Nursery trouble - some thoughts please

[PavlovtheWitchesCat]

My 16month old daughter goes to nursery 1 day per week from 8am - 6pm and alternative weeks, also for two hours on another day.

My husband and I share the childcare on other days, juggling around work.

My issues are:
The nursery staff, in particular the manager, seems to think we are treating the place as childcare, rather than as a legitimate place for our child to develop and grow and as such are not involving us in her development - we have to probe to get answers from them about how she is doing, she has not arranged a parents meeting for us, despite asking

They have moved her from room to room for an hour each day, without talking to us about the best place for her to be, and now moved her permanently into the older room, rightly so as she should have been moved ages ago, but without discussion with us, her parents either as to why she is moved now, or why it has taken so long.

The carers are obviously bored, especially with the older children.

The manager is more interested in making sure we pay on time than listening to us, or sharing her experiences there.

I have a suspicion that she misses meals, esp when she goes in for 2 hours over lunch - she is never messy, not a jot of food on her clothing. and is always hungry, even though her book states 'eaten all'. (she is ALWAYS messy when she eats at home, no matter how much we try to keep her clean and she does not usually eat much lunch, on those days she eats all her nursery lunch, plus another when she gets home).

So, my reason for posting. Should we seek an alternative nursery, or accept that they will all be like this? It might only be one day per week, but we want to make sure she is in the best place to grow and learn.

Ideas welcome.

[RubySlippers]

alarm bells are ringing i'm afraid - not all nurseries are like this. There are some very good ones.

bored staff = not good
manager overly concerned with payment, not children is awful!

They of course should have told you your DD was moving up

DS goes fulltime to nursery and comes home with a sheet each day. Every 16 weeks we have a more formal one to one chat with his key worked, which we are reminded about 3 weeks before

filthy clothes are normal - covered in food/paint etc - i always say to the staff i know he has had a good day the dirtier he is

[oooggs]

ds1 has been at nursery since 14mths and now nearly 4. I love the place for all the right parent reasons and he loves it too.

It is quite small and nothing is done without discussion (which I like).

I wouldn't be happy with the things you have mentioned if it was happening to any of my dcs.

[PavlovtheCat]

Ruby - you have confirmed my fears! DD is the most messy child I know. Sometimes they change her top but usually because she has dribbled due to teething.

The carers, there are two in particular who I like, and the managers, they love the babies, and up to recently, my DD has been a baby and has had lots and lots of attention. But now she is the older one, the others are 12 months oldest, and we have asked a few times when she would be going into the other room and just vague 'got to talk to the manager' answers. We had a parents meeting to discuss development in th week we got married in Sept, were given less than one weeks notice, and were promised it would be re-arranged, but dispite us asking when this will be twice now, it has not been arranged. I mentioned her moving again yesterday and then today, we were just told, 'she is now a tiny tiger' by the manager and off she went to talk to another parent.

I worry that, although she is settled and happy enough there, now she is getting older, she will have more needs to be met than cuddles and clean nappies, and we might not be informed if she needs attention in particular areas, or of concerns, and also the good stuff.

[RubySlippers]

i am sorry to have confirmed your fears ...

it is difficult but you do need to either kick them up the bum about the stuff you have mentioned or find alterative childcare

The staff should be engaged with the children they are looking after

It isn't good enough to not re-arrange meetings either

[RubySlippers]

write down your concerns and ask to speak to the Manager

[PavlovtheCat]

oooggs - thats what I want. For us to be involved in all decisions, obvious or not. She is our child and we are ultimately responsible.

The thing i think I dislike the most is this underlying feeling that this is just daycare for our daughter, rather than a proper part of her development. If I was a SAHM I would still put her in nursery one day a week, not for as long each day, but I still beleive its important for her development to have this time with other children and with other carers. Even though it is one day only, its important that DD is looked after properly and we have input in how this is done.

I was not sure if I was expecting too much.

[PavlovtheCat]

Ruby - I am going in today to talk to the manager, I think this is why I posted, so that I did not go in with unrealistic expectations and be shot down.

We are considering increasing her nursery to two days a week soon, and have considered this would be a good opp to start looking for other nuseries - sort of phase DD into another one rather than just pull her out.

I am concerned that dicussing my fears will not change anything, as it seems to be systematic problem rather than one individual who can be pulled up about something.

I mean, if she says she will do something about my concerns how long would I give it? WOuld two months be detrimental to my DDs development for example?

[oooggs]

I know I am spoilt as the staff at the nursery (which is work based) go above and beyond the call of duty.

They were fantastic at keeping things normal for ds1 when dts were born. The manager even gave me her mobile no. just incase I needed childcare in the night!!!!!! and she has a daughter same as as ds1.

It is very important for us to know everything (some might not think so) and if that is what you want and you aren't getting it, it would be worth weighing up other options.

[PavlovtheCat]

ruby - with regards to the sheet - we have a little book which is filled in but it is very generic and does not say much...this is the typical entry.

Breakfast - weetabix - ALL
Snack - fruit and milk - ALL
Lunch - chicken bake - All
Snack - fruit and milk - ALL
Tea - crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks - ALL (she never eats raw veg at home, she spits it out!)

Sleep 11:00am. 45 mins

Activities
Garden
Ball Pool
Musical instruments

Nothing else.

[morocco]

gosh, food thing sounds well impressive, or rather suspect!! have you phoned around to see if there are vacancies elsewhere? give you more of an idea of where you stand

[ruddynorah]

are they keeping a log of what she does? as part of the national 'birth to three matters' scheme they are supposed to do regular observations of each child to help plan what activities they will do in the coming days. so for dd for example (aged 18 months) she has a log book with all her art work, tons of photos and little snippets like 'm is doing very well with utensils now, she ate 3 bowls of soup with skill.' or 'm is learning about sharing, her and k have enjoyed taking it in turns pushing each other round on the truck.' etc etc. also each day (she only goes 2 afternoons) we get a sheet that says how many nappies she's had, what she's eaten, and what she's played with.

if i were you i'd read up o the birth to three framework (google it a bit) and then ask the nursery specific questions. also, what was their ofsted like? did it seem good when you looked round?

[PavlovtheCat]

ok, I think this is what I am going to do. Rather than be confrontational, as I hate this and its likely to be busy with parents collecting children at the time I go, I am going to insist that an appointment is made there and then to discuss DDs development and any issues we have. This way both DH and I can attend and it will be more structured. It will also be less like I am going in for a fight and then I might make some changes without getting their backs up).

In the meantime, as this unlikely to be before next week, I will check out some other nurseries near where I work, and arange for DD to have some taster sessions to get a feel for what might be out there. DH says, we might find a place that will blow us away, and this current place does not do that for him, so we will try to fnd that place.

Sound ok? Or am I being to nice?

[ruddynorah]

x post. ok so you're getting the sheet, that's the same as ours tends to say. our says ALL too, but i beleive that with dd, she is usually covered i food, and she does gobble all her food at home. your log book doesn't sound adequate though. check out the birth to three stuff. and ask your manager for a meeting, wait around until she gives you a time.

[PavlovtheCat]

Morocco -exactly. She eats all of everything. She never does this at home. She has a great great appetite, but wont eat everything on her plate, and makes a right proper mess!

Ruddy - no they dont, the log is as above. Nothing personal about what she is doing in the garden, or how she is enjoying the musical instruments, just the words written down.

When we looked around it looked good, they have charts up on the wall for the older children upstairs (3-5?), and I was impressed with the baby room, it was clean, had plenty of staff who looked happy to be there, however, to be honest I guess I was more interested in the baby room then than any other room as DD was only 7 months old then. Ofsted was good, specifically for the baby room.

The staff, the ones who were happy when we first started DD going there, used to be smiley all the time, but lately they look fed up, dont know if its a change, or if I am noticing it more.

Sometimes the log states the nappies, mostly not, i figure that out by how many are left in her bag!

[bozza]

The food and not being dirty might be because they make them wear really all covering overalls or something. That is a possibility. Also often children do eat at nursery what they won't at home - my DD recently informed me that she "only likes nursery oranges".

[BibiThree]

Just a quick one, all the little ones used to wear a painting apron with long arms etc when eating at her nursery - ask them how they manage to keep her so clean!

Also agree with other poster about food - dd would ry all sorts at nursery that other children were eating, not at home.

Ask the manager for a meeting and get your questions answered.

[PavlovtheCat]

Bozza - lol ! The fodo thing - they wear bibs, sometimes she has a bib on when I pick her up. At home, a bib makes little difference to how much mess she gets into, she usually has it all down her lap as she likes to drop things into her lap for fun, and she hates people feeding her, which means if its spoon or fork related, she spills half down her front and half in her mouth.

I cannot beleive that she would make absolutely no mess whatsover eating 'vegetable curry'!!!

I am not overly concerned about this on its own anyway as she is there only one day, eats tea at home as well just in case and drinks a ton of milk. Its the possibility that they might miss a meal when she is there for only two hours, and not state it to me that concerns me, along with everything else.

We shall see how it goes this afternoon, I will not be leaving without an appt!

[PavlovtheCat]

Ruddy - I will look up the birth to three stuff before I meet with them too. thanks for that tip

[bozza]

I am not really dismissing your concerns because it does seem like a bit of a general picture in this case. And I do agree with you that just a bib at that age is no guarentee against mess. I was thinking more of a bib over a men's shirt on backwards kind of thing.

[wannaBe]

children will often eat foods at nursery, or in environments where they are with other children that they wouldn't eat at home. I remember my sister's when she attended her ds' nursery christmas party, and there he was happily tucking into tuna mayo sandwiches when he would never even have touched them at home. Also, it's entirely possible that they cover the little ones when eating, because taking off bibs and chucking them in the wash is much easier than having to change 30 odd kids after a meal.

Not communicating is an issue though and I would have a conversation with the manager. however, at 17 months, nursery is generally there for childcare. At such a young age there is no need for children to be away being educated by others, although there should be interaction between the staff/children, the nursery is not there to develop the children - that is the job of the parents.

[ruddynorah]

birth to three matters

[PavlovtheCat]

I think I disagree wannaBe - I agree that it is the main purpose of the parents to develop their children, and it is for this reason that we use nursery minimally. However, I expect that whilst at nursery, rather than with a 'childminder' there are certain provisions in place that ensure development continues. Not that it replaces the development through parental responsibility but works with the processes already in place, even at 16 months old. If decisions are made without our knowledge as parents who, as you rightly say are mainly responsible for her development, then how will they know if what they do or dont do is not compatible?

[PavlovtheCat]

Ruddy - oh that looks great! Not just for nursery, given me some ideas to! We do a lot of it already, but some of it we dont....thanks! Am off to get DD now...

[RubySlippers]

pavlov - let us know how you get on
i think your plan was good BTW - better to have a face to face chat about it

I think your DD's sheet isn't good enough - well it may be if you have other verbal feedback ...

DS's lists his foods eaten and how much
nappies
sleeps
key worker activity
other general activities
how much he has drunk and when offered
the story they have been told and songs sung

he is also 17 months so roughly the same age as your DD

[PavlovtheCat]

No meeting. No managers - there are two managers - neither in when I went to collect DD.

No book today as DH did not pack it, feedback was:

How has she been in here with the big kids? 'yeah, yeah, good, good' asked how long she slept for so was told a little about her sleep routine, which I was happy with?

How about her eating, did that go ok, as she been off her food with being ill (she had croup). Yeah, yeah, fine, good. No problems? No, no, fine. she ate fine.

Can you tell x (manager) I will pop in tomorrow to arrange a meeting to discuss DD progress - blank look - yeah, sure.

Hiwever DD herself...she seemed v happy, seem to love being with the toddlers.