Should the nursery give calpol if I cant get there for over an hour?

[RosJ]

I have a feeling this might have been discussed before....Last week I was called by nursery to say that DS had a temp of 39.5 and could I pick him up. I was about 1 1/2 hours away at the time and asked if they could give him calpol in case it got worse (the baby room is too hot in my opinion). So they said no, we cant because the policy is that if they need calpol they are too ill to be in nursery....

I can understand why they wouldn't want an ill child dropped off in the morning with a bottle of medicine, but it seems harsh to me for them to leave him feeling ill when I cannot be there for some time, through no fault of my own.

I spent nearly two hours on the bus in a traffic jam, crying (he's been ill a lot lately and I was at the end of my tether) and worrying in case his temp went up really high as it did the last time he had a virus.

I could have got my neighbour to pick him up, but tbh, he knows his keyworker much better and would be much happier getting some medicine from her.

Should I complain to the nursery? What are they likely to say? I don't want to be unreasonable.

At the nursery where my dc's go you have to supply the calpol in the sachets so that they cant overdose the children and they have to phone you to check that it is ok to give calpol to the child and then when you pick them up then you have to sign the form. I think they have said that they can only give it if they have a temperature, they wont give it for teething they will only use calgel/bonjella

that's rubbish - if they really refuse to give calpol, they should get in the habit of taking the kid straight over to the local polyclinic for the nurse to give it to him - plus do sponging etc..

IMO not safe to leave such a high temperature unchecked. Leaving it until they start convulsing to intervene is far too late - and really would trigger a lawsuit IMO.

if they are sensible enough to look after children, then they should be sensible enough to administer paracetamol safely when needed. After all, us parents aren't 'trained' in the administraion of calpol are we?

its in my nurseries policy that if child needs meds of any sort then parents have to come in and do it

its in there best interest not to do it if child has reaction or to much given they are not medical staff so there for are not aloud to administer medication

generally a parent would know if their child was allergic to paracetamol, as it is such a widely used drug.

And potentially of course, a child could react to anything (food and drink for example)given to him/her by the nursery.

If I wasn't confident that the staff at my son's nursery would be able to administer calpol on my behalf, I would be seriously worried about whether they were capable of looking after my son at all.

in nursery dd1 and dd2 are at any medication that can be given is written on list[dd1 has inhalers] and if they are guven then you sign a form afterwards

exactly madame platypus

In my nursery parents sign a blanket consent when they start to say that in the event of high temp we can administer calpol (unless allergy). we always call them before giving and make it clear that it is imperative they inform us if they have given calpol etc at home before coming to nursery. If child has not been in for 4 hours and we cannot contact the parent i would be wary of giving calpol but if child had raging high temp i would.

In my opinion i think the nursery we really failing to protect your little one. they had verbal permission and i'm sorry but they should put your child before concerns about their rules.

The new welfare requirements in the EYFS says medicine must be prescribed by a doctor or pharamacist so in my opinion that covers calpol. If an ofsted inspector wants to argue about it so be it, i have a duty of care for the children.

DD's nurseries were happy to give Calpol. They just phoned either me or DH first to ask permission, and we then filled in a parent's slip at the end of teh day when picking up. They didn't automatically send home after a odse of Calpol; that was dependent on how DD was feeling and if she was actually poorly, rather than hot.