Nursery, nappy rash, filthy child

[RidgeyRidge]

My dd has repeatedly come home from nursery with extremely painful nappy rash. I have complained several times to the nursery but it keeps happening. Today has been the worse where I've barely been able to get near her to clean her properly as the was still poo around her bum as she's in so much pain

I am absolutely fuming and don't want to send her back there again. I haven't yet paid for the forthcoming month and am tempted to seek other childcare immediately somehow

When I come to collect her she is always covered in dried food and snot. And so are the other children. Is this normal???--

Am I overreacting?

No its not normal.
How have you complained and who to? You will need to follow the nurseries complaints procedure and make sure your concerns are in writing.

Ok thank you for your reply. I've been complaining verbally to her key worker and it did improve for a little while, but today is just awful. I don't even understand how it could possibly get that bad within one day.

I will put in a formal complaint in writing this evening. The thing is, I don't want to send my dd back there knowing there's a risk it could happen again.

Complain to OFSTED. That's disgraceful.

Horrendous. How long has your child been attending? As others have said I would lodge a formal complaint and inform OFSTED as I think they can only take it on if a formal complaint has been raised.

I hope you can find much better childcare quickly

My DDs nursery made a point of telling me she had a poo when asleep and her bum was a bit sore, they told me they had put lots of cream on. My point is they spoke to me about it and didn't just send her home like it was okay. These things happen but not all the time.

I'm a nursery manager and agree that's not acceptable
You need to complain to the manager and not the key person
Ring or send an email
Tell them you are considering removing your child

This happened to me and dd a few years ago.
I lived a 5 minute drive away and would often get home to find a red and sore bottom or often poo in her nappy.
I complained and was always shown a nappy changing chart that said what time she was done etc, trouble was they were doing nappies based on time it seemed and not on whether it was dirty or not as she was always done at toughly the same time. 2 hours before I picked her up.
One day I picked her up and she cried the whole way home and when I got her home she was so sore that I had to shower her and bathe her. Couldn't touch it with a wipe.
You know when the skin is almost weeping blood but not cut.

I emailed them that evening saying that they were in breach of our contract due to negligence and that I would not be bringing dd back and would not be paying them the standard 4 weeks notice and would be seeking a refund of the monies I had paid for I think the next 2 weeks.

Manager contacted me next day and I went in, with photo evidence and she refunded me.

Don't take no for an answer.
Your poor dd 😔

Thanks for all of your replies! I'm so angry I was wondering if I was being a bit pfb and irrational.

Getting I'm so sorry to hear about your dd, that sounds utterly dreadful.

I'd consider this unacceptable.

DS2 used to get horrific nappy rash - to the point where his skin would be starting to bleed sometimes - very quickly after having a poo (a particular problem if we were somewhere like a motorway where we were unable to deal with the poo immediately).

We made his nursery aware of how sensitive his bottom was when he started nursery. It was very very unusual for him to come home with a sore bum, and if it was a bit sore, his key worker would tell us about it and have slathered his bum in cream. But him having a sore bum after nursery was very much the exception from the norm.

It's acceptable to change nappies according to time. It's part of my sons nursery routine. (When he went)

However all poo nappies get changed immediately and all wee nappies as soon as noticed. So every 2 hours they are checked and changed if wet and it has been missed

It's not acceptable to have a routine where nappies are changed at set times
It should be according to each child's needs

At my son'S nursery they are done at set times but then more often (e.g. Straight away) if they poo. You wouldn't possibly be able to tell if they'd wee'd unless you were constantly checking!
So no, not acceptable

They do poo changes as soon as one has been done at my daughter's nursery and wees a minimum of every 3 hours. It stops a child being 'missed' during a break/change of staff. It's worked well where my daughter goes. Only ever came home with nappy rash once in 2 years.

They shouldn't be sticking to a schedule so strictly. The child should be changed when they've soiled and when they have a clear wet nappy. If they don't have either they need to be changed a maximum of every 2/3 hours depending on the nursery policy. So a child should be changed every 3 hours if they haven't soiled a nappy and they don't have a sodden nappy but if they have either they should be changed asap.

Write everything down and have a face to face talk with the manager. I was a nursery nurse for 8 years. If a child's bottom was red at all I would check what cream they could have and apply it and inform the parents at home time. The staff should be doing this naturally, not waiting for you to complain about it!

Oh gosh. How awful .

If this has happened more than once, I think you should speak to the nursery manager and ensure it's dealt with as a formal complaint.

If there was even one more instance of this, I would remove DD.

I had this with DS2. I removed him immediately and sent him to another preschool that had very luckily just opened, attached to Ds1;s primary school.

I understand if you can't move your child immediately but IMO you should start looking beause staff who will do this will not be providing good childcare in any other way either. It smacks of laziness and uncaring

If they are consistently failing to get the absolute basics right then I can't see how you could have any faith in the rest of the care they give. If you can find an alternative or manage until you do, then I think you should remove her now.

Also, I have changed nursery with DD1 and found that since she was used to being away from me, she settled at her new nursery much quicker than I had anticipated. The new nursery normally only had children starting who had been at home and they were amazed by how quickly DD1 settled. It is tempting to accept flaws in a nursery because you don't want to disrupt your child, but moving DD1 was absolutely the best thing for her. And our reasons for moving her weren't nearly as fundamental as yours.

It's kind of the most basic thing isn't it? Keep them clean, keep them fed, keep them watered. Hope you manage to get it sorted OP

I wrote a formal complaint to the manager and have withdrawn her from the nursery. She was extremely apologetic and accepted it was negligence and assured me that it will be dealt with properly. They have said they'd welcome my dd back but the trust has gone.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for childcare now but I can't subject her to that kind of laziness. She's really struggled with the pain today.

Poor little thing. I know you didn't ask for advice but sometimes keeping it aired can help?
Good luck with finding new childcare

Good on you OP! We've had this issue with one of DS's nurseries (he had been going to 2, long story) and this was the main reason we took him out:

If they are consistently failing to get the absolute basics right then I can't see how you could have any faith in the rest of the care they give

This was the thing for me, when something so basic was being neglected, and we were dealing with heartbreaking tears and red weeping rashes every evening, how can you have any trust the rest of their care is up to scratch?

Good luck with finding new childcare, there are amazing places out there, but sometimes takes a little trial and error!