Nursery form teacher handed us a bag of poo

[ButterscotchWhip]

Right. I'll try to keep it short, but I don't think it will be.

DD has just turned 3. A couple of weeks ago she started in the nursery class of what I've now realised is quite a formal and strict girls' independent school. It is highly regarded locally, and me and DH loved it when we looked round, but I now fear I've done myself and DD up like a kipper sending her here.

She's fully potty trained but (my fault) I don't think I got her onto actual toilet training quickly enough. September has rolled around and she's just not 100% there on toilet training. I tell the staff this and they seem ok with it at first. I offer to send in her carry potty (which she loves and uses well) - they say no. The class is large, and the way they do toilet trips is to take a group to the loos and then the teacher stands nearby. It's just not enough support for DD, and she's had a lot of accidents there (for which we receive intense FIRST AID NOTIFICATION emails as they have to change her). Anyway, she's now never telling them when she needs to go, and she is running away from the loo at home saying she doesn't like the toilet (and started crying about it yesterday too).

We get an email from her form teacher this week saying she must now be in nappies during school time. DH emails back and says we certainly don't support this idea, she's on the right path but in a brand new environment, nappies will confuse her and send her learning backwards etc. He suggests that if this issue is one of a lack of resource / low levels of staffing, then that's a worry. He's not rude, just quite straight up.

The next morning at 9am, I receive a call from school saying DH must be collected and taken home for a bath as she's soiled herself AND they will not allow her back in school unless she's in pull-ups. I am not free to get her, neither is DH, but our son's carer/nanny is and happily collects her. She finds DD just needs a good wipe, not really a bath. Upon arriving at reception to receive DD, our nanny is given a binliner. It transpires this contains DD's soiled knickers, THE ENTIRE TURD, and all the wipes they have already used on DD's guilty bum (barf).

I haven't said anything in response to any staff yet as we already have a catch-up meeting, face to face, with the form teacher tomorrow. But presuming that they have a rubbish bin in school, I think the sh*t-bag might have been a thinly veiled message of hostility, no?

I am boggling from all this. Would genuinely love to hear what other MNers would do now!

@Grammarnut 2 years 9 months.

This is hideous behaviour on their part.

Your daughter is 3. At this age many children are only just cracking it and many still need lots of support.

To send dirty wipes home is quite honestly, unforgiveable.

I would also be very concerned by the now upset reaction your daughter has around using the toilet. I suspect they have created a negative situation and this can be damaging.

Change nursery and leave a bad review. These people shouldn't work with children.

The French won’t even allow kids to attend nursery at 2 years old if they’re not potty trained. There’s not much excuse for it at 3 really, apart from having been sloppy about potty training and now needing to accept the consequences (pull ups). However, it sounds like they’re being harsh with your child in a way that’s making going to the loo a massive deal, and that’s not good. They can be kind in their handling. I imagine if you approach the school, including the headmistress, they might be a little entrenched and intolerant. Could that end up being more frustrating? Having been to a punitive independent girls school myself (one of the ‘best’ and oldest in the country) I wouldn’t inflict it upon anyone.

Wow, I'm shocked as a former nursery practitioner I'm horrified that this has happened to you. There should be appropriate facilities for the staff to be able to clean soiled underwear. Having worked in a baby room, toddlers and preschool toileting accidents do happen there is absolutely no need for wipes to be put in with your daughter's clothes other than laziness. Definitely look at moving your daughter to somewhere that staff have more compassion.x

So old enough to be trained during the day, for most occasions - or pull-ups, presumably. Most nurseries expect a three-year-old to be toilet-trained, though the regimen the OP mentions strikes me as unworkable with small children - they cannot wait when they need to 'go'. Deeply stupid and I would not send DC there.
However, people have different parenting methods. I had a baby when my DS was 3-ish and I wanted him out of nappies asap esp as he could go to playschool (a thing of the long past, I understand) at three+, if toilet-trained. He still wore trainer pants at night.

I am a childminder and have been for 23 years. I have never heard anything like this and it is wrong on every level !! Your poor daughter, I hope it's not been too traumatic for her and doesn't have long lasting effects. This is certainly not inclusive behaviour from the nursery or supporting her in her own independence.

Agree where possible should be flushed. However reverse side of coin at a pre prep I worked in a parent was furious that soiled pants weren't returned just binned as they were from Harrods and not cheap! Just express what you want done in future eg throw or return.
Should be a little more supervision especially in early weeks with this year group. Assume your child starts reception the following year.
Much harder for a child than at home as may need to interrupt teacher to ask to go. You are a paying customer so express your desire that the staff supervise your child in toilets.

They are not made to wait, they can go whenever they want. But in addition to being allowed to go when needed, they also take small groups to the toilet as part of the routine. To encourage everyone to try. Just as you would ask a 3 year old at home to go to the toilet for a try every now and again if you felt they hadn't been for a while

I did take a week off work for potty training. I did the Oh Crap book. Not every child responds exactly as we hope in the timeframe we expect. But I do agree that it is my fault.

I think we should go back to children starting school at five, and maybe a few mornings a week at a playschool (i.e. run by volunteers who have some training as things were in the 80s) for 3+ to 5.

Then I don't see the OP's problem. Apart from the bag of poo. Don't know why the Nursery didn't flush all that and wash the pants - well, shake down the toilet, give a quick rince and wring and put in a plastic bag.

Nursery serves 2 purposes
1, Gives children a proper pre-school education. Evidence shows pre-school is important, especially for under privileged children.
Schools were noticing big differences in children who'd been in private nurseries and those who'd been at home with mum or Granny hence national pre-school was rolled out.
Most countries have some form of preschool or Kindergarten starting age 3 or 4.

2, Enables more mums to work Because private nursery is expensive

Mums need to work, Grannies are working to 66, where are you going to find volunteers to run playschool?
Elderly ladies pushing 7

Bounced and then... skittered. I had to lunge after it so the dog didn't try and eat it.

Where I live (Belgium) children go to school at 2,5 years and then are in a "starters-class", something inbetween nursery and Kindergarden. There is a teacher and a full-time nurseryworker. Children will be taken to go potty, diapers are allowed and will be changed when needed. From age 3 children are in Kindergarden and are expected to be potty trained. They will still be taken to the toilets on regular moments (those cute small toilets!) but from now on are expected to tell teacher when / if they need to go. Accidents are still acceptable but diapers not so much unless a special-needs child. Accidents are usually wee-only, you know, child waited too long to run to the toilet. A 3 year old is not expected to poo in their pants. Teacher herself will put spare clothes on child, no nurseryworker with the 3 year olds. Soiled clothes will be handed to the parents in a plastic bag.

Get her out, send her somewhere else. The bad with clothes I understand not the rest of it.

I suppose I am saying society has changed for the worse. That everything now is about money and being an economic unit. I had thought we'd got away from that - it was certainly what trades unionists were working for in the 60s, that working-class women could stay at home in the same way that middle-class women could.
On the credit side, women are now independent and do not have to stay in bad relationships because of the inability to earn a living. Widows and deserted wives do not have to resort to prostitution either - not uncommon in the nineteenth century if the breadwinner died or simply left.
It just seems as if we have gone to the other extreme. We need policies that allow women to have children and then complete their job training, so that children are born when one is most energetic and most likely to have a healthy pregnancy, the early and mid-twenties. Then provision for university places, training places for women (and men if they want/need to stay at home with children) who have chosen this path, and their experience as mothers, and housekeepers carried forward into their career to count towards seniority and pay. Women who chose to have their children later would also be entitled to leave, to have child-care counted for seniority, and for extra training/education when they returned to the work force - full- or part-time to be their choice. Women's biology is used to disadvantage them one way or another. A society that valued women as people would arrange itself so that childbearing preceded training for jobs if that was the woman's choice (or the man's choice if he was going to be the carer - but with the proviso that women need time to recover from pregnancy and childbirth).
There is no reason society should not be better organised as long as we remember that the economy is for the people, nor the people for the economy.

This 100%

Please be really careful about sending DD back to that nursery. I was told nappies and accidents were "dirty" but my grandmother when I was little and it led to many years of anxiety around using the toilet.

Never going to happen.
House prices for a start.
And who wants to be studying for qualifications while looking after children.

Many women don't meet Mr Right until they are about 30 either.

No-one said combine childcare and a qualification. Once children are at school you can do that. I did my TESOL qualification when my DS was 8 and DD 4/5 - had a childminder to pick them up from school for me on the days when I did afternoon classes. I had taken my degree at 22 (4 year course). Many women I knew did the same thing - so it is possible for society to organise itself so this is simple to do, rather than a logistical pain. It will happen at some point - because at the moment the spiralling of costs for everything from onions to new aeroplanes is heading to the point when it is unsustainable, as is everything being something that must make a profit. Going to bang, big-time, if not in my life-time then in that of my grandchildren. A pity sensible change cannot happen gently, but it won't.

I’m really sorry to hear that.
We sought assurance from the teachers that they never tell off or shame a child for anything toilet-related. But I am on the waiting list for readmittance to her former nursery which is more relaxed.

This sounds awful OP! I think if I were in your situation I would be taking said bin liner complete with soiled underwear and turd back to the meeting and leaving it on the head mistress’s desk! She’s three for goodness sake! All they are doing is alienating her and making toileting a massive issue which she clearly is already starting to respond to negatively by running away! This is only going to make matters so much harder for your DD and for yourselves! I think I would be moving her to be honest, your poor DD!

"I did take a week off work for potty training. I did the Oh Crap book. Not every child responds exactly as we hope in the timeframe we expect. But I do agree that it is my fault."

We did the Oh Crap book too for both kids. Eldest (girl) responded perfectly and was literally trained in 3 days. Youngest (son) was a disaster! Literally took him about a year

I think the nursery have handled it badly in terms of their attitude and they don’t sound nice, but sending the poo back in the pants isn’t as weird as you’d think. Honestly do you think they want to pick it up?? Unless it’s very easy to tip into the toilet (and not something they’d need gloves on and actually scrape off) then I kinda see why you got the whole thing back. The wipes too is weird though.

Also - do they have the staff to deal with a lot of toileting accidents? If not, she’s better off at a different setting.

They don’t sound very nurturing anyway tbh!

I agree. The writing is on the wall.. The anxiety surrounding toileting at nursery is clearly causing this child emotional distress which will affect her confidence generally. She will be anxious and afraid to go to nursery because of this unforgivable situation. OP cannot allow it to continue because she wants her child to receive private education, if that is the case. It is tantamount to cruelty. OP needs to report the nursery and get the child away from there, pronto..