Paper towels ??

[megg21]

At my pre reg briefing they mentioned it would be better to use disposable paper towels for after they wash their hands after the toilet etc . Is this true seems a bit pricey when I have towels.

Thank You

[BallyH]

When I had my last inspection I was using paper towels for the children but now I use Ikea £1 face cloths. I bought about a dozen different coloured ones. I put out 3 clean ones every day. They have little loops to hang from. The children choose a colour and that is their towel for the day. It is also good for colour recognition. Costly initially but they last for ages. They hang from individual little pegs on a bathroom ring 'thingy' that I managed to get from a bathroom display area in a diy store ages ago. I've also mentioned this in my sef and risk assessed cross contamination using the towels to justify why I have choosen to go down this route. Hope that helps.

[Mouse]

I have lots of face cloths that I bought from Ikea. I think I paid 25p each. When the children go upstairs I give them a cloth, they wash & dry their hands, bring the cloth back down again and I put it in the wash.

I have 3 year olds going up to the toilet by themselves and found paper towels weren't very good for them - put down the toilet, on the floor, used loads in one go etc. Then I didn't want individual towels hanging in the bathroom as I don't want hooks in there and I couldn't guarantee the children would only use theirs. The cheap Ikea face cloths seemed a good solution and are working really well

[megg21]

Thank you I love the idea of the face cloths . Will do a trip to ikea .
Thank you

[FloraDora]

I originally bought IKEa thinking I might do the colour coding thing...but went with buying face cloths in bulk from hotel sales - I roll them up and pop in a basket - use and throw - I do this when not ChMing too in downstairs loo - like a posh hotel - rolled up cloths and then dispose - lots of friends have commented positively - plus a Environmental health inspector.
Hotel supplies of flannels work out cheaper than IKea and stay fluffy and White - I ordered 36 - lots so I only wash every 3/4 days.

[JoRo163]

Face cloths here too. I did consider paper towels, but decided against it as it's an ongoing expense. Plus I've watched little ones take handfuls of paper towels when I've been working in nurseries in my past life... I'm sticking with face cloths!

[megg21]

Thank you for all the great helps x

[Dragonfly]

Paper towels block the toilet when they decide to put them down the loo!!

How do you get on when you have 6 children. The amount of times they have to go wash their hands throughout the day? Certainly more than 6 times.

I use a hand towel and change that throughout the day. I once was at another childminders house, she had colour coded towels for the children. I watched one day when they knew she wasn't watching, they wiped their hands on the nearest towel!!! Typical children. Hence why I don't do individual towels.

[JCrakers]

I love the idea of face cloths but haven't got round to buying any because I worked out that I would use on average 20+ a day. How does everyone manage to keep up with washing them?

3 hand washes before snack
3 hand washes before lunch
3 hand washes if we paint
6 after school hand washes before tea
3 hand washes before 4pm fruit

And that's not even mentioning the toilet breaks throughout the day....lol

I don't want hooks in the bathroom and don't have enough room anyway so i've always thought that face cloths wouldn't work.

[bunyip]

I have individual towels, each with the child's name cross-stitched onto it.

I've always suspected this is one of 'those' Ofsted issues, like labelling every goddamn thing in the house, especially as I don't know of any towel-related fatalities anywhere, ever.

[Mouse]

I have individual towels, each with the child's name cross-stitched onto it.

I've always suspected this is one of 'those' Ofsted issues, like labelling every goddamn thing in the house, especially as I don't know of any towel-related fatalities anywhere, ever.

I've always wondered how nurseries get away with it. At the last one I visited they put out 2 clean towels each day. When I used to take children to nursery in the afternoon the towels were always soaking wet and on the floor. The sinks were also filthy and the toilets dirty. They did have a paper towel dispenser, but that was empty. And there was no supervision anyway, so half the time children would use the toilet and leave without washing their hands.

At another nursery where we used to use a room for training the toilets were disgusting - broken doors, single cold water tap working (apart from the time the top came off and you had to use a screw driver to turn it on and off), leaking toilets, one towel that looked like it had been there all week...

Then I'd hear of childminders being pulled up over "hygiene" issues because their individual towels were touching, which could lead to contamination

[bunyip]

I've always wondered how nurseries get away with it. At the last one I visited they put out 2 clean towels each day. When I used to take children to nursery in the afternoon the towels were always soaking wet and on the floor. The sinks were also filthy and the toilets dirty. They did have a paper towel dispenser, but that was empty. And there was no supervision anyway, so half the time children would use the toilet and leave without washing their hands.

At another nursery where we used to use a room for training the toilets were disgusting - broken doors, single cold water tap working (apart from the time the top came off and you had to use a screw driver to turn it on and off), leaking toilets, one towel that looked like it had been there all week...

Then I'd hear of childminders being pulled up over "hygiene" issues because their individual towels were touching, which could lead to contamination

I've always believed that the whole EY thing - from regulation to inspection, from training to funding - is geared up to nurseries, with CMs and nannies, etc. being a mere afterthought. The logical extension of this, is that many (though not all) inspectres simply don't know how to inspect a CM's setting. So they make up quite a lot of it as they go along and have entirely different standards for the two. I've a client who works in a nursery, and good relationships with a couple of local nurseries. They frequently comment that they feel Ofsted is happy with much less from a nursery than from a CM when it comes to LJs and L&D paperwork, whereas they will speand a lot more time looking over a nursery's due diligence paperwork.

On the subject of consistency (and towels).................. There is a local 'baby-farm' type of nursery near to us. A dreadful place set up by 2 equally dreadful ex-CMs who realised a nursery would make more money and involve less work for them. I'm convinced it only gets used parents who want a convenient centre-of-town location for drop-off/pick-up and s0d the quality.

After a series of OK-ish inspections, they got re-inspected in response to a complaint. Although the complaint was about something else, this inspectre noted that the child were supposed to use paper towels from a dispenser which was mounted too high on the toilet wall for them to reach. The staff offered some BS excuse that they handed the towels to the children, but could not explain how there were no used towels in any of the bins if that was happening. Curiously, this had been the way of things since the nursery opened, meaning 3 previous inspectres had completely failed to notice something that the 4th regarded as worthy of an 'action' point.

[Mouse]

They frequently comment that they feel Ofsted is happy with much less from a nursery than from a CM when it comes to LJs and L&D paperwork

I agree with that completely.

A cm friend of mine sent her daughter to the school nursery and was astounded when she left after 4 terms with an A4 sheet of paper covering all her time there. Most of the comments were generic "X has used the outdoor play equipment and is able to climb and jump" type comments. The cm questioned why she did so much to cover L&D when a nursery could get away with that.

Then there's one of my mindees who has been at playgroup for a year (2 days there, 2 days with me). He left there in July and mum expected some sort of L&D paperwork. They got nothing at all! The child is starting at the above mentioned nursery in September, so mum probably shouldn't expect much more from there!

And finally another of my current mindees who goes to a different playgroup. Mum showed me his paperwork a while back (playgroups way of sharing information) - a few meaningless notes in a notebook, which playgroup now tell her they've lost. I'm not going to tell them that I photocopied the notes for my records so could provide them with a back up copy!

I just don't think cms could get away with doing so little.

[mumofone]

I have individual towels, each with the child's name cross-stitched onto it. I've always suspected this is one of 'those' Ofsted issues, like labelling every goddamn thing in the house, especially as I don't know of any towel-related fatalities anywhere, ever.

Bl**dy hell bunyip, who does the cross stitching?!

[loocyloo]

I use face cloths from ikea. I have a towel rail in downstairs toilet. I use shower curtain rings to attach an individual towel and laminated childs name together, onto the rail. Cloths get washed each day.

That said, sometimes we all just use the hand towel and that gets changed each day.

My local environmental chap wanted a wall mounted towel dispenser and said nothing else was appropriate! I said not in my home and he said he couldn't be held responsible for any cross contamination! I said i wouldnt blame him, but in 20 plus years of childcare i had yet to come across as any!

[Dragonfly]

Bunyip does cross stitch in his spare time!!

love the expression baby farm bunyip

I have never ever been pulled up about having a single towel thats changed throughout the day and I've been a childminder a long time.And I have never had a towel related fatality (spelt wrong sorry) or any come to think of it..Explain that you are not a nursery( and don't want to be if they are like the one near bunyip!!) and why you have a single towel, it's not a.issue, teaching children to wash their hands is.

[Amanda70]

I put a roll of kitchen towel by the sink, my DO told me to do that so hope that's ok with Ofsted?

[JCrakers]

Well...My first inspection I had a paper towel dispenser, then about a year later I had my downstairs loo re-tiled and didn't put it back up as I didn't want holes drilling in the new tiles so I filled the top drawer with the paper towels.

But the children were taking a handful and I was finding dry towels in the bin. No matter how much I asked them to use maximum of 2, it still happened so I got rid of the paper towels.

Now I use a towel which I change half way through the day. My second inspection was fine, inspector never mentioned it at all. That's how inconsistent they are

With anti bac soap and being extra vigilant if someone has any sort of mouth sore or conjunctivitis I feel it works well. Separate towels wouldn't work for my as I have up to 9 children a day, sometimes more if i've had a morning and afternoon minded.
But saying this, my next inspector could mark me down for it.

[FloraDora]

Sometimes I have to wash the towels every other day if I have had extra children on certain days.
I also have white restaurant tea towels that we use during minding days and we get through a lot of these too so these get washed with the individual hand towels which means I do have a big enough white wash to fill my washing machine. Though it's not Eco friendly to be washing so much, the system works really well and I don't have to concern myself about whims of inspectors, OFSTED or environmental as this system ticks both their boxes, if they are bothered to investigate.

I fold mine in half and then roll them and pop them in a basket - great finer motor skill activity and the children are helping, they love doing this. Also the rule is that if there are only 2 left in the basket more have to be fetched. This means they tell me and I get the clean ones out and we roll together usually, but I often find one of my LO's doing this on their own which she did on the day off the inspection ( which probably highlighted to the inspector my system) - this observation gave evidence of the children being independent and helping with their daily hygiene routine, plus maths, knowing how many 2 is, knowing that more is needed if there are 2 in a set etc....