Daycare Worker Dropped My Baby...

[was]

My daughter turned five months today. We've only had her in daycare for three weeks now. Earlier this week I got the call at work. The teacher dropped her. What happened was she was carrying her sort of on her hip, but didn't have a second hand on her back or anything. My girl isn't strong enough yet to support herself upright totally and can fall from side to side or backwards if you dont' have your second hand on her back. You would think daycare workers would know this. So the teacher was walking with her, and my daughter fell backward, daycare lady dropped her all the way to the floor where she landed on her head. I rushed to go pick her up and take her to the doctor. Thank God the doctor said everything looks okay, her head is bruised up in spots. When I went in to get her from daycare, I could barely say to words to the director and assistant director who were both there with my daughter. I didn't even confront the teacher. All I could say was that it was unacceptable. They said they've never had anything like this happen. We did all our research when choosing this place. I started to have my doubts the second week when they were letting my daughter sleep on her stomach when our pediatrician said that was a big no no. What would you do? Am I over reacting? It's our first child. I know people have accidents, I understand that, I would just think daycare workers would know how to hold children of certain ages, knowing my daughter can't really control herself yet. It's not like if she started to fall backwards she could catch herself. She's not that strong yet.

I'm so upset. We have pulled her out of this daycare and contacted the state about filing a complaint. My daughter checked out okay by the pediatrican but we are still keeping a close eye on her. I've had to take time off work, and now my mother is watching her, she had to call off her part time job to do so. Both my husband and I work full time.

What more can I do? Between my daughter's incident, them letting infants sleep on their stomachs when the say they dont' allow it, and a very high teacher to infant ratio, this daycare shouldnt' be running.

[Persephone]

That is unacceptable! I can't believe that she dropped your child. I've never in my 15 plus years dropped a baby like that!

And in a center they are not aloud to put them on the belly! They know it.

Is there any way your child flipped over herself? Can she roll on her own? They normally say when they can roll on their own there is less chance of SIDs, but still. I put my son on his back until he was like 9 months and he started rolling to his side on his own to sleep.

When you say high ratio, what were their numbers?

[gbcc]

I run a home daycare and all of my parents of infants choose a home daycare due to ratios. Usually in a center it is 1:4 or 1:6 for infants. In a home daycare it is 1:2 or 2:4.

My point of view. Yes accidents do happen. The Christian thing to do is forgive and educate. HOWEVER, this is your child. If I have to choose I am a mother first and Christian second. I would report this incident. You may not be the first but you want to make sure you are the last accident. There could be other accidents where this happened but the parents thought, well I understand accidents happen. Now no other parent knows this happened. I would look at it like you are not making trouble but you are hopefully saving a potential life.

I have a child in care that fell on his head as an infant. The provider wasn't watching him and he was mobile. He is now a very difficult unhappy child and the doctors attribute it to the head injury. He ended up getting a concusion and the sitter let him fall asleep for 4 hours so the situation is different but it could easily happen to another child in that center. It could have happened to your daughter. This family is so upset that one day they went to work with a normal happy baby and the next they have a challenged unhappy child.

[jen]

Question: Are they putting her down on her tummy or is she rolling over on it?

I can't imagine dropping a baby...yikes. She sounds young and untrained.

[Dordhs]

Daycare Worker Dropped My Baby

WOW I read the entire report. I feel so sorry for the little girl and her parents I cant imagine the anger they are feeling towards the daycare provider. Kudos to the other daycare workers for telling the truth I hope this woman is put away for a very long time

[Michael]

WOW I read the entire report. I feel so sorry for the little girl and her parents I cant imagine the anger they are feeling towards the daycare provider. Kudos to the other daycare workers for telling the truth I hope this woman is put away for a very long time

@ Dordhs- Can you post the link to the report?

[nannyde]

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100113133911AAg62hP

There's an identical post on yahoo but it looks like it's from two months ago?

[Crystal]

the original post in this thread is from January.

[misol]

OK, I know I am going to catch flack for this but here goes. It sounds to me like it was an honest mistake and the teacher dropped the baby accidentally. The teacher was TOTALLY at fault for not supporting the baby properly while carrying it but it was still an accident. I don't think there was anything malicious intended. After the accident happened, the daycare took the proper steps in documenting the incident and calling the parents immediately so that the baby could be seen by the pediatrician right away. I can only imagine how many babies are dropped and it never gets reported to the parents. I feel the OP's pain and she has every right to be upset, but she probably has no legal grounds to sue since the baby checked out OK. Since I am sure that her trust in this provider is broken, she should definitely find a new caregiver. If the teacher didn't get fired, she should be moved to a room with older children or assigned to kitchen duty!

Now don't get me wrong, as a parent, I would be beyond FURIOUS if someone dropped my baby but the reality is that it's VERY easy to drop a baby if you're not super careful. Babies twist and jerk and turn so suddenly that all it takes is a split second and the baby is on the floor before you know what happened. I have been fortunate enough to have never dropped a child before but I can tell you that I've had a couple of "near misses" with my own children

[Janet]

Sometimes accidents happen

OK, just to start before I address anything else, the baby should not have been allowed to sleep on her stomach unless she was totally capable of rolling over, back and forward, with ease. Otherwise it is back to sleep only. I would be upset over that, too.

Now as far as the caregiver dropping the baby, I can speak from my experience that I can't think of a time in my professional career when I have felt worse! What happened in my situation is that I was holding the baby, in the proper way, but there was a "no shoe" rule in the infant room, so of course I was in socks. I went to answer the phone and I slid on the tile and the baby and I both fell. The floor had been waxed the night before and was extra slippery. I did my best to absorb as much of the impact as I could, but she did end up with a bloody lip. I took care of her right away and I called the mom immediately after that. I felt so terrible and I lost track of how many times that I apologized. Finally, the baby's mom was like "Hon, don't worry, she's fine, and I know that you didn't mean for it to happen. Accidents happen!". It had never happened to me before and it hasn't since. No one is perfect and accidents can happen. Instead of focusing on how bad this caregiver is, it would be more productive to be thankful that the baby is OK.

I take no issue with pulling if there are other reasons to pull, but over an accident? I just don't know. Is there more to the story?

[anlexanok123]

That is unacceptable! I can't believe that she dropped your child. I've never in my 15 plus years dropped a baby like that!

And in a center they are not aloud to put them on the belly! They know it.

Is there any way your child flipped over herself? Can she roll on her own? They normally say when they can roll on their own there is less chance of SIDs, but still. I put my son on his back until he was like 9 months and he started rolling to his side on his own to sleep.

When you say high ratio, what were their numbers?

yep, I like your solution alot . Thanks

[Unregistered]

Wow

They would be DONE! to be honest, i would sue the living crap out of them. then get ahold of the Better Buisness Bureau and have that place shut down. I would have all their asses, (i have a 5mo girl)

p.s. the chaces of your child having brain trauma are 100% though it may be extreamly small, there will be acute trauma from that incident.

[SilverSabre25]

They would be DONE! to be honest, i would sue the living crap out of them. then get ahold of the Better Buisness Bureau and have that place shut down. I would have all their asses, (i have a 5mo girl)

p.s. the chaces of your child having brain trauma are 100% though it may be extreamly small, there will be acute trauma from that incident.

This thread is two years old.

I'm not even gonna touch the brain trauma comment.

[daycare]

how do these come back up? very say post, but it's so old to reply at this point.

[SilverSabre25]

how do these come back up? very say post, but it's so old to reply at this point.

Check out the unregistered one that I quoted--that's from today. I think they come up in some google search or something and the person doesn't think to check the date. And note that it's usually the really inflammatory ones.