This is downright horrifying and it makes me wonder how easily it could happen somewhere else? All I could think was what if one of them had died over something so ignorant and preventable? I know daycare workers can be harried, it's a job I admire anyone doing, but I have to wonder what the heck was going on in this one? I know we have members on here that will probably have something to say about this.
Staffer serves wrong thing

Just amazing. I see that it is not a daycare centre, but a licensed day home, which have lower standards, on the whole. Even so, this is unbelievable. Products like this are clearly marked - this was not someone storing the product in a different container than it came in (another matter altogether, and also strictly against any sane standards) but a new product in the store container. Who feeds children without at least glancing at the package?

Actually, here, this would never have happened, not because we are so much better and smarter, but because kids in a licensed facility are not given Kool Aid or punch, or anything else blue. Milk, water, or 100% fruit juice only.

After reading the story I can`t say much, it appears to be nothing more than a terrible mistake. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of similar childcare facilities I think it`s impossible to guarantee that similar errors wont happen in the future.

I hope all the children recover.

This story really puzzles me. Mainly because I'm not really sure what type of cooldrink Kool Aid is. Is it the type that you have to mix with water? Because in that case a person would have to glance at the container at some point. Another thing I'm curious about is that at the grocery store they usually pack the foods and cleaning supplies separate and we definately don't put cleaning supplies in the fridge. So there was a lot of carelessness involved.
I don't want to judge this woman because we all make mistakes but this is really a terrible story and it reminds me of the time my sister's child ate rat poison at, a day care, when he was about 5. The cleaning woman at the day care wanted to finish her work early that day so she put out the poison before all the kids had gone home. (The poison looks like little pink sweets). Anyway she saw my sister's child eat the stuff but she was too afraid to tell anyone because it was her fault. Luckily her conscience got the better of her and finally at about 10 that same evening she finally phoned the daycare owner to tell her what happened and she told my sister, who had to rush her child to the Emergency Ward. He was fine but the story could have had a bad ending if the worker didn't tell anyone. It's really frightning to think of the things that can go wrong.

I hope the children that drank the fluid will be fine.

Several years ago a friend told me about a father who wanted to keep insects from biting his 7-year old son. He didn't have insect repellent on hand, so he used bug spray - the kind you use to spray around a house. It was, of course, toxic and by the time they got the child to the hospital it was too late to save him. I'm sure this father was very sad over his terrible mistake.

And this is yet another reason that I am afraid to send my child to daycare.

Actually, kitkat, this type of thing is more likely to happen at home than at a regulated daycare. At home we tend to get a little careless, because it's home - the phone rings during the child's nap time, we set down what we are doing (removing nail polish, cleaning windows, scrubbing floors) and may forget to get back to it. Three hours later, along comes a toddler who drowns in the mop pail, or drinks the poison. In a daycare, where everything in the room is designed not for normal living, but only for childcare, these things are much less likely to happen.

At the centre I work at, a staff member was cleaning the tables after lunch, with the spray cleaner we use. A child about ten feet from her fell, and she set the spray bottle down on the table for as long as it took for her to go to the child and pick her up. She went right back and picked up the bottle and put it away. However, the licensing officer happened to be there, saw this, and it meant the whole centre had to review our policy on poisonous materials, the staff member got a notation on her file, and the centre as a whole got written up. Granted, there is not a licensing officer always there, but the possibility of such fallout does serve to keep you on your toes and develop good habits. I was a good careful mother, certainly not the type to store the bleach under the sink, but once I got my training, I became ten times more careful than I had been.

In this case, the grocery store fell down in packing cleaning materials with food, whoever put the groceries away fell down in putting it in the fridge, the person who poured the drinks fell down in not reading the label, and the dietary policies of the place fell down in allowing fruit punches, which cleaning products could be mistaken for. Something like this should not be happening in a regulated facility - they will probably lose their license at the very least.

I'm not a big fan of licensed (or unlicensed) day homes. It's inevitable that people feel more relaxed in their own home than they do going out to a workplace, and forget that they are *at work*. They are more likely to do everything right when the inspector comes by, and slack off the rest of the time, as opposed to working somewhere where the boss could come in any minute and catch you. It's just human nature.

People like the idea of their children spending time in a home setting, rather than an institution, though.

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People like the idea of their children spending time in a home setting, rather than an institution, though.

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My wife and I decided that we definitely preferred a more business like and regulated environment for our children.

The thought of having our children being taken cared of in someones home horrifies both of us. We have knocked back a dozen offers from the government to have our children placed in such child care and have organized our working lives so that one of us is at home taking care of our little ones rather than send them to home based child care. We are fortunate that we were able to do so.

Both children have been in "proper" child care,Zac 2 1/2 still is, and it gave/gives us confidence that we believed/believe they would be taken cared of properly and professionally.

I understand what you are saying, agony but I just hear some many horror stories about daycare and feel more comfortable having her home with me where I can watch her and not have to worry about things like this happening. Luckily, my job allows me to do so. I guess I just think I do a better job of watching her than a daycare was.

I didn't know that this was a home daycare at the time. I agree that they are more unsupervised than a normal one.

I understand agony's point about the dangers and 'relaxed' attitude of the home day care setting, but I have successfully looked after 2 babies, besides my own, for other people. Okay they were not under my care at the same time and it was only when my children were attending pre-school so the babies had my undivided attention. The one was my sister's baby and the other my friend's. My home was already child proof from bringing up my own children and when I child proofed, I literally went on my hands and knees and crawled around, like a baby would, and looked for all the dangers. I never put cleaning products, and still don't, on a low shelf. Never put my tea next to me or on a coffee table. I would rather get up and put it on a high shelf. All the plug holes are still covered. And my nursing experience taught me to check and double check medicines and basically anything that a child consumes. When I looked after these children, my own children were younger so I was still in 'child care mode' and as a result I was very vigilant also I only had dial up internet back then so I wasn't distracted by all these cool internet site. Nowadays I turn people down when they ask me to look after their kids because my kids are teens now and there is way too much noise around here and I don't think I would have as much patience as I had 10 years ago. To me looking after a child is a full time job and I take it very seriously (probably because I saw so many 'not so good' situtations when I was a young nurse).

Oh yes, even though I was a stay at home mom, I sent my son to a play group once for about 3 hours a day when he was about 3 to learn to socialise and it was the biggest mistake I ever made. Within a few weeks, he was bitten by another child, accidently locked in a room and smacked because he wouldn't eat their food, even though I told them not to force him to eat because he would eat when he got home. Of course I took him out and kept him home until he started pre-school at 5. What they didn't count on was that my 3 year old was very articulate and told me everything that went on. They were shocked when I confronted them and you could tell they didn't expect my child to tell me. They said I was making a big mistake taking him out of school and that he would never fit into a school enviroment when he was older. Well, of course they were wrong and now he is a funny, well adjusted teen and still very articulate and thankfully he still tells me everything that goes on at school. (probably because I listened and believed him so many years ago).

I was fairly horrified by the amount of children she was allowed to have in her care. Over here, a Registered Childminder can only look after up to a certain amount of children

"Registered childminders (working alone) are allowed to look after an absolute maximum of 6 children, aged up to 12 years at any one time (they could have more on their books but look after them on different days). Of these 6 children, no more than 3 children not yet attending primary school can be looked after and no more than one child aged under 1. Importantly, this also includes the childminder's own children."

A childminder's home has to be safety inspected and the childminder has to have background and police checks.

Whatever form of childcare is chosen, it pays to bear in mind that it is big business and a lot of people are in it for a fast buck. There's been several instances here of children wandering away from day nurseries and once, a child drowned in one.