Toddler Goes Missing for 2 Hours After Being Handed to Wrong Grandparent at Child Care Center

An investigation is underway at a Sydney child care center after a young boy was given to the wrong person, according to multiple news reports.

The 1-year-old went missing for two hours on Monday, Sept. 1, after being sent home from Bangor’s First Steps Learning Academy with a grandparent who was not related to him, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

“I can’t explain the feeling,” the boy’s mother told the outlet after learning her son had been handed to a stranger.

“They couldn’t tell me his name, who he was, they couldn’t tell me who he was supposed to pick up, [or] what he looked like, apart from that he was wearing shorts and he was an older gentleman,” she said.

The center reviewed video footage and contacted other parents to try and locate the boy. They eventually realized he had been given to the grandfather of another child, according to the report. The man later returned the boy to the center.

According to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the center informed parents the next day about the “serious incident,” saying that “a carer for a child in the nursery room, at our service, mistakenly picked up the wrong child from the centre.”

“We sincerely apologise to the families directly involved in this deeply upsetting and isolated incident, and to the broader First Steps community for the distress it has caused,” Bangor’s First Steps Learning Academy’s Trisha Hastie said in a statement to news.com.au.

“The safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is our highest priority,” Hastie added. “While we have always maintained strict protocols for drop-off and pick-up, in this case those processes were not followed correctly. The educator involved has been stood down.”

“We have acted immediately to strengthen our procedures and ensure this never happens again,” Hastie said, noting the center has made “immediate and significant changes around the drop-off and pick-up protocols to ensure this never happens again.”

The grandfather’s wife said he did not realize the mistake at the time because the children at the center were asleep and the room was dark.

“He was asleep, and he’d got him out of the car,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald. “He was struggling with the car seat. He didn’t really notice much difference because he doesn’t do the car seat that often, so his biggest thing was trying to [work out] the seat.”

“When he got him home, he just snuggled him and went to sleep, and he didn’t realize. He has the same hair, and he had the dummy in his mouth, and [my husband] said, ‘He’s not well. He’s not himself,'” she continued. She explained that the couple had cared for their actual grandson on Sunday, who was teething and unwell.

“We don’t blame him. We are not angry with him … we blame the day care,” the boy’s mom, who wishes to remain unnamed, told the Morning Herald about the other grandparent.

A spokesperson for the New South Wales Police told ABC that there will be no criminal investigation.

However, the NSW Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority is investigating the incident, according to news.com.au. A spokesperson for the authority said a “thorough investigation” would take place, which would also “consider the service’s compliance history.”

PEOPLE reached out to Bangor’s First Steps Learning Academy and the NSW Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority for comment but did not immediately receive a response.