Can a toddler falling over cause a broken bone?

[nappyaddict]

My friend's DS has fractured his arm at nursery today. The nursery could not tell her anything apart from that he must have fallen over. Can an ordinary fall cause a broken arm or does it have to be from a height or at speed like falling off a bike or falling on roller skates etc.

iskra you're not callous - I know plenty of children that would cry after being brushed by a butterfly but it's because the parents make such a bloody fuss of their children that they make everything worse than it is.

Oh blimey- I must know a lot of cry-y children. Think th at 15 mins after a fall not completely unusual. I know a few 3 year olds who might sustain loud crying for about that length if time for something less severe than a break. Also, I know from experience that my kids have always cried more when they hurt themselves in a non-home environment. I.e. If dd fell over with my mum rather than me, she'd prob cry or longer/take longer to calm down.

Accidents happen. Doesnt sound like shady cover up to me.

DS has had two fractures, wrist and elbow, both by seemingly minor falls, one of them after tripping over his feet on grass. Last year he became hysterical after tripping on a bouncy castle. He was still v v upset after 30 mins so took him up to a&e. He was still so upset that they gave him oral morphine. Dr said he fully expected a spiral fracture to show up on x-rays. It turned our it was. a minor sprain! He was fine next day.

Yes yes - mine cry more when bring fussed over/cuddled than when dealt eith kindly but briskly a la mary poppins.

boolifooli Did they strap it up or anything?

nappyaddict at one point you said this was a creche - is it a creche or a nursery/preschool? I'm just asking as creches no longer have to be registered with Ofsted, so if your friend does have concerns later on and it is a creche then they may not have Ofsted to go to.

My two cents re accident forms - if your friend was collecting a very upset child and carting them off to A&E then that might not have been the best time for staff to call your friend off to one side and ask them to sign paperwork like an accident form. As long as staff have completed it then it would not be unreasonable for them to maybe wait a day or so before getting a parent to sign it if the parent was in a rush and then quite possibly not returning to the nursery for a little while. If they are Ofsted registered then the requirement is for parents to be notified of accidents and a record kept - not specifically that parents have to sign a bit of paper asap. On that note Ofsted should also be informed by the nursery about serious accidents on the premises and that would include a broken arm.

My other two cents - in the course of previous employment I came across things like this quite often, and it is suprising how often you would hear that a small child tripped over their own feet or fell from a very low height such as off a chair or down one or two steps and break a bone. That doesn't automatically mean that there is anything suspicious going on (as a break in a non-mobile child might) or that the child was not being properly supervised or the premises/equipment are unsafe. How can you practically prevent a child tripping over their own feet unless you have them on a safety harness 24/7?

My advice would be for the parents to speak to nursery management in a non-blaming, open way about what happened and get the full picture, including exactly what happened after the child cried out and what they were doing about it - since one of your main concerns appears to be how long they would have left this before contacting the parents, so in practical terms were the staff convinced the child was just shocked and upset rather than in pain, if they couldn't settle them would they have called after 20mins, etc. If the staff are very hesitant/contradictory or there is something concerning like the child was apparently climbing all over rickety furniture when it happened then yes there may be something for a regulatory body to look into, but in the majority of cases these sorts of events turn out to have been an unfortunate but unpreventable accident, and are one of those things that just happen in life.

I think it's in a children's centre I don't really know what the difference is between nursery/preschool/creche.

So do parents not have to sign the accident form at all then?

It is certainly good practice to, and generally that is the proof that the parent has been notified of the accident, but as far as I know it is not a legal requirement - not under the EYFS anyway. (That's the legal framework for under 5's care)

There are lots of different names for childcare but basically if it is for under 5's on non-domestic premises, you leave your child there rather than having to stay with them (so not a come-and-play toddler group) for payment (ie not a free service for all-comers) and it takes children for more than 2 hours a day = "childcare on non-domestic premises that requires registration". There are some exceptions eg. if it operates only a few days a year, is primarily for an "activity" such as a sports club, or is run by a school on the school site, but generally the overarching description is the sort of thing that should be registered and inspected by Ofsted.

A creche is something which provides childcare for people who are going to be on-site for their convenience, for less than four hours a day, where there is no long-term commitment to care for particular children - it's ad-hoc arrangements. Like a creche at a shopping centre. They don't have to register.

You can search for the name of the place on the Ofsted website under inspection report finder and see if a report comes up, or search by postcode. Or even ring Ofsted and from the name/address they can have a look to see if it is registered with them. But if you want to ring to talk about the accident I would suggest that your friend do that as you do only have third hand information, and your friend would be the one with the contractual arrangement with the place and better knowledge of the layout/staffing arrangements and so on. It would also carry a lot more weight directly from a parent of an injured child.

Dd1 tripped in the house & fractured her arm. She didn't cry much & we went to the hospital next day as she was v protective of it.

hey nappyaddict, the one my nephew fell off was the first one - the teeny toddler ones, if I remember right (he's 12 now) he fell sideways off it somehow...

only cried for a few minutes but was already getting a sizeable swelling so my sis took him off

If it was just a normal fall would they have to fill in an accident form though?

Although if they were saying to apply a cold compress then that would probably warrant having to fill one in?

How is he btw?

There is an Ofsted factsheet about serious accidents at childcare settings. Have a look [http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Factsheet-childcare-Serious-accidents-injuries-and-deaths-that-registered-providers-must-notify-to-Ofsted-and-local-child-protection-agencies/(language)/eng-GB here]].

I'm happy to give general advice from my own knowledge, but as I wasn't there when it happened and you aren't even sure if this place is an Ofsted registered setting it is hard to say "they definitely should have done X, Y, Z". If your friend is concerned they could ring Ofsted and ask them about it - if the place is registered with Ofsted and anything about the incident sounds suspicious or a notification has not been made then Ofsted can decide if they want to look into it.

I fail at links, sorry. Here.

Ofsted have put a complaint in today.

Sorry I don't quite follow that - not sure if you mean that your friend has complained to Ofsted or something else. But if it is Ofsted registered and there are any concerns that there may have been poor supervision or that the response to the accident wasn't good enough then Ofsted can look into the incident and try to determine whether any of the EYFS requirements haven't been met; if they find something wrong then they can ask the nursery/whatever provider to take action to rectify the problem. Hopefully it will all check out okay and your friend's child will make a speedy recovery.

She rang Ofsted for advice on the situation and they put a complaint in.