Daycare, part 2

Background info is here.

This week my mom went out of town Tuesday, which meant Meg had to go to daycare Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Tuesday, Meg came home with a diaper rash, like usual. Which didn't bode well for Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, when Thomas arrived to pick her up at 5 she was stinky.  The sheet said the last time she'd had a diaper change was 2:30.  They go outside around 4 every afternoon and the girl told Thomas Meg "must not like being outside" because she fussed the whole time they were out there.  To that, I would like to say, HA HA HA.  I don't know anyone who likes to be outside more than Meg.  She constantly begs to go outside.  She bangs on the door and whines and gets very excited if I we go out.  She was whining because she had a dirty diaper.

Plus, her diaper rash had gotten much worse.  Painful enough, apparently, for her to whine about it while playing outside.  She never whines about dirty diapers.  Thomas was furious.  This rash was so bad we thought about taking her to the doctor (though we decided it wasn't necessary) and we really didn't want to take her to daycare Thursday.  Especially because I was making up some time from last week, so I was working more than a half day.

I decided to take her, but brought a TON of diapers and asked them to change her diaper every hour and apply cream every time.  I talked to them and wrote it on her sheet.  I figured they couldn't screw that up.  I also talked to them about Meg's habit of dirtying her diaper right after a change.  Unfortunately, they've apparently cut back on the hours of the full-time staff.  When Meg gets dropped off at 6:30, they have staff in one room and all the kids go in that room.  As more kids come, so do more staff and they separate out to each room.  So I didn't get to talk to the ladies who take care of her during the day.  Apparently the message didn't get communicated and no one read the sheet, because her diaper was changed every two hours as usual.   Are you kidding me??  They can't even manage to change her diaper often enough when I specifically ask?  Grr!  (They did apply cream every time and must have paid more attention to her, because they changed a dirty diaper half an hour after another diaper change.)

I came to pick her up at 3.  They'd just started snack time, so I hung out while Meg ate her snack.  I talked to the full-time staff in her room.  One of them said her kids had had similar rashes and it looked like it might be a yeast infection.  She recommended using an anti-fungal.  I do like the people who are in her room for most of the day.  Actually, the one who recommended the medicine is the one who loaned me a car seat to take Meg home when ours was stolen (from the daycare) last fall. (That's an entirely different long story.  I should tell you about it sometime.)

So, anyway, I hung out for awhile.  Thomas had called the director to talk about how she had gone so long with a dirty diaper the day before, so she talked to me about the situation.  She assured me she'd spoken to the girl who'd been there (after school is out, the full-time people leave and high school girls take care of the kids).  I was probably there for over half an hour.  When Meg and I got to the car, I noticed she had a dirty diaper.  She'd probably been dirty since before snack time, which by now had started 45 minutes earlier.  I marched right back in and changed her diaper.  I made sure the director and the staff in her room knew she'd been dirty for too long.  I didn't really say anything else, because I'm a wimp.  Who knows?  Maybe Meg dirtied her diaper while I was talking to the director right before we left.  Why should I accuse the staff in her room?  If she had been dirty the whole time, I hadn't noticed either.  But I'm still furious.

She comes home with a diaper rash every Tuesday.  When I asked them to change her diaper every hour, due to the severity of the rash, they didn't.  She was in a dirty diaper every time we picked her up - Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday.  Who knows for how long.  Once, or maybe twice, she'd probably just done it.  But all 3 times?  I don't think so.

But we do like almost everything else about this daycare.  Plus, as I emphasized yesterday, she generally only attends one day a week and we only have to pay for that one day.  This is the only daycare we found that will do that.  AND she can come extra days any time we want, even without notice.  We were lucky its the most convenient daycare location-wise and we like it.  I don't want to switch.  I really don't.

I also am not sure it would be different somewhere else.  She only goes to daycare one day a week, so I suppose the workers don't know her as well as the other kids.  Plus, we actually think her daytime teachers do a fairly good job.  Its the after-school teenagers who are terrible about changing diapers - 2:30 is often the last time she had her diaper changed and Thomas picks her up at 5.

For now, we're going to be very clear about our dissatisfaction with diaper changes.  Every time we pick her up and she has a dirty diaper we'll complain.  I am requesting they use diaper rash cream every change no matter what, so maybe she can make it through a day without getting a rash.  I do think this is a teensy bit my fault.  Maybe the situation wouldn't have gotten so bad if we'd started complaining about it months ago.  Hopefully I'll have enough courage to continue complaining if it doesn't improve (I'm terrible with confrontation).  If things still don't get better I don't know what we'll do.