Church Nursery & Safety -Should my 20 month old be serparate from the infants?

[rdehoff-us]

I hate being in an argument with anyone and I certainly don't want to be "the difficult parent." However, I am also concerned for the safety and well-being of other children in this matter. In particular the six week infants and up that are being put in the same church nursery as my 20 month old son who is sometimes too rough with them. He is now picking up babies, poking, throwing balls, wrestling, climbing, running, tackling, and sharing toys too roughly on other children's heads, etc. Part of this is out of boredom since they only have toys geared towards six month olds and under in the small room with only a few children. He does not seem to understand who it is okay play with in this manner and to be gentle with newborns. He was supposed to originally be moved up at 18 months to the next class, but they held him back since they have too many kids in the next room. He is the oldest one in the room so the problem is mostly just mine. They want to wait another four months to move him up when he turns two. I've heard other complaints from other concerned parents and volunteer nursery workers, but the person in charge is also concerned about insurance issues such as how many adults per kids, etc. I am a little on the fence with what to do. I've tried keeping him in service with us, but he has the vocabulary of a two and a half year old and won't stop talking to people. I've tried nicely talking to the woman in charge and was met with a lot of resistance.

Should I change churches? Or even temporarily go somewhere else? My sister-in-law's church is bigger, they separate walkers from infants, but it is a longer drive and my hubby really doesn't want to leave his church. We have been apart of this church for many years and are very involved in our Bible Study group. Our Pastor married us and dedicated our son. We've known some of these people since we were small children and we share the same beliefs.

Should I bring my own play-yard and set it up each week to keep him away from the infants? Should my husband and I take turns on whose week it is to stay home with him or sit with him in the nursery? Should I get a babysitter? I'm at a bit of a loss.

[~Adorkable~]

it does sound like everyone involved would be better off if your son was moved up, i would talk calmly again with everyone involved and help them see that. they may have very strong rules of the city or county about the number of kids in one room that they are struggling with, but putting your 20m old with tiny babies is not the way to handle that. i have 20m old town and no way they should be playing around 6 week olds, no way.

[~Adorkable~]

by the way, welcome to Mothering.com, hope you stick around and check out all we have to offer, this is a really great place!

[quietlotus]

I believe that you should speak to the director again.  Centers (at least here in PA, I'm not sure about where you are) must abide by standard child-staff ratios, but if they are incapable of dealing with a difficult situation like this with their current staff and location they obviously need to change something (I'm sure you are not the only parent this has happened to.)  In all of the centers I have worked in the walkers are separated from the less mobile infants, at least for the better part of the day (at one location they shared meal and nap times in the same room, as well as late afternoon play in a general rec area,) so the set-up of your childcare facility already makes me uneasy.  Sometimes the director and/or teachers will make a concerted effort to bump an older/advanced toddler up to a preschool-age room so that there is a spot open for the child who really needs to be there.  If she shows resistance, be persistent, but if she simply refuses to offer any help, then the center at your husband's church may not be the best place for your child.

[rdehoff-us]

Thought I might share a bit of an update. So I approached the woman in charge of our church child care ministry again and started out with an apology thinking it might soften any hard/awkward feelings. ((Our first interaction she seemed a bit frazzled by my questioning my son's placement and I kept trying to come up with other solutions to the insurance dilemma that would be safe for everyone. She didn't like any of my ideas, said they wouldn't work. She seemed a little upset when she retorted that maybe someone else should be in charge of the nursery since she obviously did not have the needed resources to pull it off. At that point I kind of let the conversation slide and said I would try to work something out.))

So anyways I apologized this second time if in any way I had offended her by coming off rude. I told her I felt she was doing an extremely good job of organizing with the resources she had and I felt she was competent to lead. I took up your suggestion and tried again to explain the situation with my son again, but did not really get anywhere. I think she felt like I was going to just give up because she seemed shocked that I was keeping him out with us in service or sitting with him in the hall when he got too noisy. Later that day she sent out a church wide e-mail to all concerned parents stating that they were extending the child care in the infant room from the original 18 months to two years and they were working on getting more age appropriate toys in place. By this point I had a lot of people asking us why we suddenly decided to take him out of the nursery. My answer has always been the honest truth that he is too rough for newborns and I don't feel comfortable risking their safety. The other parents have suggested just throwing him in the next room and not asking anymore. Most of them seemed to like my idea about a divider down the middle of the infant and walkers room. When asked I left out her name, because I was trying to avoid an all out war with the woman. Other parents are beginning to pull their older babies out of the room as well, but most of them sit a lot quieter through service. My husband attempted to speak with the pastors, but they all stated they had to follow the rules, they understand our concerns, and encouraged us to put him back in the nursery.

So we're going to my sister-in-law's church couple times a month and the rest of the time try to last in service as long as possible. Its only four months I keep telling myself lol.