Eliana had not just been bitten once; her whole face was covered in marks that an older child had caused.
That children may bite one another is nothing new – these things happen all over the world every day. What concerned Tracy the most, though, was the fact that she’d been bitten so many times before a member of staff intervened.
After watching surveillance footage from the daycare, days after the ordeal, Tracy realised Eliana had been attacked for almost a minute and a half before anyone tried to separate the two children.
She had over ten bite marks on her face and body.
After the incident, an investigation was launched to find out exactly why it had taken staff so long to respond.
The daycare claim they went to Eliana’s aid the moment they heard her screaming.
Previous biting
The two-year-old guilty of the attack had only just started at the daycare.
Only one week before that, the toddler had been removed from another center for biting a different child.
However, the child’s mother had failed to tell Busy Hands about that particular incident, and so the daycare couldn’t have known to expect such behaviour on their own premises.
“This toddler that came in was a new customer and she neglected to tell us that the child was a biter and neglected to tell us that the week before she had been kicked out of Little Griz for biting a child,” said the owner, to ABC Fox Montana.
“If that would have been told to us, we could have said ‘No, we can’t take her.’”
The bites were so severe that Eliana had to take antibiotics. However, the little girl, despite having a face full of bruises, was in a good mood mere days after the event.
This is what Tracy wrote on Facebook regarding the incident:
“She’s in much better spirits today. I’m happy to say the bruising and swelling is coming down a little, it’s amazing how resilient babies are. So blown away by the support from everybody. ABC Fox Montana and KPAX will both be featuring stories on our sweet girl.”
Montana law says there must be a maximum of four toddlers to one adult at a daycare.
Following Eliana’s attack, however, Busy Hands has announced that their goal is to reduce that to two children per employee, in a bid to ensure nothing like it ever happens again.
Obviously, when we leave our children for the day we expect them to be well looked after; we trust that nothing bad will happen to them.
Anyone who has ever had a child will know all it takes is to turn away for a second for an accident to occur, though.
If it took one and a half minutes for Eliana to get the help she so desperately needed, it looks like that daycare needs to seriously amend its methods of practise. Of course, the child’s mom should have mentioned the previous biting incident when inducting her, as well.
I hope Eliana’s parents aren’t too afraid to leave her at daycare again, and that Busy Hands rearrange their way of doing things so that no children are left unattended in the future.
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