>>>We had a daycare incident this week, and I'm headed there in about an hour to chat with them about it. Just wanted to explain the situation and see if anybody has any suggestions on how to proceed.
>>>
>>>Last week at daycare (a public daycare w/ over a dozen children in the room, but 1 observer for every 4 children) my son (15 months) grabbed a bottle of watered down bleach used to clean the diaper changing tables. The lid wasn't fastened and it spilled, but luckily it only spilled on his pants. I had a talk with them about it, and they were very apologetic and forthcoming about everything. We were reimbursed for the ruined pants (no big deal) and were pretty happy with the way it was handled.
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>>>We got a call yesterday that the same exact thing happened, except this time it spilled into his eyes. They flushed it right away and called us. We took him to the doctor and then to the eye doctor, and they flushed it out and gave him some drops, but were told there was no permanent damage.
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>>>We had a more tense talk with them yesterday, and we have a meeting this afternoon to discuss what's going to come of this. They had to contact DHS and we've been in contact with them. They had an internal meeting at the daycare this morning to figure out what happened and I assumed people were disciplined/fired.
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>>>He really loves that daycare and we like it, too (before these two incidents). We tried another one before that and he was miserable, and we really don't want to make him go through that again. Are we crazy for wanting to keep him at this daycare? I know we're both drained emotionally right now because of all of this and might not be thinking correctly. We like the director and the main caretaker in his room. They've been very open with us, and I knew the director was very very upset over what happened.
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>>>Obviously the knee-jerk reaction is to get him out of them and go in there to raise heck. We've put a lot of thought into it and our ultimate goal is for him to remain there with new precautions taken so this doesn't happen again. We know several people who take their kids there and they all like it and have had no problems. I think it's fair to assume that this is a freak incident. We have a meeting with a DHS agent tomorrow night (I feel like white trash) and we might pose this same question to her and get her professional advice.
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>>>Anyway, not sure what my point was in writing this. Maybe just hoping for items I've overlooked. Right now this is what we've got:
>>>1) We want an explanation on how this happened twice, and their plan how to prevent it happening in the future.
>>>2) We're not going to sign anything until we meet with the eye doctor again tomorrow to determine if there could be consequences down the road.
>>>3) We want to know the bleach/water ratio. I did some research last night and read it's supposed to be 2 tablespoons bleach for every gallon of water.
>>>4) We want to bring up the ruined clothes, the doctor's bills, and the lost work time. Compensation is obviously low on the list, but we want to see what they are willing to offer.
>>>5) We want to meet with the head caretaker in his room. We've met with her before informally and really like her. We just want to speak with her about the issue.
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>>There should be a record of any similar incidents that may have been reported for that daycare. Was yours the first one, or just the latest of many?
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>>Some responses here advise removing your son from the daycare. If that's so, then it follows that *all* parents in at least that part of the daycare should also remove their children. So - suppose this incident had happened to some other child - would you remove your son?
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>>If all parents should remove their children, then that section of the daycare should be closed, at least until any investigation is complete and fixes are implemented. That may actually be the policy of the governing state body. Does that seem reasonable?
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>>If there is any chance you may end up in a legal battle with the daycare, you may want to touch base with a lawyer to find out if leaving him in would be prejudicial to your case.
>
>We're not going to pursue any legal action. We've asked for compensation for all medical bills, clothing, time taken off of work, etc. We have an appointment with DHS on Monday night and we're going to ask if there has been a history of incidents happening.

DHS? Department of Homeland Security ? Are you maybe taking this to too high a level :-}