First ever baby to be expelled from nursery?!

[SaraG3018]

Hi all. I've got an 18mo DD who is just, a firecracker. She's always called a happy baby by everyone, and she is, but she's also absolutely savage and insane. Everything is a delight and a game and a reason to get overexcited.

Sometimes she gets handsy, other times she throws toys or pulls hair. With us, we don't mind so much but nursery have now put her on a behaviour plan! I never heard of such a thing.

When she started to be like this around 12-14mo we used to firmly tell her not to, remove her from the situation or toy or person, but not over labour the point so as not to give her attention over it. She loves the attention. We also got given a sticker chart and a set of laminated cards with red stop signs or happy or sad faces etc to help her identify her feelings or to know when to stop.

I know all toddlers can get this way but my older DD who's now 6 was never this bad. She's now on a behaviour plan where the nursery tries to track any triggers or particular people but they're not spotting any pattern. They ring us almost daily now with something she's done, and mostly she's not hurting other kids though there have been a couple of occasions of pushing or pulling. She knows how to say sorry and does it well, so understands the concepts of no or kind hands. But the thing is, for her, it's never a tantrum or upset or malicious behaviour it's the opposite- she's just happy and overexcited and misplaces the energy. She doesn't realise when she could hurt someone, she just has this thrilled look in her eye like it's all play.

At this point I genuinely feel like my little happy girl might be the first ever baby to get expelled from a nursery! I half feel indignant because, why are the nursery staff ringing me to check if I've been using the sticker chart properly when I'm at work... she's literally a 1 year old baby who can't speak yet. She's just about starting to pick up single words now. On the other hand, I know she's more demanding than my first and handsy and I'm starting to feel like a bad mum. But I literally don't know what else I can do? If I tell her off even more she just wiggles away or gets happier from the attention and eye contact. She's kind of feral but we love it and think it's just her baby nature and will grow out of it. But is there something I'm missing? Could we be trying something else? Any advice much appreciated! At this daily rate I'm sure they're going to tell us they can't handle her and we need to leave soon!

You sound like you’re doing an amazing job.
are you sure it’s the right nursery for her?
how experienced are the staff?

So what does the behaviour plan say?

What behaviour do they want her to stop exhibiting?

I have one similar age and I know what you mean about that thrilled look. It’s really disconcerting because it goes against a social norm, have to keep reminding ourselves that’s where they are developmentally. I hope the nursery understands this too?

What are they ringing you about if she isn’t hurting other children?

Nursery sounds a bit pathetic. Could you find a more experienced one. Your daughter sounds awesome ❤️

Change nurseries? Either she has SN OR they don't sound very competent.

I can't imagine there's much you can do at home at this age, they ALSO need to manage it in the moment. Their memory and discipline isn't great. They way they learn is by reinforcing consequences 100 times over.

What is she actually doing at nursery?

you mention pulling hair and throwing toys and pushing and pulling other kids as well as being “handsy”

that’s quite a lot to mention.

what is it that nursery want to stop? If she’s hurting staff then yes they will want to stop it, ditto if she’s hurting the other kids.

private nurseries can ask kids to leave if they feel they cannot meet their needs (ie their behaviour is so difficult)

I would be telling them to stop ringing you unless she is unwell or requires a trip to A&E. How pathetic. An 18 month old doesn't ave 'behaviour'. She is way too young to understand instinct yet and they should be modelling good play, not slapping labels on her and whinging away on the phone.

Find another nursery.

This

What's actually happening?
It sounds very extreme for a child in a baby room to be having these kind of behaviour issues, I have worked in early years for 20 years and can't remember coming across something like this.

When one of mine was slightly older we had this. We moved him to another nursery (not due to this) and he never bit or hit another child again. I think they can associate a behaviour with a place. He got bit one day then seemed to bite or hit every day afterwards until he moved.

To be fair to the nursery - they have to respond to poor behaviour and if a behaviour plan is what they’ve implemented then you either go with it or if you don’t like it, change settings. You say she can be “handsy”
and “with us we don’t mind” but you all need to be singing off the same hymn sheet here and apply the same rules at home and in nursery and not allow this at home as she’ll then replicate in the nursery setting. Why are you allowing this if you know it’s causing issues at the nursery??

It’s hard because there may have been concerns from other parents re the hair pulling or staff may have raised a concern and staff have a duty of care to keep everyone safe. Offstead also assess on how behaviours and relationships are managed.

I think you have 2 choices here. You either work with the nursery and work together or if you aren’t happy then look for another setting.

Mine went to an childminder and my younger ones still do and she doesn’t tolerate poor or unkind behaviour either and she’s removed a couple of kids from her setting in her time too. She has a ln expected behaviours policy (guessing must be an Offstead thing?) and it explains about it and when we registered with her we read and signed it. Does the nursery have a similar code of conduct??

My childminder got rid of 2 kids a while back as they were badly behaved and disrupted everyone else and the waiting lists for childcare….. no setting has to tolerate this.

The nursery is not a good fit for her.
Can you move her?

My DD was a very early walker, and a biter. So she had a phase of running around biting non mobile babies. It was horrible! Her key worker shadowed her to prevent as much as possible, and she moved up rooms quite early for the sake of the babies.

Agree with @Besidemyselfwithworry about singing off the same hymn sheet.

She's kind of feral but we love it and think it's just her baby nature and will grow out of it.

This may be your problem^. In that you find her behaviour cute and don’t truly think it is a problem, so aren’t working with the nursery to curb it.

It sounds as though you think it's all a bit of a joke.
She's not a 1 year old baby, she's 18 months and should really be beginning to grasp that hitting, pulling hair and being 'handsy' isn't right.
She needs consistent boundaries.
If she does it home, she needs a very firm 'no', moving away/having the toy removed, and then ignored for a moment or two. Then she says sorry.
Don't talk to her, give eye contact etc - of course she enjoys the attention.

A child that age is not going to relate a sticker chart at home to whatever is happening at nursery. I'm not even sure a child that age can understand a sticker chart at all! Mine would have probably just chewed it...

Why are they phoning you? What are they expecting you to do?! Telling you about things at pickup, absolutely fine, but if she's getting over excited in their care then that's their responsibility to manage / avoid. You can't do it for them, you're not there!

The fact that you describe her as a ‘firecracker’ and ‘savage’ makes me think that you’re one of those parents who lets their child bulldoze their way around, being pushy and hurting other kids, whilst thinking it’s cute

You mentioned you used to say no and remove her from the situation, what do you do now?

the number one thing with children is consistency, so if a behaviour occurs which isn’t desirable every time you need to have the same response, so pushing, pulling, hitting - every time she is moved away from where it’s happening, told no firmly and at home ideally to another space (bottom step worked for us) you then let them return to playing. If it happens immediately again they are removed again, third time I’d put them into the cot for about 5 minutes, not as a punishment but to reset the situation eg put away the toys causing issues. This seemed to work but you can’t deviate one day, have to be every time

She knows how to say sorry and does it

But at that age it's totally meaningless. She has no concept of sorry, or how the other child/adult feels.

It's all very well saying that you love her being feral, but it won't be as amusing when she's older, so you really do need to stop indulging it and start re-setting your expectations of her.

Hi all. I've got an 18mo DD who is just, a firecracker. She's always called a happy baby by everyone, and she is, but she's also absolutely savage and insane. Everything is a delight and a game and a reason to get overexcited.
Sometimes she gets handsy, other times she throws toys or pulls hair. With us, we don't mind so much but nursery have now put her on a behaviour plan! I never heard of such a thing.

What do you mean by handsy, firecracker, savage and insane? On the one hand you say that she can say sorry, then you say that she's only just using single words, so it could be that she has no clue what "kind hands" actually means, especially if there's a complete lack of consistency around her behaviour.

This says to me you don’t appreciate that there is a real issue with your child being feral. This isn’t cute it’s probably majorly disruptive to other kids and a pain for the staff to manage aswell, and at 18 months it’s not “baby nature” She is a toddler.

I’d say this needs nipping in the bud now before she gets older otherwise you’ll have much bigger issues.

Sticker charts are indeed completely age inappropriate