Baby at Daycare Found With a Mouse in her Mouth (Video)
Brittany and her daughter, Alanah, being interviewed by ABC 7.
The horror.
THE HORROR.
I’m pretty sure I’d rather find my kid splashing around in a loaded toilet and I’m not kidding.
New Jersey Mom, Brittany Barba, apparently feels the same way. She’s yanked her daughter out of daycare after she was told her what her daughter had been found eating.
As ABC reports, Barba’s grandmother works at the daycare and told her that she had found 8-month-old, Alanah, was found snacking on a dead mouse.
No one knows how long the child had the mouse in her mouth although Kiburi Tucker, the director of the daycare says he believes it could’ve only been for a few seconds as the children are all highly supervised. He thinks Alanah found the mouse during those few seconds when daycare workers were focused on other children.
“This was an isolated incident, I was really hurt by this, it could have been my child,” Tucker tells ABC.
Nonetheless, Brittany Barba has pulled 8-month-old Alanah out of The Donald K Tucker Childcare Center. She believes her daughter has become sick as a result of eating the mouse.
“Lately she’s been vomiting. Everything she’s eaten, she’s throwing it back up,” Barba says.
She believes supervision that day was too lax and that they need to watch the kids more but Tucker says everyone was doing their job and this was just that split second when their heads were turned.
The state health department has checked out the daycare center and offered a few suggestions, like moving shelves and furniture away from the walls and Tucker has requested the health department to visit again to help fight the problem. The once-a-month extermination visit will also get bumped up a notch as well.
“He’s coming two times a month now to make sure this never happens again,” Tucker said.
You can see ABC’s report on the incident below.
What would you do if this happened to your child? Do you think supervision was lax or could this have happened anywhere?
Seriously! That’s so gross, I would definitely sue them. Not only did that cause harm physically to the child, but emotional trauma to the mother! I’d be wondering what else they weren’t on the up and up on at that daycare.
Wow. I actually feel a little sorry for all parties involved. The director seems earnest enough and he faced the music very well. Another reason, though, why kids this age shouldn’t be in group settings like this. They really do need individualized care in a home setting–preferably their own home.
I wish I could unread this. So gross.
I also agree the director is handling it well.
i would completely freak out, too! No way my daughter would be going back there. however, I also feel the director is handling this properly & feels bad that it happened.
I can’t believe for 1 minute that no one knew that the baby had a mouse in her mouth! The daycare shouldn’t have been allowed to remain open and also should have been keeping a better eye on everyone especially infants and toddlers who are naturally inclined to put things in their mouths and don’t know what’s okay and what’s not okay to eat! The daycare should pay for the little girl’s healthcare expenses as a result of their negligence! I hope the little girl is okay!
@Jamie – sue them? Even if no lasting medical harm was done? Holy hell….
I do not believe a dead mouse should have been there in the first place, if the center was cleaned continuously on a daily basis. America really needs to go to the Canadian model.
is it just me, or are those cribs on the reject list??? not a safe environment. places like that should have one adult for every one child, that’s how much attention they need!
I’d be grossed out, but at the same time, sh*t happens. A lot depends on where this happened. Is it a rural area? Are there open fields near by? Or is this an issue of infestation? My house is super clean, but the occasional field mouse has been known to sneak in to warm up in the winter. If I were the director, I’d be mortified and would understand the mother pulling her child out. But I don’t think most daycare providers would even report the incident, so as the mom I’d give credit for filling me in and taking extra steps to make sure it never happens again.
I would never let my child go to another day care. Thankfully, my daughter (16 months at the time) was only pushed down on a concrete playground and bitten by a 3 year old, aside from the usual leaving her in a highchair and not changing her. Needless to say, she never went back and I never put any of my kids in another daycare.
I agree the director is doing something to keep it from happening again, but apparently they are either lacking in manpower, or have taken on more than they can handle. Rodents die, and they don’t pick where, but someone should make sure the place is clean at all times and that there is someone who can keep up with the number of children she is assigned to, or hire more.
Um the center has to tell the parent the child would need to see a doctor pronto. And no this never should have happened there are rules and daycare laws for a reason. It’s to prevent this from happening. The mouse trap should not be in the reach of any child. The center needs to be cleaned more thoroughly more often. Nasty I would be pissed and possibly press charges.
And that is why my kids do not go to daycare. I know many people have little choice but I have to wonder if the grandma had not worked at the daycare, if the mom would have ever found out. Who knows how much goes on when you leave your child with someone you really don’t know.
Working at a daycare before becoming a mother of two has taught me all about those split second instances when your eyes aren’t glued to the child and disaster strikes! But at my daycare, we swept and moves twice a day if not more (Kiddies have accidents and messes) and had two teachers to a class of 10.
Cleanliness has to be made a priority and caretakers have to be more vigilant when it comes to others’ children. Most daycares are understaffed and it IS a high stress job!! I agree that it is being handled well but could have been avoidable. And as a past daycare teacher, MY CHILDREN WILL NEVER GO INTO ONE bc no matter how well staffed and cleaned, ppl tend.to not care as much about the children as they would their own. Not all, but most…
Swept and mopped ** twice a day.
I understand that this could be traumatizing, but anyone who thinks this couldn’t happen just as easily in a home setting is dead wrong. Just ask my mom, who put my brother down on the living room floor one morning, turned around for thirty seconds, and turned back to discover (even worse!) *half* a dead mouse in his mouth. Thanks, cat! Ewww.
My son is in a preschool infant setting where I go to nurse him 3 times a day (including my lunch break) so i spend a good 2 hours in the school. The place in this story was not getting cleaned enough if a child was able to find a dead mouse and the child was not being watched enough. My feeling is the care givers where probably talking and not doing their job properly. Just from my observation at my own child’s school this would never happen there. They child the facility on a daily basis and the kids are watched a lot better then this. Group settings are good but you have to make sure that you pick a good group setting. The one I went with was a couple hundred dollars more a month then the majority of the daycares in the area but it has been around for almost 50 years and has amazing recommendations. Don’t be cheap with your childcare.
I would be even more concerned that the daycare is now going to be sprayed with poison TWICE a month,,instead of once…
the child has been poisoned. how did the mouse die? she needs medical assistance right away. This is terrible.
@Jessie- I completely agree w/you. I’ve also worked as a head teacher in a nursury school and while I appreciate the school taking responsibilty for this immediately, it shouldn’t have happend. I was lucky enough to work at a school where there was enough staff and we were all about being organized and keeping things clean, but sadly, that’s not the standard level in most nursury/daycare facilities and it’s mainly due to understafffing, low pay, and the lack of care and time to keep up w/cleaning. I’m fortunate enough that I’m gonna be a SAHM, but for most parents who need daycare, they just don’t have enough money or choices to send thier kids to a clean and decent place and that’s a real shame.
My hearts goes out to that baby….and as for the daycare I have 3 words SHUT IT DOWN
Her baby does not look sick , she is smiling and laughing, and you can watch your child like a hawk, just takes one second when your eyes are not on them for them to get into something they are not supposed to ( oh the horror story’s I could share, not only from my own children but from when i was a child, and many other peoples children) Wonder if she would be so upset with herself and want to prosecute her self if her child ate a roach in her apartment ? oh nope because it happened under her watch right? shit happens , now if it was chemical cleaners…be a whole different story as that should always be locked up but it wasn’t you can not control what living pests come to your building, business or home , Here is one horror story on my watch , After I had delivered my first born son, he grabbed a scapular off the table and almost lunged it in his mouth put my hand in front of his mouth got cut then took it away , did i sue nope, because sh*t happens and the doctor did not hand it to him, he grabbed it.. and my baby wasn’t even 5 minutes out of the womb and already getting into things …that is what kids do, yea no one wants to hear their baby had a dead mouse in their mouth….. but like afore mentioned sh*t happens …this is not a sue worthy issue as it could have easily happened at home.
I feel this mom’s pain. I had an issue with a day care center in NJ and had to immediately take my granddaughter out. She was left alone suspended in a chair table in a room without supervision because she was being punished for not taking a nap. When I walked into the center one of the teachers was leaving the center and after she spotted me ran back into the room. The children were sleeping on their cots and when I asked where my granddaughter was she said having juice. I asked where and found her in a section of the room by herself staring sitting upright. There was no juice. Her cot was empty and did contain her blanket, binky or stuffed animal. I immediately removed her from the center. On the sheet that is filled out by her teacher she wrote that my granddaughter feel asleep at 12:50. I arrived at 1:15. When I filed a complaint with the state of new jersey, their report said that my claim was unsubstantiated. Mind you i had to call my state senator’s office for them to get the report. The day care center claimed that after speaking with the children (one and two year olds), and staff that the center was highly supervised. In short, they did not believe my claim. Please people let’s get a petition together because the dept. Of children and families are not doing their jobs here in theNew Jersey. I will help Brittany any way that I can. If she wants people to here my story also. I will be glad to do so. Whatever it takes to stand up for children.
As disgusting as this is, I don’t think people understand that you can’t just sue everytime something unpleasant happens. You have to be able to prove 1. negligence and 2. injury (which is honestly what I think this mom is going for when claiming the baby was “throwing up.”) She seems to have an angle, as far as making this public. It’s so gross, and I can imagine that if it happened to my child I’d be pulling the child, alerting the state, and telling all my friends. What I can’t imagine is ending up on television because I think I’ve found my meal ticket.
OMG!! That is very gross!! Are you kidding me!!!! Doesn’t the staff check everything and make sure the place is even clean before they open the doors for kids to show up!!!
I think the story is gross but I think the damage that it could have done to the girl is worse. If ingesting mouse poop could be lethal, what can eating the animal do to her? Wow, and then the mom “thinks” that the girls has gotten sick from it? Has she taken her to the pediatrician yet? Ugh!!!
And this is why young children belong at home with their own parents caring for them instead of being raised in institutionalized centers.