Are these red flags re nursery?

[Irotoyu]

My 2 yr old moved from a childminder to a nursery and I'm starting to think it's a mistake. Please tell me if I am being OTT or if these are genuinely issues.

• yesterday they texted me he was his usual happy self and ate all his lunch, then I had to pick him up early as he seemed withdrawn and unwell (so clearly wasn't his happy self?) and had only had "half his lunch" but on the app they then upload that he didn't eat any lunch?? To me this seems untruthful bordering on lying and it puts me on edge

• they never seem to know what he's done all day, I get varying conflicting updates from different members of staff, he is shy and quiet so I think he is blending into the back ground and they aren't actually noticing him.

• I've noticed they chat a long time to other parents with anecdotes about what their kids have done. With me it's a 30 second handover at best. It's really difficult to get detail out of them and I feel uncomfortable like I'm interrogating them but I just can't get any information about his day really and he is too young to properly tell me

• when I text them it takes at least 3 hours for them to respond (do understand they're busy tho so I get it)

• the food is very under whelming... Sandwiches or white rolls for dinner at 4.30pm pretty much every day. That's not a proper dinner. Snacks seem cheap and lunch not that healthy. It makes me question what I'm paying for.

• drop off is always at the gates I never actually see the inside

• they rarely ever take them out on trips which wasn't what I was told on my introduction. The toddler room is upstairs and they seem to stay in it most of the day. It's small hot and stuffy.

Please could I get opinions. We pay 1000s for our child's childcare and whilst I know nurseries are struggling badly, the above just doesn't seem good enough?

I would not be impressed with any of that. The outright lying about the lunch would really bug me and it would make me wonder what else they are doing/or not doing.

How long has DC been in this nursery? If a few days, couple of weeks then most of your points bar one are OTT. They don’t know your child yet, they don’t know what he’s in to, when they’re settling they may be quieter or overwhelmed with the new setting (they’re a lot more structured than childminder) and therefore there is nothing to report back apart from ‘he was fine, played with toys a bit’. Once the kid opens up and they start seeing his interests they will go more in depth like ‘played with the mud tray, loves digging with sticks’, but you realistically can’t do that unless the kid is engaged.

The nursery DD went to had breakfast, lunch and snack. Dinner was a home meal. So the rolls don’t sound weird at all, my DD got crackers with spread most days.

The only trip she got was to the post box up the road, 2 year olds are waaaaay too little to go on organised trips.

Regarding your first point about your DC being unwell. It’s not uncommon for kids to just flick a switch and start feeling unwell. So he could have been fine in the morning, or a little off but you wouldn’t notice unless you were the parent, then lunchtime he got noticeably worse. The how much lunch he ate - if they said he ate all but had none I would question it. But if they said he didn’t eat but had a little bit, is that an issue? Maybe he didn’t eat enough for them to log it as a finished meal. So I do think in a way your expectations are too high. Remember, he is in a nursery setting and not a childminder. Childminders are a lot more informal and they treat the parents like friends. Nurseries are a lot more structured and have lots of procedures and tasks they need to get on with, they’re not going to give you the same attention. Some things may be missed, some may make a mistake on an app when selecting how long your kid has napped. It’s really not a big deal.

My DD isn't in nursery yet but I wouldn't be happy with this at all, especially paying as much as you are. It sounds like he gets no attention, I know they can't give 1:1 attention but it sounds like he goes unnoticed like you said. I'd imagine there are better nurseries for the money you are paying

The only trip she got was to the post box up the road, 2 year olds are waaaaay too little to go on organised trips.
The op was told at induction that they go on trips.
There is a nursery around the corner for me - they regularly take groups of little ones for walks.

Again, really depends on how long the child has been there. It’s not like they would do trips every week

How long have they been at the nursery? It can take a couple of weeks in a new setting like that before they’re eating normally. It can take months before their confidence builds and they integrate well with the other kids, it’s not unusual for them to play on their own a lot initially. But I would expect some kind of update at handover.
I think the food sounds terrible. If they’re not getting outside play time, also terrible. But if your child is very new there, you might not be seeing the full picture yet. I think it’s time to ask questions on their schedules and also ask to see the menus, these should be available for parents to see. Raise any conflicting information or concerns to them. If you’re still not happy after you’ve raised your concerns then maybe it’s time to look for a new childcare setting.

How bad was the childminder that you thought this would be better?!

I wouldn't be happy with any of this.

Some are not great, but also you are going to get a very different style of care at a nursery compared to a childminder.
It's not one person looking after him all day and getting to know him really well, and being out in the community a lot.
In nursery the staff will do shifts and have lunch breaks so the person handing over at the end of the day might not be the person that looked after him earlier in the day or sat with him at lunch time.

Communication sounds poor but also these apps are often more trouble than they're worth. 10 years ago no one would have expected to be able to message their nursery during the day and get an immediate response.
The apps take a lot of adult time away from the children.

Trips out are difficult as you need either fewer children to be in or extra staff - they might have 1 adult to every 5 two year olds in the building but when they go on a trip, realistically they'd need 1 adult to every 2 or 3 children.

They should be out playing in the garden every day though.

Tea at nursery is usually a light meal though so sandwiches, toast or cheese and crackers is pretty normal - they presumably have a cooked lunch and if tea is at 4.30pm they will be eating again at home.

Leave. It sounds like my sons old nursery. They are supposed to go outside every day, mine never did and they lied about it constantly. He was withdrawn and happy and the nursery was full of it. A large chain nursery, I expected better from. We swapped nurseries for a family run one and he is absolutely flying now!

Most of these things I’d say are okay & to be expected of a nursery setting for example:

• Different updates from different staff members; it’s not specific 121 care with one person following your child all day. Different staff members will see him doing different things at different points of the day. That’s normal for nursery, whereas a childminder would be 1 person with an overview of the day, you don’t get that with a nursery
• Your updates being short vs longer chats with other parents- how long have you been at the nursery? Have you built up a relationship yet? My handover’s are longer than average but that’s because I’ve now built up a relationship with the staff especially her key worker so often we chat for a bit about weekend plans etc, you wouldn’t know that if you were just watching though so could assume I’m getting a huge debrief on her day. If you’re new though there probably is a bit less to say as less backstory, like for us they’ve known her awhile now, they know her little personality and how much she has changed/developed so comment on that often whereas they wouldn’t even know that for a new child.
• 3 hour response to texts- pretty normal too I’d say & I’d rather they were looking after kids than replying to texts. Our nursery does say if urgent call them and there’s always someone to pick up the phone but texts on the app aren’t priority.
• Drop off at gates, again, normal. Our drop off is at the door but same concept, no parents go inside. That’s because it’s less hassle for all involved & safer for all kids than having 25 random adults in and out.
• Sandwich/roll for dinner- it’s not really meant to be their proper dinner, they have dinner with you at home. Again, very normal.
• Trips- again, depends how long you’ve been there but especially the few weeks or so I wouldn’t be surprised if trips out had been stopped due to the heat. Easier to keep kids all safe & cool in their own space than out in the sun for hours.

Not okay to me would be:

• Issues with the lunch, eating/not eating/eating half, I’d not be happy with that especially if there was then a call home due to illness because one of the signs (for me) of how she’s feeling is whether she is eating & drinking as normal. If they can’t say if she even did eat thats not helpful.
• If they genuinely don’t do many trips, and not just recently because of the heat, I wouldn’t be happy with that especially if no outside space for them to play in. My daughter’s nursery take them out & also have a fab nursery garden and that was one of the main reasons I chose that nursery so wouldn’t be happy if that changed other than short term for safety reasons in heat obviously.

Spending all day in a hot stuffy room with no access to outside space is appalling.

My son has only been there 7 weeks. So it's early days. Maybe there will be more trips to come and they will get to know him more I'm sure.

To be honest the only thing that is getting my back up more than anything else is the discrepancy about lunch. Because to me that's lying and now I have no idea if he ate since the morning.. He did turn about to be unwell and refused dinner. And it's a slippery slope with lying about small things like that, it shows form, and it makes me very uncomfortable.

I was told by a worker he had half his lunch, texted that he ate all of it and on the app it said no lunch. That's what I had the issue with.

Do understand your other points tho.

Meals wise, ours do a substantial lunch (usually hot eg pasta, rice, pie etc with vegetables), whereas the meal at 4pm ish is lighter. Sometimes this is sandwiches, wraps, bagels, other times it's cous cous or similar. It's normal for that meal not to be hot or as substantial as lunch I think, although it should be balanced and healthy. Handover at the gates is strange I wouldn't like that, but no idea how commonplace it is elsewhere. They should absolutely be able to tell you what they have been doing all day, what they enjoyed etc or who they were playing with

Edited to add that ours don't do many trips but are outside a lot and have a physical education fun type class on a Friday and do stretch and grow pre school yoga too

It might have been a particularly busy or chaotic lunch time or a staff member looked at the wrong plate or got a child confused - easy to tick the wrong box on the app when you're really busy and have a million things to do rather than actively lying about anything.

What struck me most of all is that his day is spent in an upstairs room which is small, hot and stuffy. Imagine all the shared germs and bugs. Children need fresh air and outdoor play and lots of it and this won’t just be hot and stuffy, it will be noisy. All the time.

Why did you switch from a childminder?

Yeah it's one to watch. I think the lunch discrepancy can be explained and may be human error - likely he didn't eat but perhaps logged as half as it had been cut up etc.
Handover at gate - fine. We handover at the door. It's faster and less chaotic. Trips out - mu LO rarely went out however they do have a massive garden.
Big one for me to watch is his learning observations. If you haven't had any yet (ours are published termly) that's a good way to see time spent with adults and what they have observed.
A quick email to ask for more information at handover, or an overview of how he's settling would be a good step forward. Explain you've not heard much but would like to understand how he's doing.
How does he leave nursery? I hope not "clean" but is his personal care being met? Eg clean nappy/ help toileting etc?
Do they have a garden?

Written observations are not a requirement any more so many setting choose not to do them - that's not necessarily a red flag!

Posted too soon. I guess the biggest green or red flag for a nursery is how they respond to your concerns.
So a quick email or a call with a manager is a good way to gauge how good they are / willing to listen and action any of your concerns x

Staying in all day is the biggest red flag for me. Re communication, I find I'm never satisfied with the info I get but you should ask for a better handover. You can raise it as simply as emailing the nursery and saying you're not getting a clear picture of how he's settling in and what he's doing. A lot of the other stuff is fairly normal but if you've got a gut feeling don't ignore it.

*@legoplaybook · Today 21:04

It might have been a particularly busy or chaotic lunch time or a staff member looked at the wrong plate or got a child confused - easy to tick the wrong box on the app when you're really busy and have a million things to do rather than actively lying about anything.*

The op has said she is paying thousands for the care of her child.
The least she could expect is that she gets the correct information about what he has eaten or not eaten. The staff are meant to be qualified and trained.

Depends what they mean by “trips” and the impression they gave OP. My son is still in the baby room (up to 2ish) trips lately have been to the local park, to see the ducks and to look at the diggers on the construction site nearby as they have all been loving the toy diggers and sand in the tuff trays. Sometimes they take the older children to hear stories and sing songs at a local care home!

I’m happy with that, I wasn’t expecting them to take a load of toddlers anywhere adventurous. I did pick our nursery because they have a big garden and a fenced off bit for the babies, and they have loads of outdoors time.

Even qualified and trained doesn't mean that getting 15 or 20 toddlers through lunch won't be busy or chaotic sometimes.

I wouldn't be happy with that. Our nursery was free flow to outside, it was really important to me. Every room had their own secure garden, even the babies could crawl out to their little outside space if the door was open.

The messaging would be less of a concern just because I know how busy they are - you can't expect it to be perfect. But I would want to feel like they cared and were getting to know him, and enjoying him.

The food does sound rubbish. Ours did a hot meal at dinnertime - something like pie and veg, jacket potato and beans, lentil stew, shepherd's pie etc. Then tea was crackers with cheese and cucumber, or half a bagel.

Could you go and look round other nurseries, get a feel for what else is out there?