3 year old left unsupervised

[Memo88]

On Friday, DH picked up DS (3y 4m) from nursery. He was wearing different trousers to the ones he was dropped off in and when DH went to put on DS coat and get his bag, DS told him he had put his wet trousers and pants behind his backpack. DS told DH he had had an accident (which is rare) and then found himself clean pants and trousers in his backpack and changed himself (his socks were also wet but he hadn’t changed them). This would have taken a while - DS can just get his clothes on and off but it’s time consuming, I’d say that would have taken at least 10 minutes, probably closer to 20. DH asked staff what had happened but no one was aware, which tallies with the fact his dirty clothes were left behind his bag, staff would always put them in a nappy sack and into the backpack.

When they got home and told me what had happened I rang the manager to find out what had gone on - why were none of the staff aware, was he left unsupervised for nearly 20 minutes? The manager has promised to ask the staff and get back to me on Monday morning.

I’m really concerned that he was unsupervised for so long. I plan to ask the manager about the staffing ratios on Monday, particularly as the nursery changed ownership a couple of years ago and they hugely increased the fees (now the most expensive locally), with extra staff provision (above legal minimums) used as justification.

Am I being unreasonable to be so unhappy about this? What would you do?

That is very concerning. I would certainly take this further.
On the bright side, what a sensible and capable child your son is.
Unless the nursery have a very good explanation, which I can’t imagine that they can have, I would look for a different nursery.

Our nursery pre-school room encourage independence of children so I wouldn't be concerned by this. If a child went to the toilet, then their backpack, then the toilet, no questions would be asked because the child was ok.

You did the right thing by asking nursery to investigate. But he may have just gone to loo, via his backpack on the way back after realising he didn’t make it, and been far quicker at changing than he ever is at home so the staff figured it was just a normal loo trip. 20 minutes to change pants and trousers is a very long time. Don’t get me wrong, mine would definitely take the same amount of time at home because they’re messing about, want me to do it for them etc. but I would have thought that at 3+, if determined to actually do it and providing it’s easy trousers like joggers then it would actually only take about 1 minute maximum. Hopefully anyway since that would be far more reassuring than they didn’t know where he was for that long. Fingers crossed you get answers Monday.

You must be really proud of your sons level of independence. This shows really good school readiness skills. Is the toileting facility with in the main room or does he have to go into a separate room. In a 1:8 ratio it is impossible to supervise children all the time. Can I ask if your son independently plays at home for any period of time? In my setting we often find children have taken themselves to get changed however we do encourage them to tell a grown up.