Children - Pooing!

[debstephens]

We have come up with the same problems with our 2+ year olds. My question is how do you dispose of the nappies One group I know sends them home with the children for the parents to dispose of. Another uses a clinical waste company.

[hali]

we like the othres, go in our big biffa bin outside thats emptied every week

[Guest]

I received a letter once from a clinical waste company which quoted legislation saying that Nurserys etc are legally required to dispose of nappy's through a clinical waste company, the penalty being £1000 if not used.

I keep thinking I should look into this more as I have approx 10-20 nappies per week. I take them home and put them in my outdoor wheelie bin on a daily basis. We use a nappy unit to keep them for the duration of the session.

I certainly wouldn't ask parents to take them, imagine a soiled nappy at 9am, parents pick up at 3pm, what do we do label each one and forage through the nappy unit to see which one goes home with who??

 

Maybe some of you full day care nursery's can enlighten me about the legal requirements for nappy disposal as I must admit I filed the letter in to my office " don't know where to file it black hole"

 

Peggy

[Sue R]

Sorry everyone!

 

I've been quietly reading all this and never once did it occur to me to tell you what we do!! Doh!!!!!

 

We have special yellow bags, in a special nappy bin, which we fill 3/4 full, seal and place in a special bin outside, I think it's yellow, too, to differntiate it from the other bin. This is done at regular intervals through the day, to avoid inadvertently overfilling the bag, and the bin is taken away and replaced, I think twice a week. I can't for the life of me think of the name of the company, but if you can bear with me until next Tuesday, I'll try to remember to get it !

 

Sue

 

PS, if I forget, shout at me to remind me!!!

[Beau]

When I went on my HIV and hepatitis training I was told to use the same procedure as Linda. Surely for most of us we have very few nappies! I can see why it is a different matter in a daycare with lots of babies/toddlers in nappies.

[Guest]

We have always excepted children in pull ups. It used to be only a couple but every intake it seems to be more and more. At present I have 6 in pull ups. When children start we explain to the parents that when we change the pull up that it will be discreetly wrapped up and given to them to dispose of. It makes you laugh beacause all they are going to do is to take it home and put it in their bin. I did look into a contracted company to dispose, but for the amount of children I have it wasn't financially viable.

2 of my children in pull ups are over 3 and I now put them in pants when they arrive. They use the toilet and are dry, but as soon as parent picks them up, they are back in the pull up. "its easier" they say.

 

Net x

[apple]

' Foundation Stage Curriculum Guidance.. Part Poo (I mean Two)

[apple]

Sorry that was in reply to Beaus querie re the title of Di's book (I didn't read the rest of the thread!!)

[Sue R]

But I'm glad you posted it!!!

 

 

Sue

[Rea]

I've just read this from the start, post 22, Carolyn said that a recommendation from the PLA was that children are changed while 2 members of staff are present. Does anybody do this? I would have thought that was what the point of the CRB's were.

[Sue R]

Nice one, Rea!

I'm in a DN - the only time that happens is when one member of staff is not yet cleared, needs to learn Nappy Procedure so a cleared, experienced member of staff goes to 'supervise'!!

 

Sue

[Guest]

I can't really understand why you would send someone to supervise a non-CRBd member of staff to change a nappy. Why not just send the person who is cleared until the other person's CRB has arrived. In our case we only have four members of staff in total. To do anything else would tie up half our workforce in the toilet!

 

Mind you, we've all had days like that...!

 

Maz

[Sue R]

Hi Maz!

 

Well, probably things are a bit different....are you in an 81 place Day Nursery?

When that's the case, often some members of staff are not yet cleared, so have to be supervised. What to do?? One at a time, all 40 - 50 of them, or with supervision? That's the quandary for Full Day care people.

 

Sorry, not trying to be clever, just adjusting the balance so we can all see what the playing field looks like from elsewhere.

 

Sue

[Guest]

I've just read this from the start, post 22, Carolyn said that a recommendation from the PLA was that children are changed while 2 members of staff are present. Does anybody do this? I would have thought that was what the point of the CRB's were. 

32707[/snapback]

 

The thinking behind this recommendation as I understand it, is not so much to protect the children from abuse (after all we trust our staff and they have been CRB checked), but to protect staff from being accused of abuse. Parents may claim that a member of staff who was on their own with a child had acted inappropriately in some way and without a witness it would be our word against theirs.

That said, in our setting as I mentioned before we only have three staff so it's impractical for us to follow these PLA guidelines anyway. I think they are OTT. There needs to be trust exercised on both sides or the relationship breaks down.

Carolyn

[Guest]

Hi Sue!

 

Well obviously I'm not in an 80 place day nursery, with only four members of staff!

 

How do you organise nappy changing time - I'm interested because obviously your set up is very different to ours.

 

When you recruit someone with an enhanced disclosure, do you get them to apply for another, or do you accept their existing CRB? I'm very interested in this, having had to be re-CRBd for Brownies even though I've been checked for pre-school.

 

Maz

[Guest]

" Two staff to change a nappy" I think some settings have been asked to follow this procedure during their Ofsted Inspection. This does not mean it is a requirement, the inspectors were being over zealous. We need to squash these "Urban myths". Lets look at reality here.

 

1) Is it written in legislation that 2 people have to be present? No

 

2) What is safe, good practice? In this context this is individual to each setting as Sue R and Mazlittle have shown. What are the real issues? We have to safeguard children and staff. Children - are they at risk if one person changes their nappy? No ( if current CRB and the supervisor and staff are all aware of what is going on in their setting) Staff - are they at risk of allegation of abuse? Not if procedures show that supervisor and staff are all aware of what is going on in their setting and nappy changes are documented.

 

Reality - When in the history of childcare services has any staff member been accused of ( and prosecuted) for abusing a child whilst changing their nappy? It may have happened, I don't know, but I do know that the odds, in reality are most probably higher than the possibility of winning the lottery.

 

I am not making light of a serious situation but if we keep undermining our professional abilities by pandering to these myths we compromise our professional status if we start to doubt our true intentions when changing a nappy. If we follow these mythical requirements and leave our ratio's lower in other parts of the setting, how does that ensure safety and good practice? I just wonder where will it all end?

 

We need to challenge anyone who asks us to act in a way that we disagree with and state our valid reasons. We need to stand up to people in authority who do not understand the full picture and therefore not let them undermine us. Without this our professional status, and how people view us will remain lower than its true worth.

 

 

Peggy

 

ps Sorry about the rant but I feel that everything that is happening in the early years now with advisor, experts in every local authority, government etc, although they are putting early years in the spotlight are actually undermining all the people who have been doing a good job for years because all I hear now is "Must do better, must train harder, must qualify higher, must deliver above standards, must prove quality etc etc. and to be told how many people should change a nappy ( as if I didn't know after 20 yrs experience) has just tipped me off the giddy roundabout. ( No doubt I shall jump back on straight away )

[Inge]

Thank you everyone for your help.

 

with only 2 nappies a week at most a disposal comapny is out of our league!!! we have been informed not to put them in the bin even as Linda does which seems sensible. Have asked EYD who told me acceptable policy is to bag and send home as do the majority of pre-schools in the area in our situation..... she also said that as we only take children from 3 that it should be expected that most children should be trained by then with nappies being an exception rather than the norm.. from this it only highlights that parents seem to be taking an easy option in keeping them in nappies longer. we too have the ones put in them as soon as collected.. but are dry and cope well while with us.

 

(If we had to have 2 everytime a nappy was changed we would not fit in the room!!! never mind ratios for the rest of the children being down.)

 

Inge

[Sue R]

Maz,

 

Will get back to you later, at home right now and am a little rusty, not having worked in babies or toddlers for yonks!!! Will sort policy etc tomorrow - if I forget to back to you, please shout - or pm!!!!!

 

Sue

[Rea]

Peggy, I'd like to applaude your last post. Common sense has had a bashng lately, it's good to hear it's not totally dead

[Guest]

I agree whole heartedly with Peggy - the only thing that we do is advise the other staff one of us is "going in" just to let them know we will be out of the arena for a while. The one unfortuanate experience I had was with an older boy who normally didn't ask to be taken to the toilet but couldn't undo his belt to take his trousers down. So off I went undid his belt - unfortunately he was a boy who sat - by this time he was desperate obviously having tried to do it himself without success, he promptly sat down really quickly and he then proceeded to spray me and my first reaction realsiing that i did not have a spare set of clothes, and that as I was only going to undo his belt I had no no apron on or gloves was to direct his willy down the loo. Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable, it was a gut reaction to the situation. I did however mention this incident to the mother (who happened to be a policewoman) and she was fine - however it did make me feel a little uncomfortable but a good lesson learnt and new procedures put in place. We always encourage boys to aim and fire now - and relay this to their parents - there is often greater mess from the sitting than the standing.

Nikki

PS perhaps we could find a good use for all the paperwork here in this particular area - could we call it recycling!!

 

Ps can't wait to get book 1 and 2

[Guest]

Peggy,

FANTASTIC rant. Totally agree.

 

net x

[Sue R]

Sorry,

 

I agree too, just was off on my own planet, there, for a bit

 

Sue

[Sue R]

Maz - and anyone else interested!!

 

Obviously we don't waste good (or any!!) staff just supervising!

 

What actually happens is that when Babies and Toddlers are on a regular nappy-change time, we send an uncleared/inexperienced member of staff with a very experienced, cleared one from the other room, (or rearrange room staff for a bit ) that way, they are supervised, whilst gaining in knowledge and experience.....

 

Get my drift??

 

Sue

[Gezabel]

Hi All

 

Thought I would ask this question here! I realise this thread relates to children pooing who are not yet toilet trained but I have been talking to someone working with foundation stage children in a school where the policy is to call parents if a child has an accident. I am amazed that a child who may unexpectedly develop diarrhoea whilst at school or a child who wets on the odd occasion are simply left until parents come in to deal with them. The reasons given for this are the 'two staff needed', special facilities to clean a child, protection of the child, and 'it's not our job!'

 

Just interested what any of you working in school do in such situations??

[Guest]

Yes, Sue, I do get your drift!

 

Geraldine - I'm not in a school, so I can't speak for teachers, but apparently long ago at my pre-school it used to be policy that parents would be called to come in to change nappies/pull ups if children had accidents when they were not toilet trained. This was apparently seen as a way round children 'having to be dry' before joining pre-school.

 

For the past couple of years we have taken children who are in pull ups/nappies (one child is terrified of the toilet and so uses her potty), and we take the view that if the child's nappy or pull-up needs changing, we do whatever is necessary to make the child comfortable. Even older children have accidents sometimes, so it kind of goes with the territory when working with small children.

 

We take our lead from the child: some are quite relaxed about things, saying "you're putting those gloves on so you don't get pooh on your hands, aren't you?". I remember pleading with one little boy to let me change his nappy, but he wasn't having any of it. He wanted me to ring up mum to come and change him. Unfortunately she wasn't in so in the end he reluctantly agreed. When we looked in his bag mum hadn't put in any spares that day, so he agreed he would wear a pair of 'big boy's' pants from the spare clothes store. He was so proud of himself when he went for the rest of the session without accidents, and he never wore nappies or pull ups again at nursery.

 

Wherever there are children there is wee and poo and snotty noses and the occasional vomit. I personally think if I truly care about the welfare of the children in my care, dealing with these messy situations is part is a part of my job. Its just a part of my job I do with an imaginary peg on my nose...

 

Maz

[Sue R]

Bless you, Maz !!

 

A girl after my own heart!!

 

Sue

[hali]

quite agree....

[Inge]

Hope you are all aware that to not change nappies means you are in breach of several national standards...

3.. care learning and play

7..health

9.. equal opportunities

10.. special needs including special educational needs and disabilities

12.. working with parents

 

(will not elaborate on how I know, long story, but be assured I know!!!)

 

Inge

[Guest]

Hope you are all aware that to not change nappies means you are in breach of several national standards...

35421[/snapback]

But most importantly, you're ignoring a child's most basic need!

 

Maz

[Gezabel]

WELL SAID MAZ!!!!!

 

I find the very thought of a four or five year old left in a toilet cubicle in wet (or maybe soiled) clothes until a parent arrives to clean/change them quite distressing - how on earth does such treatment make the poor child feel