Daycare Question

My daycare sent back my pack of diapers because they want them individual initialed. :angry: I am writing this as I am labeling these diapers. <_< I called and told them that this was a hardship on me b/c my hands are full carrying the diaper bag and the boys in their carrier. If I open the pack to label them there is no good way to seal it back up. They basically said too bad. Am I being riduculus? Does everyone else do this and I am just being a whiner? Please be honest and let me know.

 

That's insane! If they really need a way to tell them apart, add two different colored Sharpies to your bag. When you get inside, open the packs, draw a colored line down the bottom of each diaper. Tell them your babies nicknames are little butts 1 and 2 so you put "L"s on them.

 

This is common practice. I used to open the packs after I got to daycare and used our last initial - because they shared. I drew three lines down the diapers (M) and they knew what that meant. Ask them if there is an easy code like that they would let you use. For perspective -they are usually a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio - so they don't always have time to do it and by the time they get around to it they might not remember which parent brought the pampers and which parent brought the CVS brand.

 

Wow - first I have heard of that, but it sounds like others had the same experience. Ours kept a bin for each child and just had the diapers in that bin. :hug99: Sorry you are frustrated.

 

When mine were in daycare, I just had to label the outside of the package of diapers. Then they kept that in my child's cubby in the changing room. Sounds silly to me.

 

I just opened mine a little - I didn't take them out and wrote on them like that. I could still use the handle on the packet to carry them.

 

I am a daycare director and I have never heard of this. We like PP have said just put the diapers in the child's cubby. We ask that parents donate 1 package of wipes a month (per child) and we share the wipes (unless a child is allergic to a certain brand then we set them aside with their diapers). It does seem like a big hassle, but I guess if I bought Huggies and someone used generic on my babies because they didn't know who's was who's, I would be upset. They also probably have you do this due to staff changes during the day. Our daycare is small and so we don't have a lot of workers, but some of the larger daycares have different shifts, and they may use cubbies for more than one child, and don't want to confuse them. I would ask as others have suggested about a different method of marking diapers, such as the lines across the bottom. I hope you get a little cooperation from the daycare. It can be frustrating, but if it is a good daycare, they should be wanting to make things easier on you as well as themselves. They should be having the best interest of the babies and their families in mind. If they don't... I would consider finding a new daycare. Remember, they work for you, and as long as what they are asking isn't unreasonable, I would do it, but if they are pains in the tushy about it, then I would take a closer look at how they take care of my babies. I have been taught in my classes (taking classes for my child development degree) that the children and their families are first priority. Maybe they have forgotten that. Good luck and I hope you will be able to come to some much easier compromise.

 

My daycare required this at first. After awhile they allowed me to just bring a whole package & initial it on the outside.

 

mine does it for me - I bring in a box of diapers (or pullups) and its funny when they come home and the outside of their diaper has "A&I" written on it...

oh and if we're low on diapers they just write it on the diaper to please bring more!

 

QUOTE(TamLenox @ Jul 15 2008, 11:45 PM) [snapback]878799[/snapback]
I am a daycare director and I have never heard of this. We like PP have said just put the diapers in the child's cubby. We ask that parents donate 1 package of wipes a month (per child) and we share the wipes (unless a child is allergic to a certain brand then we set them aside with their diapers). It does seem like a big hassle, but I guess if I bought Huggies and someone used generic on my babies because they didn't know who's was who's, I would be upset. They also probably have you do this due to staff changes during the day. Our daycare is small and so we don't have a lot of workers, but some of the larger daycares have different shifts, and they may use cubbies for more than one child, and don't want to confuse them. I would ask as others have suggested about a different method of marking diapers, such as the lines across the bottom. I hope you get a little cooperation from the daycare. It can be frustrating, but if it is a good daycare, they should be wanting to make things easier on you as well as themselves. They should be having the best interest of the babies and their families in mind. If they don't... I would consider finding a new daycare. Remember, they work for you, and as long as what they are asking isn't unreasonable, I would do it, but if they are pains in the tushy about it, then I would take a closer look at how they take care of my babies. I have been taught in my classes (taking classes for my child development degree) that the children and their families are first priority. Maybe they have forgotten that. Good luck and I hope you will be able to come to some much easier compromise.


Thank you for this response. It helps to hear from a professional in the business. I have been going to this daycare for 6wks and it was sufficient to just label the outside of the package. I don't know why this has changed. I will definately talk to them about a better way to mark the diapers. one of the posters talked about marking them there at the center. That is a good idea too. At least if I have to take the time to mark the diapers thety have to watch my boys

Thank you everyone for your responses!

 

QUOTE(moski @ Jul 15 2008, 10:09 PM) [snapback]878641[/snapback]
When mine were in daycare, I just had to label the outside of the package of diapers. Then they kept that in my child's cubby in the changing room. Sounds silly to me.


Same here. I can't imagine opening a big pack of diapers and then having to label them and then shove them back into a bag to bring them back to the daycare. Of course there were a few times that the girls came home wearing another type of diaper- so maybe its not such a bad idea.

 

I bring in the pack of diapers with their name on the outside, and the daycare employees label each individual diaper with their initials (I think during naptime).

 

Ours has a cubby for each child where they keep the clothes, bottles, pacis, wipes and diapers. I take a big package with their name on it and they put it under one of their cribs and fill the cubby from that when it's empty.

The only thing I find funny is that they treat them completely separately rather than as siblings. I will often get notes saying DS1 is out of something and they've used generic diapers, put their clothes on them, etc instead of using what's in DS2's cubby :blink: I'm hoping this is good later though that they treat them separately instead of as twins so I've never said anything.

 

Our daycare doesn't ask us to label. Each of the boys has their own cubby at the changing center with a box of wipes and diapers in it. They also have their own drawers next to their cribs that contain "extras" of everything - wipes, diapers, pacifiers, clothes, and the school provided bags we use to bring in bottles, etc. every day. Every day as part of their pack up routine (return your used bottles to your bags, etc.) the staff reloads the changing center with supplies out of their drawers. And if we are running low (typically less than 20 diapers per child, or 1/3 box of wipes) they check the box on our daily report that says we need more.

As a pp said though, despite the fact that the boys at least for now are in the same size diapers, and use the exact same wipes refills I get a note saying that they are running low when there is a full unopened bag of 92 diapers in the other kids drawer and 3 sets of refills (which typically happens because the drawer chests are cute seusical shapes and one of my kiddos got a top drawer which is too small to put the unopened bag of diapers in, while the other got a bottom drawer on the other side of the room that is gigantic and fits 4 bags of the giant unopened diapers). But, I am glad they treat them like individuals, because they are on different formulas and we will soon be back to the point that one kid will be in bigger diapers than the other.

 

When I worked in a daycare we would label the kids diapers for the parents, they just had to bring in the diapers. When we had a set of twins we would just split the pack in half and label half for one and half for the other. So it's not uncommon to label diapers but your daycare could make it easier on you and do it for you!

 

I comply with all of our daycare's requests, because on the whole we love them and I am a goody-goody rule follower anyway, but there are some that seem sillier than others -- having to individually initial diapers seems pretty silly to me.

At our daycare, each child has a diaper bin (separate from their regular cubby where they keep jackets, etc.) with his/her name on it. When I bring in diapers, I open the package and fill the bin. If there are diapers that don't fit in the bin, I write the name on the outside of the open package and stash it in the closet.

They also share diapers between my twins -- they have one bin for the two of them. (When they wore different sizes, they had separate bins.) So I don't get a note saying they're running low until they're both out. (I wish they would warn me when they're just running low, rather than entirely out, but it's not that big a deal.)

 

QUOTE(2pugmom @ Jul 15 2008, 07:17 PM) [snapback]878359[/snapback]
My daycare sent back my pack of diapers because they want them individual initialed. :angry: I am writing this as I am labeling these diapers. <_< I called and told them that this was a hardship on me b/c my hands are full carrying the diaper bag and the boys in their carrier. If I open the pack to label them there is no good way to seal it back up. They basically said too bad. Am I being riduculus? Does everyone else do this and I am just being a whiner? Please be honest and let me know.


My daycare does this themselves - they've never asked me to do it.

 

Yikes--that would drive me nuts. Ours has bins for each child; so we just stock the bins with unlabelled diapers.