything of concern.

Presumably you managed not to kill any babies while you worked in a nursery. Most babies are perfectly well cared for at nursery, because most nursery staff are decent people who work in nurseries because they like babies.

I coped with putting my baby in nursery even though i felt anxious about it, because I had to do boring things like pay my mortgage and put food on the table. That was more than 20 years ago, and the baby is now kind and thoughtful, with an excellent job. Your baby will be fine if you choose nursery care as well.

I don’t think babies benefit from nursery until they hit 2+ and I didn’t like leaving either of mine. My first I felt confident in the staff. My second (same nursery diff staff) I would have removed him had I know he didn’t have long until he joined the 2+ room with staff I knew from my older child, who was in the nursery in a diff room and settled. It was like two different nurseries and we did raise some issues with the team/management.

There is a bigger picture though and some babies won’t do better at home, their mothers may be better mentally in work. So it’s a balance.

My heart breaks seeing that beautiful baby girl and her parents. It’s beyond belief this happened in a setting that’s supposed to be so strictly regulated.

I agree with strawberryjeans , nurseries are safe in terms of physical harm, but on an emotional and developmental level, I am not so sure...

On the other hand, with DC1 I stayed at home until they were 2.5 with DC2 only until they were 11months ... both are healthy, obnoxious and moody teenagers!

Some people have no choice. Both of mine started nursery at 10 months, and thrived in the baby room. The staff ratio was (and is!) 1:3, the nap area was very visible to parents, and it was (and still is) a lovely room. The staff at the nursery are incredible. While the news story is horrific, please don't tar all nurseries with the same brush, and make working parents feel guilty.

Sadly, you’ll never know with 100% certainty what’s happening once you leave your child at the nursery door. You’re not sitting there monitoring your child’s every move via some sort of CCTV camera device are you? so you can’t say ‘my nursery is absolutely wonderful’ - because you literally see a 5 to 10 minute snapshot at drop off / pick up.
Under twos are the most vulnerable too as they can’t have a conversation with you about what’s happening. And unfortunately, as this tragic case has shown, there’s not always safety in numbers.

I’d like to think the vast majority of early years settings are perfectly fine - I’m sure they are.

Well I think it’s a bit sensationalist and I don’t think it’s true.
There will always be some failings, but those 2 babies are rare cases. Heartbreaking, tragic, avoidable but the exception.

I actually am uncomfortable with two awful tragedies being used to further guilt working mothers (and it is mothers.)

We tried a childminder; it really didn’t work for us. I don’t believe ‘home based settings’ are all that.

I don’t think it’s being meant to guilt anyone, more express concern that this can happen. Each to their own.

Line a couple of PP have said, I'm sure the majority of nurseries are physically safe. I don't however believe they're in the best interests of a child's emotional development. Most research attests to the fact that children fare better emotionally and developmentally when they're with a primary caregiver, and if that's not possible, a setting which mimics a home environment as closely as possible with one other main carer. I understand that people need to use daycares for childcare, but the reality is that they're far from ideal, even in the most perfect daycares, for a child's emotional wellbeing.

Plus I have seen childminders who do not watch the children carefully enough whilst having a cuppa and chat with each other. It certainly put me off using one.

But it could happen in the babies own homes with parents caring for them. In fact I think it probably does

Both were avoidable. One child was fed food that was too big for him to chew, his parents wouldn’t have done this as they knew him. The other is the article linked is horrific, say no more.

As an wx Nursery Nurse I am appalled by this terrible incident. How did it not come to the attention of the other staff there that the baby was struggling to breathe. The woman responsible should not have been anywhere neat children
She was obv unable to cope with the demands of a baby who was unsettled.I hope lessons will be learnt and no other family suffers like this

More babies die at the hands of their parents or in car accidents than at nursery. Do you think leaving children with their parents or taking them in a car is unsafe?

The vast majority of nurseries are safe.

Are nurseries good for babies? No.

They're fine if you need to work and don't have other options, but they're not in a baby's best interests. We avoid saying it to save the feelings of the parents who have no choice. It's a terrible situation we've created where people can't afford not to work, but also can't afford one-on-one or small group childcare.

Irrelevant if yours is one of the two, still terrifying.

As the mother of a 10 month old I can honestly say my baby is better in nursery. He only goes for 2 days a week. Myself and my partner work our hours around the rest. He goes mainly for socialisation and in the 6 weeks he's been there he's absolutely thriving. I was also more than ready to go back to work.

I have a very fast paced job and I was bored out my brains for most of my maternity leave. I loved bonding with him don't get me wrong. But there's only so much you can do with a young baby. My mental health would not have survived much longer.

Is 1-2-1 childcare really better, I’d hope that a nursery has more checks and balances, like CCTV and other staff who are decent human beings, than say, a nanny. Not to say there’s anything wrong with a nanny, but if a nanny is a bad egg there’s no one to see. In nurseries, generally, they should be observed by other staff.

My mum was a child minder ( granted 15 years ago) and she would ignore the kids and just watch soaps for most of the day.
Like others have said about nurseries the kids were physically cared for but developmentally I wouldn't have wanted my kids there every day being ignored.

Perfectly said.

Babies don't need the sort of socialisation a nursery offers.

If you want to use a nursery, that's obviously fine and I'm sure he's fine there. But don't kid yourself that he NEEDS to be there for his benefit. He doesn't.

9 months old should be able to eat chopped food

Never pureed any food and neither did thousands of other parents .

Commonplace worldwide and even now in the West . Never heard of baby led weaning?