How do the carers in the orphanages keep track of the babies?

It had not occurred to me to even consider this until I made the return trip to my daughter's orphanage in Fuling.

I knew that the cots had the babies' names on them but how did they keep track of 30 babies in baby walkers in a room and not put them back in the wrong cot.

Well during our visit in September 2005 we found out - actually our friend who travelled with us and translated for us pointed it out to me first (I was having too much fun photographing babies swarming around me to see the detail).

Each of the babies had their name (or at least the last character) written on their forearms. Actually having spoken with the nannies those who are working with the babies day in day out know them all by name, so the name on the arm wouldn't be necessary for them.

However, we did see the medical staff come in and administer injections to some of the babies who were poorly and I think that this is probably when the name on the arm becomes very important.

Our friend stayed at the SWI and was able to observe the early morning routine (while we were struggling to get a 3 yo back at the hotel to wake up get dressed and have breakfast - mind you the question 'do you want to go and see the babies' worked wonders) -when she visited the rooms before breakfast in the SWI canteen shes aid that the medical staff were giving all the babies regular checkups. We also observed the nannies regularly taking temperatures of those children with runny noses etc (or signs of upper respiratory tract infections).