A nursery worker has shared three parenting habits that make their job harder, from unlabelled belongings to late collections. The advice came in response to a Reddit post from a mother worried she might be making life difficult for staff caring for her child.
The mother explained that a TikTok post about nursery workers' pet peeves had left her questioning her choice of nappies. She wrote: "I'm all of a sudden paranoid because I saw a post on TikTok about annoying parents at nurseries. One comment was implying they hate it when parents put pull ups on babies ... I send my 13 month in with pull ups!"
She added: "I'm so paranoid now. Why is this not ok? Can someone explain. What annoys nursery workers?"
Three frustrations listed
The nursery worker replied: "I am a nursery worker. Sending them in with unlabelled ANYTHING." Failing to pack enough changes of clothes was also mentioned, with the advice that if spare clothes do not fit in the child's rucksack, parents should bring a carrier bag with more spares.
The third frustration was late collections, with the worker saying: "Please don't be late to collect them, it really puts the last staff on shift under pressure at the end of a very long day."
Second worker adds more detail
A second nursery worker added: "Our nursery requires everything a child has to labelled, whether it is clothes or personal items because they just cannot keep track of what belongs to who without it. They want multiple changes of clothing that are easy to put on and take off."
On pull-ups, they said: "Pullups are not the best but ask them - our nursery is fine with them but it is small and they have a good ratio of staff to children whereas others might be more pressed for time and staffing."
They added: "Nappies are easier when lying down and leak less, I am told, which is important especially when in a shared space and with limited staff to clean and take care of a messy child. They also want communication."
Repeated habits cause frustration
The second worker concluded: "It is less that x is a bad thing to do and they hate you, it is that x is a bad thing, they have told you not to do x specifically, and parents keep doing it anyway."
"One day with your child in inappropriately difficult clothing is mildly annoying, but three weeks of it is probably enough to tip someone over the edge into rage."
