HELP: Toddler has constant accidents / injuries at nursery

[AWoll83]

Hi all

I hope, I can get some advice from you on a problem that I've been having with our nursery. My son (18 months) has been at nursery for 6 months and he absolutely loves it. However, in the last 4-6 weeks he has been frequently injured at nursery. I am talking literally EVERY week. And it's usually more than just a scratch. E.g. three weeks ago he had a black eye, two weeks ago a bloody cut on the bridge of his nose, last week he got a cut to his nose on the exactly same spot (!) - the previous cut had only just healed, and today I had a call from nursery saying that he fell off a rocker and split his lip!

I addressed it with the nursery manager several times but she keeps dismissing my concerns saying that my son is a "very active child" and that there's nothing they can do.

I understand that children fall and hurt themselves, and yes, my son is very active - climbing everywhere. But surely the nursery staff should know how to deal with active children as he can't be the first one they had to look after. And surely a facial injury EVERY week is beyond what is acceptable! Am I asking too much when I expect the nursery staff to be more watchful with my son given that they know that he climbs onto things and subsequently falls down?!

Did anyone have a similar experience and how did you deal with it? I don't know what to do as I'm really worried that one day (soon) my son will fall yet again - under the watch of the nursery staff - and split his head or break his arm or something equally severe...

Any advise much appreciated!

To be honest, I'm not sure what you can expect the nursery to do - toddlers can be very fast and easily injure themselves very quickly. My DS is 2.5 and is constantly in the accident book at his nursery - he actually ended up in the accident book on his first visit, which only lasted an hour! And a couple of weeks ago he was in it twice in one day. I know he is a very active, fast child who lives to climb so just accept that it's kind of par for the course. However I have no concerns regarding the care he receives at nursery. I guess if you have those sort of concerns you may feel differently

Are they clearly documenting how these accidents are happening?

Could it be his eyesight? I had the most accident prone toddler ever! He'd yep over his own shadow. Turns out his eyesight wasn't great. He's worn glasses since 2.5

Yes, they are documenting every accident. And individually they aren't anything out of the ordinary - "climbed on shelf, slipped and hit face", "fell off scooter and bumped nose", "fell off rocker and hit lip", "feel over backwards in a chair and bumped head", etc. It's not really the incidents that I worry about but tbe frequency with which they occur. I have a suspicion that they are not watching the kids as closely as they should (the staff to cold ratio is 1:3 but not the child to key worker ratio; and there have been a lot of staff changes recently with several people leaving and the remaining staff having to cover the gaps). But as it's only a suspicion I can't prove it...

I would say that for a very active, climber aged 18months at a nursery this amount of bumps and knocks sounds very normal. As a childminder with loads of experience of kids this age some children do just hurt themselves a lot.
The nursery environment should be as safe as possible. But with a very active, but accident prone child the only way to stop all accidents is to stop him doing the activities or to hover over your Ds interfering at every move. Things like 'fell off scooter' how really could they stop this happening. Neither of these would be good for your ds.
I would arrange a meeting with the nursery manager and get her to walk you round the nursery and explain the steps they have taken to minimise the risk of injury to children in attendance. I would also ask that they document each injury so you can see 'how' they are happening. As long as they are happening in 'ordinary ways' I'm not sure there is much else that could be done.

Sounds about normal to me
Some children have accidents nearly every day!
Some children just seem to have more accidents than others
Does he never have accidents when he is with you?

It's impossible to follow a child around all the time and that's pretty much the only way to attempt to stop them climbing and falling.

I second the idea about getting his eye tested just incase that is making him more accident prone.

Another one saying this doesn't sound out of the ordinary really - DS used to get an average of one accident form a day! I think you have to accept that unless you pay for one to one care (I.e. a nanny) they won't be as closely watched as at home.

I understand your worry about a more serious incident but unless there are ways at nursery he can readily do that (seems unlikely) I'm not sure that's a real risk.

Also get hearing checked, can really affect balance.

Thanks a lot everyone. Although it's hard, I guess I just have to accept that my lo is very accident prone

I can say from the parent of a clumsy child some just are accident prone..Esp when away from parents charging around. I say this as the parent of an 8 year old who was in first aid 3 times one day last week.

I second the check eyes and ears but he is probably too busy to think about safety

My dc3 is the same age and has bumped his head/face 4 times today alone. At least once a week he and my 3 year old end up sporting a new bruise on their head or face and neither of them are in nursery. They are just so active and fast and dc3 is still not steady on his feet when moving quickly. As long as they are taking appropriate measures such as having floors that are non-slip, covering sharp corners and the correct staff ratio, I'm not sure you can entirely stop him getting into bumps and scrapes.

Sounds normal to me too. Mine went through a phase where I was signing the accident sheet every single day - sometimes for more than one incident.

He's very active and loves to climb and stuff too. This weekend, he managed to fall off his trike in the kitchen (he was leaning off it because he was pretending to be a motorbike racer) and smack his face on the dishwasher door. Still has very big corner-shaped bruise on his cheek.

I was standing next to him and couldn't move quick enough to stop it, and I only had the one to look after. So it's no wonder they have accidents at nursery. I really wouldn't worry.

I wouldn't think of your child as 'accident prone' and 'clumsy' but as an adventurous risk-taker. I've got one of them. Children who excel at sports are adventurous risk takers... bloody awful for our nerves but they'll be able to jump their bmx's and flip skateboards and ski and snowboard and all sorts :)

I agree, my DS is super active (and clumsy!) always getting accident forms, as long as your not concerned as to how it happened if out it all down as learning experiences for your little one!!

Same for my DD, not accident prone or clumsy now at 12, but do talk to them if you have concerns still or feel it's more than that.