spiceye Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Dear all.....any advise..... Despite many letters (and updates in childrens daily diaries/in person), parents still forget to bring nappies/wipes in for their child before they run out. When this happens, we have no option but to borrow nappies from another child’s supply, thereby leaving those children short. When the parent does bring in a supply (and we have replaced what we have borrowed) they end up with no nappies again....and so the cycle begins again I don't want to supply nappies due to the enormous variety of preference that parents have for nappies (in different makes, shapes, sizes and in some cases to suit sensitive skin) and we don't have space to store. I have 20 children per day in nappies and on average change them 4 times which = 80 nappies per day..... Any advise... Emma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Could you think about having a supply of cloth nappies - you can get one size ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Yes, I do have a suggestion but I'm not sure it'll be easy. You've going to have to start to charge for nappies, at cost price plus quite a bit extra for your inconvenience. You could add this to invoices or just give parents a slip asking for payment each time it happens. I certainly don't think you should offer a range of different nappies - if parents want that then they need to provide their own. You just need a few each of small, medium and large. Once you start charging over the odds for them, I think you will find that parents start to supply their own. It comes down to the saying: 'Be reasonable, but don't reason with them.' You are being too nice! I'd certainly be most upset if you 'borrowed' my child's supply to use them for another parent's child. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiceye Posted November 3, 2010 Author Share Posted November 3, 2010 Maybe - but doesn't solve the problem and I think it will make parents lazy - if they know that is a option, will they bother to buy more nappies? I was thinking of not letting their child into the nursery unless they have bought more nappies but the owner thinks this is a little extreme? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 I don't think you can exclude them for their parent's incompetence. If you made nappies £2.50 each, they would soon stop forgetting. You just need to make the cost high enough to stop the issue. You also need to embarrass them a bit! You could send out a nicely worded letter, something like this: Despite repeated polite requests, we are still finding that some parents do not send in nappies with their babies. This causes us considerable inconvenience, as we do not have sufficient storage place for these items. Unfortunately we there have to inform you that from now on we will be forced to charge for nappies, where these are not provided. These will be charged at a cost of £2.50 per item, with £2 of that cost being donated to a children's charity. They can't argue with that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiceye Posted November 3, 2010 Author Share Posted November 3, 2010 Thanks Suzie, sounds good. I will send out letters today! xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 have to agree with Suzie... have a supply of basic nappies and charge well over the odds for each one.. if you charge as suggested at £2.50 each.. 4 changes in a day makes £10.00 owing.. will they really be willing to pay this all the time for the convenience of not supplying any nappies.. Cloth nappies would be harder to sort out as you would need either washing on site and again charge parents for this or rely on parents to wash and return.. if they cannot bring in at the moment would they return them? You can be a bit flexible on this as you will know who really has forgotten.. and the regular offenders.. Inge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiceye Posted November 3, 2010 Author Share Posted November 3, 2010 Thanks Suzie, sounds good. I will send out letters today! xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Happy to be of assistance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narnia Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 I charge £2 per nappy if parents 'forget' to stock up..................it rarely happens more than once! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Could be a good little earner if you supply 80 nappies at £2.50 a day. Come to think of it we could do with new fund raising methods .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie-pops Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 If they choose to argue about it, it would be easy to justify the cost by saying that it was what it cost you to cover the staff time taken for someone to go to the supermarket to buy the replacement nappies/ wipes! x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 we do not have sufficient storage place for these items. I don't think I'd put the reason down to lack of storage space - I'd rather have a full pack of 24 or whatever brought for each child and have the slight inconvenience of the packets than of running out! Actually, we have a large stock of nappies - all pink - donated by a few Mums whose daughters had grown out of them. There's nothing like a bright pink nappy to make folk realise it's not one of theirs! We did consider putting a sticker on them, 'Nappy kindly provided by xxxx Preschool, please note that your child's supply has run out' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Hi we've had this issue in the past...never thought of charging for spares!! mmmm... We ask in advance (some parents more in advance than others ) and if that hasn't worked and we know we'll be short 'repeat offenders' are asked to go and get some before dropping off - only had to do it once but everyone knows (through joviality etc) what will need to happen. We had donations but I removed them as it became too well known and as others have said it became the easy option and too easy a safety net! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 slightly different, but we have a child who often wets herself.... and mum NEVER provided any spares so this child might get through one or two outfits from our spare clothing and we would never see it again! So when she met herself, I phones mum and told her that she would have to come and change/collect her child because we had no more spare clothes and she hadn't sent any. Guess what? I constantly stocked bag now accompanies her every day! If you warned parents that this was going to happen, I'm sure they wouldn't take the chance. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toots Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 I don't think I'd put the reason down to lack of storage space - I'd rather have a full pack of 24 or whatever brought for each child and have the slight inconvenience of the packets than of running out! Actually, we have a large stock of nappies - all pink - donated by a few Mums whose daughters had grown out of them. There's nothing like a bright pink nappy to make folk realise it's not one of theirs! We did consider putting a sticker on them, 'Nappy kindly provided by xxxx Preschool, please note that your child's supply has run out' Love the idea of the sticker. As for the bright pink nappies, think I'll be up the shops this weekend looking for some! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 With regard to spare clothes I got fed up of clothes not being returned,particularly if they were nice! Solved the problem, somewhat by writing our name on the clothing.pants etc in big letters in a thick marker pen, on the outside!!! Get quite alot of it returned now!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alison Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 With regard to spare clothes I got fed up of clothes not being returned,particularly if they were nice! Solved the problem, somewhat by writing our name on the clothing.pants etc in big letters in a thick marker pen, on the outside!!! Get quite alot of it returned now!!! that sounds like plan I might do that at our setting as for nappies we keep a small stash of very cheap and nasty nappies (donated by a former parent) for emergency nappy changes phoning parents to collect their child can be very effective when either nappies or clothes need changing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narnia Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 I used to write our name on clothes too, but that didn't deter parents from keeping our stuff ( I even saw one child, who had started school, go past in one of our items, with our name blazing out!), SO, what we do now is to write down who has borrowed what and we charge £5 per item if they aren't returned...................works an absolute treat, as nothing we send out is worth a fiver, so parents don't want to be charged that! when things come back, we cross it out of the book.If it doesn't come back when the next bill is due, we write down 'Extras for month: ( date) one pair of pants £5; one pair socks £5, one pair blue flowery trousers £5..' etc...we also say that when the items are returned we'll reimburse the money, but we've not had to do that yet, as things do come back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rea Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 Oh I like that narnia. I've seen playgroup children wearing our clothes in the shops too, even with our name written on in marker pen. Some people!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 This is turning into a posting full of new fund raising ideas! Will be considering charging for clothes too ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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