I'm a bit worried by something that happened at DD nursery today

[kittycat37]

Hi all,
My DD1 (3.7) goes to a Montessori nursery up the road. She's been there a year and has always seemed happy. The teachers seem sensitive and motivated etc

But today she came out of nursery covered in sick at 3pm, pale as a ghost and with a temperature. When I asked her when she'd been sick she said 'lunchtime' )(12.30ish). I was desperate to get her home but I also wanted to know why the hell noone had phoned me, or apparently noticed she'd been sick and was ill.

I went to the manager and said - 'Did you realise my DD had been sick?'
She said 'it must have only just happened', made sympathetic noises, handed me wipes etc

But on the way home I asked DD several times when it had happened and each time she was clear that it had been lunchtime.

Which means not one single member of staff even noticed

I just don't know what to do now. The nursery have always been very good up until now. In the past when DD was ill they phoned me right away and I've had nothing but good impressions of them. But this made me very worried today. What should I do?

Incidently, when I asked DD if she'd tried to tell a teacher she'd been sick she said 'no because I wanted to keep on playing a bit'. I just cannot understand how they wouldn't have noticed.

thanks, she's on the mend I think

good luck kick up a stink but dont do anything rash see what they say and i would guage my response on that.

we have this winter vomming virus just now and from what i observe the temperature and paleness tends to coincide with the vomiting itself, which would tend to back up the nursery tbh. they get the colour back into their cheeks quite quickly afterwards.
glad she is a bit better. my two have also complained of headaches so i have kept them hydrated and with calpol at night.

oh and both of my dds cough when they are sick. it's not like an adult spewing noise, a very definite cough. they should have heard a cough, but then perhaps they didn't know to check for vomit as well. (a lesson i have learned the hard way).

Fwiw ds was fine last week, went to football in the morning, came home and played, we went out for lunch, he ran around the place we were at, sat down, ate some lunch, puked it up everywhere, had a temp and was v v pale and wobbly on his feet - it literally came on in minutes.

What a horrible thing.
I'm just thinking aloud - if she didn't tell anyone because she wanted to carry on playing she must have been playing when she was sick, not sitting at a lunch table.
I'm still rather that nobody noticed. Was there no noise or mess on the carpet/table/ etc either?
Hope she is on the mend now

see this is what would bother me:

If you picked your child up and they brought her out and said "oh it seems x has been sick," and they instantly tried to deal with it and it then transpired that she said it had happened earlier I would be annoyed but perhaps wonder if it had happened when she said etc.

but it appears that this child, covered in, and smelling of, sick was given back to her mother without even a mention of the fact that she appeared to have been sick. It was down to the op to discover that and go and speak to the manager who instantly tried to imply that it had just happened.

There is no way I would leave a child of mine in a setting like that.

the clue would be in the clothes, where they wet or dried in anway? that wold tell you how long.

i kind of agree with wannabe but would also still hold out see what they say.

Oh this is awful :( It's horrible but you'll probably have to remove her or else you will be constantly worried and wondering about the nursery. You will have no trust in them, and it will be very difficult to leave your child there now. Very hard for you though as she's so settled.
I am curious to hear what they say about it. They will have some time to cover themselves since it was brought up to the manager today.

I'm a teacher as well and there is no way that I would not notice a child had been sick. This is really disappointing.

Update:

Thanks for all the replies.

Well I feel a lot better today. I kept DD at home and phoned nursery first thing. Spoke to someone in office and the manager phoned me straight back.

She actually put my mind at rest and I do really trust what she said.

She said that DD had not wanted to eat at lunchtime but had seemed ok. So about an hour after lunch had finished she had sat down herself with her to see if she would then eat anything. This makes total sense as DD kept talking about being at 'another table without the other teachers when the others had finished'. The manager said she had eaten a little bit and then had wanted to play.

Now I think this is when DD had actually started to feel sick (hence not having wanted to eat) but didn't say anything as really had wanted to play (which tallies with what she herself said).

Manager said that DD was happy until final circle time (5mins before end). She said she had definitely not been sick at this point and I do believe her. This woman has always been very reliable and warm and caring in the past.

She said 'I'm really really sorry we didn't notice but she must have been sick literally in the time between the end of circle time and meeting you at the door'. This does actually make sense as the smell was so strong (fresh sick), DD's dress was wet and at the end the kids are collecting their pictures etc and meeting parents so one could be sick at that point with everyone else being more distracted than the rest of the time.

The manager really reassured me saying 'there's absolutely no way a child could go for more than a minute here without us noticing they were sick and we take it very seriously'. This entirely matches with what I've experienced in the past in terms of how they deal with illness. She was really warm about DD and asking after her.

I went through everything with DD and she said 'yes that's what happened' and said she had FELT sick when having sandwiches and been sick at a different time.

So I'm really relieved because my instincts about the nursery are that they are fundamentally a good place. I was feeling generally anxious yesterday about all sorts of stuff which I think made me more suspicious. I know DD is really happy at the nursery.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Phew that is good to know Glad your feelings about the place were right.

:) Oh what a relief!

Great news. I think your instincts were telling you this is a nice place (hence not going in all guns blazing) and you were right to trust them.

i think your instict on this one was right and only you know the response and genuinality of her explination and if she has rested your mind at ease then that is good. sounds honest enough.