Creche put girls pull ups on a potty trained 3 year old boy

josip

Yesterday when I went to collect our son from the creche he was wearing different clothes than when we brought him in the morning. His minder said he had an accident (which happens about once a fortnight when he's too busy playing to get to the potty in time) He was wearing someone else's clothes because he moved rooms 2 weeks ago and the minder wasn't yet familar with his bag where his spare clothes are. The clothes were for a 18-24 month old and were skin tight. The top was so tight that it really hurt him to get it off.
Thought nothing of it, sometimes before we haven't restocked his clothes and they'd borrow from another boy in the room. But no other boy in the room would fit in these.

What I did get upset about was when we got home, he started pulling at the waist of his shorts, saying " I'm a big boy, I'm not a baby" When I took off his trousers I could see that underneath, instead of underpants he had a pair of girls (pink princess) pullups. He's been potty trained for 18 months. Nobody in his room uses nappies, nor have they for some considerable time.

Can anyone who is more familar with creche setups explain how this could come about? I rang the creche and the stand-in manager said that the creche policy was to replace like with like and if there were none spare to use some of their own. They would try to find out what happened. Has this happened to anyone else?

dublinlady

josip wrote: »

Yesterday when I went to collect our son from the creche he was wearing different clothes than when we brought him in the morning. His minder said he had an accident (which happens about once a fortnight when he's too busy playing to get to the potty in time) He was wearing someone else's clothes because he moved rooms 2 weeks ago and the minder wasn't yet familar with his bag where his spare clothes are. The clothes were for a 18-24 month old and were skin tight. The top was so tight that it really hurt him to get it off.
Thought nothing of it, sometimes before we haven't restocked his clothes and they'd borrow from another boy in the room. But no other boy in the room would fit in these.

What I did get upset about was when we got home, he started pulling at the waist of his shorts, saying " I'm a big boy, I'm not a baby" When I took off his trousers I could see that underneath, instead of underpants he had a pair of girls (pink princess) pullups. He's been potty trained for 18 months. Nobody in his room uses nappies, nor have they for some considerable time.

Can anyone who is more familar with creche setups explain how this could come about? I rang the creche and the stand-in manager said that the creche policy was to replace like with like and if there were none spare to use some of their own. They would try to find out what happened. Has this happened to anyone else?

That's upsetting - very unfair to do that to the little fella. Your right to pursue it, my daughter is 18 months and starting crèche soon and I would HATE to think if that happening once potty trained - what's worse is was he told he was a baby for wetting his pants? Just wondering as he said it - because if he was that's so mean. It's unhelpful and emotionally abusive in my mind... But then I am particularly sensitive & hormonal at the mo ... Think I'd still be raging.

How Strange

I think you should follow this up with the crèche manager as you're clearly upset about it. It seems you were fobbed off before so if I were you I'd call in and speak to the manager face to face.

It does seem demeaning to put a toilet trained child in nappies, pull ups or not. If he said that to you about being a big boy then he obviously felt humiliated. Crèche staff of all people should be very aware of such things as they work with small children every day.

Pugins

This seems wrong on several levels. It's almost as if they were annoyed with him for having an accident and trying to punish him ie too small clothes, the baby comment and putting him in a pull-up. Also the princess pull-up would really bug my 3 year old boy as he associates pink and princesses with girls. Maybe that's reading too much into it but I would investigate. Accidents happen and they should be prepared even if they can't find your spares. Our daycare has spare boys and girls clothes and underpants/panties in a range of sizes just in case. I would definitely follow it up.

2xj3hplqgsbkym

I would probably be upset too if it happened to my child.

However, maybe try to look at it from a different angle.

He had an accident, she wanted to get him changed as quick as possible but couldn't find his clothes. She didn't want him walking around wth wet pants or no pants so she grabbed something as quick as she could. She could only find girls clothes, they would have to do. The pants are little pink frilly knickers, that would hurt him as they were way too small and she thought the parents wouldn't be happy with pink frilly pants on a boy so she decided to put on pull ups instead as they are more comfortable, happens that there are princesses on them but you wouldn't really notice. He knows from potty training that babies wear nappies so he associates them with babies which is why he was confused and told you he's not a baby.


It shouldn't have happened. Speak to the manager in person and let her know your feelings. They should have a policy in place to prevent this from happening again, ask her about this.

Without knowing the creche worker at all, I doubt that it was done deliberately or in a demeaning way, it was just a rushed decision.

Ms2011

Surely they're first port of call should have been to contact you if they couldn't find your son's clothes?
I know that would have been the case in my son's creche.

Hannibal Smith

Id be asking if, when a child wets themself, is it general policy to put them in a pull up. If its not and it was just a case that the pull up was the only thing they could findit was just one of those things. If it is general policy to put them in a pull up I would ask them to change that sharpish, because to me the child could see it as a way of being demeaned and demoted back to baby because they had an accident.

The clothes, Im sure there are a whole rake of clothes in there they could have selected from. Why chose clothes that must have been as difficult to put on as they were to take off? Make it clear to the girls in the room the next time you drop him in that he has his own clothes in there, there is no need to squeeze him into ones that dont fit.

I know from when my son was in creche he would come home in all sorts if he wet himself. He did have his own clothes in there but the girls would just grab whatever they could find so everyone was wandering round in everyone elses stuff. It never bothered me because it was a share and share a like type thing. If I thought for a second they were putting him in smaller clothes as a punishment I would have kicked up a fuss.

onedmc

I think the most important thing about the minders in the crèche is that they treat the babies as individuals. That they make the effort to understand the individual babies needs and act accordingly. At that age a very close relationship is very important and the baby must feel like they can trust the minder.

Moving rooms is very hard for a baby and the crèche must make every effort to make sure it's not just going smoothly for the employees but that the baby is secure in the move.

The baby's welfare and security are more important that the employees or the institution. This is different to others businesses where the staff welfare and operation of the business may take precedence over the customer needs.

I would request that the manager goes throught the formal complaint process that you and she goes through the complaints process, complaints log and issue log. This should of course be in the crèches issue log event if it was not brought to your attention.

You should have a good read of the crèches general policies and go throught any other relevant policies with the manager. Review the children first policy as well.

Pencil in a hour with the manager to do this. As a parent who used a crèche until recently this works a treat.

pwurple

onedmc wrote: »

I would request that the manager goes throught the formal complaint process that you and she goes through the complaints process, complaints log and issue log. This should of course be in the crèches issue log event if it was not brought to your attention.

You should have a good read of the crèches general policies and go throught any other relevant policies with the manager. Review the children first policy as well.

Pencil in a hour with the manager to do this. As a parent who used a crèche until recently this works a treat.

I think complaints policies and logging issue for this is way overreacting. It just sounds like they used whatever clothes were handy to get the child back to playing quickly.

The princess pull ups are a bit daft alright, I didn't even know such a thing existed.

Rose35

I would not have been happy if it had happened to my little boy, the boy has been trained for 18 months!!!!! what were they thinking putting a pull up on him, also he has his own spare clothes in creche, they couldnt find the bag, sounds like they didnt put much effort into looking for it, squeezing a child into small clothes is not on, can't be that hard to find an appropriate outfit even if the childs bag had gone missing, speak with the manager about this incident again, it's not acceptable, poor little man.

dublinlady

I do t think its acceptable to say - they just grabbed the closest clothes there. I buy my children's clothes for them to wear - noone else's. it should be clear where each child's stuff is kept. Any other excuse is lack if effort and represents an unorganised set up. I would not be dismissive about kids coming home in other clothes... If my kids clothes were taken and given to another child I wouldn't be happy - they should all be in their own even after accidents. What if an outfit was sentimental or pricey - you shouldn't have to dress ur kids in cheap clothes incase they get taken in crèche! I don't spend a fortune on clothes but my family give me nice bits and pieces - which I'd want treated with respect even if my girl had an accident in them. The fact that kids have accidents all the time only indicates to me that a crèche should be well prepared to deal with them efficiently. If they are so relaxed about clothes and squeezing a child into ill fitting outfits and demeaning them with pull ups once clearly against your wishes I'd be wondering what other standards have skipped that aren't as obvious to spot. I'm not over reacting as unfortunately we've all seen on prime time. We have to insist on high standards for our must vulnerable - they can't demand them themselves.

Moonbeam

was it a case of they had no pants for him so put him in pull ups?
Talk to the room leader and manager about the incident.

pwurple

I guess it's just different in the creche I use. There is communal spare clothes, I don't provide anything. She has often come home in dinosaur tshirts or pants with a football printed on them, and I've thought nothing of it.

It wouldn't bother me.

A chat about the pull ups, and making sure they have pants for him is needed, but I wouldn't make a giant fuss about it.

Hannibal Smith

dublinlady wrote: »

I do t think its acceptable to say - they just grabbed the closest clothes there. I buy my children's clothes for them to wear - noone else's. it should be clear where each child's stuff is kept. Any other excuse is lack if effort and represents an unorganised set up. I would not be dismissive about kids coming home in other clothes... If my kids clothes were taken and given to another child I wouldn't be happy - they should all be in their own even after accidents. What if an outfit was sentimental or pricey - you shouldn't have to dress ur kids in cheap clothes incase they get taken in crèche! I don't spend a fortune on clothes but my family give me nice bits and pieces - which I'd want treated with respect even if my girl had an accident in them. The fact that kids have accidents all the time only indicates to me that a crèche should be well prepared to deal with them efficiently. If they are so relaxed about clothes and squeezing a child into ill fitting outfits and demeaning them with pull ups once clearly against your wishes I'd be wondering what other standards have skipped that aren't as obvious to spot. I'm not over reacting as unfortunately we've all seen on prime time. We have to insist on high standards for our must vulnerable - they can't demand them themselves.

You wouldn't send a kid to creche in sentimental clothes...or give a spare set that were sentimental. Sharing out the clothes would never bother me. Maybe if my child had sensitive skin and clothes needed to be washed in particular detergent. Our creche was excellent and very well run. All spare clothes were always washed and returned to creche. We didn't take our kids clothes as he moved rooms...and I know others did the same so there would also be a back up spare set for a kid if needed.

So that wouldn't bother me at all...hut putting them into clothes thatd were way too small would

Ciarabear

People make mistakes in their daily jobs all the time. Creche workers are no different. Just because something happened that you're not happy about doesn't necessarily mean your creche had deliberate cruel intentions. Sounds like a simple error of judgement. Shouldn't happen but it did -such is life

Lola92

My first thought about the pull ups was that most likely there were no spare pants to hand and they put a pull up on him rather than have no underpants on him at all. I wouldn't have necessarily connected the accident being the cause for a pull up being used specifically. I would say it was careless for her to leave too small clothes on him, she could eAsily have used whatever clothes were to hand until she asked a staff member was more familiar with your child's belongings and then put him in the correct clothing.

silly

I would definatley be agreeing with the people here that are saying that its not that big of a deal. I doubt the creche called him a baby for wetting his pants, I also doubt that they put him in girls pull ups to "punish him" thats just ridiculus.
They most probably just put them on him as there was nothing else, and of course they wouldnt want him uncomfortable wearing no underwear! I do understand that it probably confused the boy.
Re the clothes too small, if i had already handed in clothes i guess i would be a bit peeved that they couldnt just go and locate his bag than to put him in clothes that were too small, but all in all, I think there was alot of over reaction about this incident.

josip

Thanks for all the posts so far. I didn't think any of the girls in the creche would have deliberately tried to "punish" him for his accident, they really are a lovely, warm bunch. It was my son who made the association himself between pullups and babies.

I decided to wat until today before coming to any conclusions when I've been talking to the stand in creche manager. She said that the accident happened immediately after his nap in another room and that there were no clothes immediately available so the minder put on what was available. When he went back to his room, that minder forgot to inform his regular minder.

It sounds prett innocuos as some posters have said, but I am now fairly annoyed for a couple of reasons.

1. Absolute minimum staffing levels ethos in the creche (it's a chain named after an animal with a long neck) meant that there was nobody spare who could go get his clothes at the time of the accident or immediately afterwards.
2. More importantly to me. His acccident happened at 2pm. For the next 3 and a half hours he was going around in a longsleeved top that was skintight and showed a full 2 inches of his bare midriff. The top was for a 12-18 months child. He would have been out in the play area for an hour during that time in which other minders would have seen him. It was the first thing I noticed when I went to collect him and should have been glaringly obvious to any of the other minders. But I suspect that the ones who were in his presence were fully occupied with other stuff due to the staffing levels.

I'm going to take it up further with the regular manager next week and if I'm not happy then, I'll register a complaint with the HSE about the staffing levels.

dublinlady

josip wrote: »

Thanks for all the posts so far. I didn't think any of the girls in the creche would have deliberately tried to "punish" him for his accident, they really are a lovely, warm bunch. It was my son who made the association himself between pullups and babies.

I decided to wat until today before coming to any conclusions when I've been talking to the stand in creche manager. She said that the accident happened immediately after his nap in another room and that there were no clothes immediately available so the minder put on what was available. When he went back to his room, that minder forgot to inform his regular minder.

It sounds prett innocuos as some posters have said, but I am now fairly annoyed for a couple of reasons.

1. Absolute minimum staffing levels ethos in the creche (it's a chain named after an animal with a long neck) meant that there was nobody spare who could go get his clothes at the time of the accident or immediately afterwards.
2. More importantly to me. His acccident happened at 2pm. For the next 3 and a half hours he was going around in a longsleeved top that was skintight and showed a full 2 inches of his bare midriff. The top was for a 12-18 months child. He would have been out in the play area for an hour during that time in which other minders would have seen him. It was the first thing I noticed when I went to collect him and should have been glaringly obvious to any of the other minders. But I suspect that the ones who were in his presence were fully occupied with other stuff due to the staffing levels.

I'm going to take it up further with the regular manager next week and if I'm not happy then, I'll register a complaint with the HSE about the staffing levels.

I know some people consider it an over reaction but I would really be very unhappy about that. I would not be able leave my child there. I don't care if that offends people - it's the truth.

How Strange

I would be far from happy if my child was treated like this. I wonder how many of those who say its no big deal have children in a crèche or with a minder.

Hannibal Smith

At the end of the day...its your child and your money. If you are unhappy with the service your child was provided it doesn't matter who thinks you're being over the top. Id rather be over the top and make sure that my kid is looked after than let things slide and their care become sub standard.

I think you're right for what its worth. I would dig deeper because putting them in ill fitting clothes and then forgetting to tell the girl in the other room suggests to me the carer didnt care too much what she was putting on as long as the job was done.

pwurple

Ah that's different alright. You said earlier the clothes were for 18-24... but 12-18 is much smaller. It's difficult to even get a toddler into those for goodness sake.

And the lack of communication between minders is an issue alright. And how would they not even see it with their eyes? Sounds more like they didn't give a toss, rather than an honest mistake now.

tazwaz

I know you might have felt that you were making a big issue out of this but I totally agree with you. we give our child/children to these people and they are supposed to take care of them for us, obviously they're not going to do it to our standard but surely there's a better standard of care out there than how they took care of him the other day?

lazygal

So its a G*****e creche then. Enough said.



I would have been in the 'ah sure these things happen' camp up to hearing that, but the chain puts this in a different light. I've have expected your provider to be at the top of its game in light of recent events. I wouldn't be paying a grand a month for my child to be treated like that by a corporation.

josip

When I left in our son yesterday there were already 9 children in the room and 1 minder. The ratio should be 1:8 at most. I waited a couple of minutes and one of the supervisors came into the room and stayed so I thought no more of it.

This morning there were already 10 children and only one minder, My son made 11. Waited a few minutes and nobody "popped back in". Complained tothe manager who tried to explain it away as a once off and just for a few minutes.

I think I'll have to report to the HSE. I worry that if we take our son out and put him in another creche that it will be disruptive for him without having any guarantees that the next creche will be any better. He has a lot of friends andd really likes it there.

But if we have another child we won't be sending them there. In the 2 years that he has been there, there have been 6 different managers. More than half of the girls who have ever minded him have since left.

lazygal

Your son will get over disruption. He's young enough to adapt and friends come and go at that age. Its clear nothing will change as long as you keep handing over the fees.

Rose35

If it helps, I changed my son to a different creche one month ago when he was 11 months, he did take notice that it was different but has adapted really well and made new friends straight away, I know your son is that bit older but he will be fine, you have to do what you have to do for your peace of mind and his safety, it will work out for the best in the long run, better than where he is now anyway.