HELP - biting at nursery

[tizzywizzydizzy9]

Our daughter is being constantly bitten by another child in nursery. We have seen the Manager twice and on each occasion have been told that the child in question is being monitored. There are 6 children to 2 members of staff.

To make things worse our daughter has been excluded by being sent to the Baby Room, so that they are both separated. Our child is 16 months and the other child is 19 months. We are now thinking about withdrawing her from the nursery - are we being neurotic!!

we had this problem, unfortunatly it was my one that was the biter- i dont know where he picked it up from, we certainly dont go round the home biting each other.
im glad that the nursery brought it to my attention, hes 16mths so doesnt fully understand, but he was watched closely and if the nursery nurses thought he was about to bite someone, quickly scooped him away. touch wood they havnt reported any more instances. if you are happy with the nursery otherwise then dont move your child, the other one should grow out of it.

I would be really unhappy about this too - and totally understand why you are considering withdrawing her.
However, the trauma of resettling her could be worse than sticking it through and coming to a better solution. Definitely think that your child shoud not be the one who is withdrawn if this is the only reason. I would question this action straight away and ask them to explain their logic behind it. I would also want to know if the children?s parents have been informed and exactly what is involved in their monitoring system - 6 to 2 staff is a great ratio and once a biter has been identified then a reoccurance should be almost impossible - certainly not a constant thing. Staff who cannot stop this from being a constant occurance are simply failing to keep your child safe and so are not doing their job properly. Accidents happen but not this frequently especially as the problem has been identified. You have every right to be fed up and angry about it. I would not be angry with the children who are biting - it can be a phase and they are too young to understand what they are doing/control their emotions properly. After all, that is one of the many reasons the adults are present for goodness sake.
As pamina says, it can happen in the best nursery - but the best nurseries would handle it so that the victim is not penalised by removing them from their peers and the incidents would be isolated and quickly stopped.
FWIW, personally, I would go in and tell them that you wish her to be with her peers and expect them to do everything in their power to keep her from being bitten again - even if this means isolating them from the group temporarily. If they can?t sort it out within a week I would withdraw her.
HTH Good Luck