People At Work Are Accusing Me Of Child Abuse. Should I Sue For Defamation?

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I work in childcare (a gym that has a childcare facility). I won’t say the place where I work for privacy reasons. But a couple days ago I was put on paid suspension because someone reported me for child abuse. I do know it was a couple of coworkers of mine because it’s been pretty obvious that they have had a grudge against me for a while now. The child in question is my coworker’s daughter. The claims are that I was too “rough” on the child by “yanking on the arm”.

The whole story of what had happened is a child (let’s call her Jane Doe) escaped passed a gate to a room where parents check in their child. Children are prohibited from entering that room at all times when in our care for safety reasons. Jane Doe was already distraught about being hungry and throwing a fit before I even approached her. Since I care about policies and the child’s safety, I told her to come back into the daycare room, she can eat when her mom comes to pick her up. Because I work at a gym that has a daycare facility, our policies and how we run things are different from a traditional daycare center. We are not permitted to feed the children, change diapers, or assist the children in the bathrooms. Because of that rule, Jane Doe wasn’t able to eat at that time. Yes she is a daycare staff child, but her mom (my coworker) wasn’t on shift at the time. She was working out. If her mom were working a shift, she would be able to have a snack that’s been provided for her. Since Jane Doe was not budging, I gently got a hold of her hand to guide her back to the daycare. She was retaliating and pulling back from me. So I had to carry her back into the daycare. My coworkers stood and watched the whole thing and not helped at all. In fact when she was back in the daycare, they didn’t see if she was ok, they simply handed her a fruit snack (which is not allowed) and the child stoped screaming right away as if nothing happened. Jane Doe never appeared to be in pain afterwards. Not once was I ever rough on her. I would never, not in a million years would I ever hurt a child in such a way. Childcare is a passion of mine. I love Jane Doe as if she were my own daughter. People who know me and my intentions know that I would never abuse a child. In fact I’ve been sorta nicknamed as “the baby whisperer” by some of people I’m close with. It hurts me to know that I’ve been accused of such thing. HR of the company has yet to reach out to me about this. But in the meantime, should I start looking for a lawyer just in case? I honestly don’t know what to do about this and it’s stressing me out.