I'm very concerned about viruses and lice at nursery

It's completely normal, children are grim little snotty virus and nit vectors.

If they don't get these illnesses now they'll get them at school. There was a noticeable difference in attendance in my son's Reception year between the kids who'd been at nursery full time vs those who only did part-time pre-school the year before.

What 'extra cleaning routines' do you think would remove headlice? They're not hanging out amongst the ballpit balls or the pots and pans of the play kitchen. They would be lurking on heads, and the nursery only knows about them if parents notice and mention it. Most parents, on noticing, would treat their children for it. That's basically all you can do.

If an illness involves D&V, nurseries usually insist kids are kept home for 48 hours. Equally if a child is fully sick with a fever, or it's some sort of formal notifiable disease, kids would be sent home. But coughs and colds and general viral lurgy - people still go about their day to day lives and your child will probably be exposed to it unless you keep them away from institutions like nurseries, schools, clubs and tbh even public spaces like soft plays and shops and buses!

All you can really do is insist on good hand washing practices, not touching their mouth and nose all the time, eat a healthy diet and take recommended supplements like vitamin d.

They work trust me but you have to be consistent and take them everyday (or at least your kids) these ones are what we use for the kids (they also do an adult version) they have 12.5 billion cultures which is very high on kids ones - they're also chewable and on 3for 2 offer quite often. I recommend them to everyone.

https://www.boots.com/boots-good-gut-3and-kids-live-friendly-bacteria-and-immunity-support-30-chewable-tablets-10338168

For babies 1 year plus we used the Holland and barrett colourless and flavourless powder and mixed it into porridge or on toast.

@Itsmahoneybaloney out of interest, which probiotic do you use? I've heard mixed things about their usefulness, but would be curious what brand you use. Thanks

You've had lots of responses about the (presumably) headlice aready. My DC avoided them at nursery but they are pretty ubiquitous in years R-2 of primary school.

I mean.. I've heard from other parents around me how children get sick bi-weekly since start of nursery, but it just keeps bothering me that parents don't seem to care if their child is sick and still bring them to nursery. I empathise with parents who work full time and have no other option, but what about the other children?

Absolutely DC shouldn't be in nursery when they have a temperature/feel really rubbish/have D&V etc. If you never took a toddler anywhere when they were just a bit snotty though you'd never leave the house. Ditto coughs, some kids will cough for a couple of weeks after a cold.

Some (not all) rashes on children aren't contagious once the rash is fully out and they can take a while to fade. See point above. Nurseries normally have pretty strict policies around rashes.

If you keep a child off nursery when they are a bit snotty/coughy but well in themselves it's very detrimental to settling in at nursery because they decide they'd rather be at home with Mummy/Daddy/whoever.

There's no way to avoid these things! I treat my child's hair with a lice repellent leave in spray every morning, but we've still had to treat her for lice. The illnesses and viruses are impossible to avoid unfortunately. Considering a large number of illnesses are at their most contagious before any symptoms show up, you will do well to find any childcare setting where your child won't contract these. We have a booklet with a list of potential illnesses and how to deal with them, and how long the child must stay off for - if at all.

In the kindest way, you need to get over this.

Yes nurseries are full of germs, viruses, bacteria it’s what builds up our immune systems. I’m saying this as someone who is immune compromised and getting sicker than anyone else in my house when these germs come home. But it’s life.

You and everyone else will be exposed to all sorts and chances are you will get sick a lot especially in the early days. Your only option is keep DCs home, but then they will still be exposed at school. So unless you completely home school, in which case your children won’t have the opportunity to build up a decent immune system, you just have to deal with it.

Nits are also par of the course. If it helps my oldest dd who always had extremely long hair that was never tied tightly back never got knits until she was in year 6. My other DDs though.. my youngest had them for six months when she was a toddler, they kept laying eggs under her cradle cap, she didn’t get them in nursery but off her older sister who was in primary school.

You can change nurseries but that won’t change anything. There was a post a few days ago about a child coming home from a private boarding school riddled with lice, you can not avoid them even in rich boarding schools, just be prepared to treat them and please please please never make your child feel like it’s their fault they have them.

I was the same as that growing up- now I catch all the childhood illnesses from my kids haha.

OP it's totally normal, I have 3 kids and they all got hit with lots of bugs when they started nursery- it does calm down again but there's always a surge of illness around this time of year as well.

Nits aren't pleasant but they're easily treatable, we use a hedrin leave in one overnight and then a quick comb through- it works every time.

I remember all the times I had to sit in the bath with that horrible lice killing stuff on my head, they were constantly going round schools and that was over twenty years ago. Not much you can do to prevent them

Hi OP, they used to send the kids with lice home to get treated, but they don't anymore. I'm not sure why. You could see a green child, with its head spinning round, blasting windmills of snot at all around, barely able to pause between coughs and some parents and nurseries will say 'it's just a minor cold and it's good for every other child here's immune system', rather than send the poor kid home. They pick and choose which viruses are good for immune system and which ones aren't, based on fuck knows what. Kids will get sick at nursery - how frequently and relentlessly depends on the nursery and other parents.

Kids get ill when they come in contact with viruses.
Its how the immune system then 'remembers' and reacts next time they're exposed.
No way around it... and it needs to happen.
If you kept them in a bubble and ejected them at 18.... it would happen then.

You have a small child. Unless you plan to live in a plastic bubble, they will catch coughs, colds, viruses, stomach bugs and will probably get nits and possibly worms! If you feel very anxious about this, I would recommend you get help because these things are perfectly normal and just what happens when you mix a lot of children together!

We somehow seem to have got both our girls through nursery without getting nits, but it is very common.
You can't completly avoid it, but if you have girls, make sure their hair is securely tied back, ties, clips, headbands, as makes it less likely. I read somewhere that leave in conditioner can help as makes the hair more slippery, but that couod be nonsense.
Colds and coughs are standard, and it's better to get the frequent sickness out of the way now before they start school. Both mine went to nursery from 2nd birthday and didn't have a single sick day in 3 years of school.
Make sure you are giving a good multivitamin with vitamin D to help boost their immune system
We did get DD2 vaccinated against chickenpox after DD1 caught it at 2 and was very unwell and it's still covered in scars at age of 9, but otherwise I tried not to worry too much.

But it's worth trying isn't it. Sorry about your eldest but that's an exception and not the norm. I doubt you had your eldest on decent probiotics from age 1 and vits from 6 months consistently everyday though. Not many actually do that but it definitely works I've seen it in the difference from my 8 year old and 2 year old for example - I only started this on her from age 4 and for my 2 year old from 6 months.

Lice are inevitable and not a cleanliness issue. There's not really much the nursery can do to stop the spread as they only live on heads, so cleaning the nursery won't do anything.

Likewise, the germs are inevitable. Little kids are permanently snotty at this time of year and don't need to be kept home if they're well in themselves.

You just need to adjust. Don't let your anxiety overwhelm.

Maybe you would feel more comfortable with a childminder?

I follow the guidelines from nursery about sending my kid in when he’s sick. So no if he has a temperature, but yes for a clear runny nose. He basically gets on cough after another. If I kept him at home if he was anything but perfectly healthy I would lose my job.

My grandson has just started reception. I told my daughter to prepare herself for him being snotty by the end of the second week, if not the first. There are three certainties in this world - death, taxes and your kid bringing home all sorts over the course of their school years. This is how they strengthen their immune systems, it is what it is, short of homeschooling, there's bugger all you can do about it.

That said, my kids have never had lice, so it's not a certainty.

I do all this, always have. Eldest used to get EVERYTHING and catastrophically. I had to leave a job and go self employed partly as a result.
Youngest is a bit more robust and shakes things off more easily, mostly.
Just because these things have helped for yours doesn't mean others simply aren't trying to ward off viruses or have weak kids.

There's three episodes of Bluey - one called Nits & another two episodes (Bumpy & the Wise Old Wolfhound and TV Shop) that mention 'bum worms' aka threadworms/pinworms. It's pretty universal really.

It's the joys of being a small child building an immune system. They catch and pass on everything.

And when they are all locked up at home. It gets them when they are let out of jail.
It just pushes it down the road.

What I'm really saying is my youngest was one of the kids who's time in nursery was affected by the two covid lockdowns, I think England might only have shut nurseries once, Scotland did it twice.
The following winter once in school was a nightmare for bugs and the P1s were then wiped out with Chicken Pox!

Pointless changing nursery or trying to lock them up at home with a nanny.

A paediatrician told me that if your child hasn’t had worms by the age of five, it just means the parents haven’t noticed them.

Can they go away on their own then? Because my sisters and I were never treated for worms as children. Do I still have them??

Why would lice mean a child was being neglected?

Untreated lice, yes. But not just simply catching them. All that means is you've been close to someone who has them.

Kids are gross though 🤷‍♀️ they are little germ and parasite factories.

It's part and parcel of having kids unfortunately.

On the plus side getting loads of bugs at nursery does your child's immune system a massive favour and can reduce the risk of autoimmune conditions and leukaemia.

OP try child's farm hair spray stuff with tea tree which will hopefully deter the lice. Colds etc you just can't avoid unfortunately, it is rubbish but part of life. Good hand washing & hygiene but don't stress about it. Kids are pretty disgusting not much you can do about it!

I never had headlice. Not even when my brother had them. However dd1 caught them in year 1 and passed them to her sister. I naively thought that you used the special shampoo and they went. How wrong I was! Took a couple of weeks of combing, shampoos, combing. They always had clean hair but disliked it being tied up. Never had them since even when lice have been back in their classes.

Some children are also just snotty, they don't get the hang of properly blowing their nose until they are about three. Nurseries do try and keep them de-snotted but it's like Sisyphus and his boulder.