Aussie Childcare Network Forum

I'm having an issue with a few children who can't use drink bottles appropriately.

My children are three years old. One boy started tipping out his, and then other peoples, drink bottles when we were outside many weeks ago and it has continued to escalate. He started doing it inside by simply flicking the bottle around to spray the water on the floor or other children, and then began pouring it into different toys. Several other children, our more 'difficult' children, began doing it as well. It has reached a point where many many times a day, this group of children is spraying people with water, pouring it in toys, and tipping whole bottles of water onto the floor. Today, one child emptied a bottle all over a carpet mat, her own bed, and another's bed. It's getting ridiculous.

We've had many discussions about using the bottles properly, both to the individual children and at group times. When they tip their bottle out we were putting it out of reach (except for when they asked for a drink, and they were supervised until it was put back out of reach), but they don't care now, and just drink out of and empty the other children's bottles. Several times I have resorted to putting all the bottles out of reach, but it was just too impractical as a staff member was constantly having to get them down when a child wanted a drink, and we are supposed to provide the children free access to water so it's not a technique we can stick with.

I'm at a loss of what to do. The child who emptied her bottle on her (and another child's bed) then had to have a different blanket, not her special one, and she cried and carried on for ages and I tried to be consistent in saying "You tipped water on your blanket, so it needs to dry. Because you wet it, you need to have a different blanket" hoping that she would understand it was not the right thing to do... however after rest time, she was at it again.

It's so frustrating spending half the day mopping up water, it upsets the other children when their bottle is taken and its such as hazard constantly having water on the floor. But I don't know what to do. They think its a game - even cleaning it up. Every time they do it we get them to clean it themselves, but now they think it's hilarious and will empty a bottle and instantly run to the paper towels and beginning cleaning it/playing in it.

I'm so frustrated! Any ideas?

We have incorporated a lot of water play recently, unfortunately there has been no let up with the drink bottles.

I do like the filling up/emptying bottles when they need a drink, just not sure how this will work in practice. There's often only two staff in my room and one of us is almost always supervising the bathroom, so it becomes really difficult to then have the other constantly getting drinks... especially days like today, when they will need drinks frequently.

I did mention the issue to my director yesterday and she wants to look into the behavioural reasons behind it, as these children have also been having some other behavioural issues. Hopefully that will turn up some ideas.

Why are they needing to fill bottles so frequently? How quickly are they finishing a bottle of water???
Perhaps water coolers and individual cups would be a better option, or installing a bubbler.