A couple in Indiana is deeply worried after picking up their 21-month-old son from daycare and finding him extremely hungry. The mother, who uses the Reddit username Whoreallyknowsbest, shared the incident in r/legaladvice, explaining that she suspects daycare staff may not have been feeding her son and that there appears to be little documentation to confirm otherwise. “The response was, ‘Oh, maybe someone forgot to document,’” she wrote—an explanation that neither she nor hundreds of Reddit users found reassuring.
Not feeding her son wasn’t the only concern Whoreallyknowsbest shared in her post. She also claimed it took the daycare three weeks to grant her access to the Procare app, as well as the door code. It was the day she received access that she realized, “There’s no documentation of them giving my 21-month-old anything past 11 am,” until she picked him up around 5 pm. The daycare is supposed to document everything, even when a child refuses to eat.
Another red flag was when staff claimed they had given Whoreallyknowsbest’s husband the door code, even though he was present to directly refute it. Since the daycare’s owners are allegedly new, the mom remarked that the whole transition might be a struggle for them. “But not feeding my child and lying is unacceptable,” she argued.
The post’s most upvoted comment was written by someone claiming to have worked in a daycare, and they recall that staff would always inform the parent upon pickup if their child didn’t want to eat. “So what’s their excuse? They’re ridiculous,” the Reddit user exclaimed.
The Mother Claims She’s Reported the Daycare to the Authorities
Another helpful commenter suggested that the mother report the situation to the Department of Child Services, which she claims she did, so the case is now under investigation. In the end, it would appear the parents do not plan to ever take their son back to that specific daycare; the mother’s reason for bringing it up on Reddit was to receive recommendations on how to report the owners and staff.
As Whoreallyknowsbest and other commenters noted, occasionally forgetting to document a detail can happen—everyone makes mistakes. However, in this case, the daycare not only failed to provide documentation regarding a child who had gone unfed, but also allegedly lied to the parents. That alone was sufficient reason to report the incident.
