so I live really rurally - the nearest town that has a day care is 1 hr and 15 mins away from our village. There is only one that will accept under 2's so didn't have a lot of choice. My son is the only one there under one year old and the staff there keep commenting on how long it has been since they've had to look after a baby his age. They are all nice and seem to care about their job but are clearly very busy - they are 3 children to one adult but mostly have toddlers.
It always feels very chaotic when I'm there and the organisation of his start date was quite poor - I still haven't received a response to the notes I was asked to fill in and send and on his settling in session no-one seemed to know when he would start etc.
Every morning, half an hour after my son arrives they go out for a walk with the big 6 seater buggies. Today I was 5 minutes late because we got stuck behind a tractor, but they were already getting the kids outside to go on the walk, when they'd told me that he'd have time to have a bottle before the walk as its a long journey to town and he doesn't really like to drink much after breakfast so gets hungry at 10am.
I had a bottle made up that would expire in 30 minutes so I told the worker that he had half before we left but if they gave it to him now or took it on the walk he could have it within 30 mins. I had formula measured out for 2 more bottles in his bag with a pouch too, and some mashed sweet potato. I arrived at 3pm to them rushing to give him a bottle, and telling me he'd been refusing milk all day and only had 2oz (he usually has 4-5 8oz bottles a day).
I tried to feed him but he wasnt interested and they told me he had only just had a pouch so would be full. They said they tried him on the sweet potato at lunch time but he didn't eat it and they didn't realise he had a pouch (I told them it was in the front pocket of his bag, with his milk powder). When I left and checked his bag and his notes from them I realised that was the first bottle they had made up today, the 2oz at 12.30 was from the 4 hr old formula. So they fed him old formula that hadn't been in the fridge, and the first thing he ate after breakfast was at 3pm. He got his 2nd full bottle of the day at 4.45pm today because of this and has been quite fussy tonight.
Instantly I feel that my first instinct was right and they don't have enough experience with young babies, and that he is perhaps getting less support because he is very content and will just sit there- he doesn't even really cry when he is hungry and I feel like it's not the best place for him to be. We were just about to up his hours there but now I'm really hesitant to continue, but this would leave me in a pickle childcare wise. Am I overreacting? For context he has an ongoing health issue (craniosynostosis) that he had 2 operations for, and wears an orthotic helmet, and so we are really careful about who looks after him because of his additional needs.