Had family over today, and all the little ones were poorly

I’ve got adult kids and have done the nursery/primary school years. Back then I was in my 20’s/30’s and shook colds off. Now I’m in my 50’s and I can’t just shake things (like a cold) off and carry on as normal.

YANBU. I have an immunocompromised child and had to stop contact with one side of the family who continuously brought over their kids with various viruses that were “just” viruses to them but resulted in hospital stints for my LO. Sounds like you might be similar and suffer worse than most so you have my sympathy. Hope you manage to avoid it.

Christmas or not, both parents drinking when they have very unwell children is also just poor form. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Next time you have a gathering. Tell them all beforehand that if their kids have a sniff of being out of sorts, whether teething or whatnot, they're to get babysitters.

I think this is tough. Clearly if a kid has a sickness bug then you need to cancel and stay home. However some kids basically constantly have colds and it can be hard to judge as some people get arsey if you cancel last min.

Personally I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over catching a cold. It’s that time of year at the min.

Properly wild that people are going on about school guidance spot the selfish buggers.

I'm.sorry OP. Get the Vicks first defense and hope it's just a cold. It should see it off at the start. Sadly only works on colds. Good luck.

Also kiwi fruit (super high vit C) and fish oil capsules, both great for the immune system! (Mine is compromised so I do everything I can to give it a better chance). Second the ‘first defence’ suggestion from a pp

Really feel for you. You are right there’s definitely a difference between a slight cold and needing calpol to last the day. Parents were selfish. As a childminder I’ve seen a surge in parents never allowing their toddlers to rest and get over illnesses properly.

Yea but you dont take them to other people's houses with it.

I don’t have kids, but witness this a lot with my friends who do. I hate it, but honestly I don’t think they even give it a second thought… if they stopped doing things because their kids were ill they’d never do anything so they just crack on, as do most of their other friends with kids, which is how the merry-go-round continues &
everything spreads so easily. To them it’s just part and parcel of life since they had kids so they forget that for us without young kids that having a new virus in the house every other week isn’t normal!

I’ve just become really antisocial around Christmas & selective about who I spend time with. We work hard and really value our time off at Christmas, and i’m not jeopardising that if I can help it. Thankfully we don’t have any young kids in either mine or my husbands family, so it’s usually
not an issue when seeing relatives!!

It’s annoying but you are dramatic… ‘my heart breaks for them’ 🙄 ‘so far from a cold’. Calm down u might not even catch it, even if you
do it’s not that massive.

Kids get colds all the time, they need to in order to build their immune systems. What they don’t need to do, is spread all these illnesses to unsuspecting adults who don’t have to live with germy kids. A slight sniffle, fine. A cough/sneeze, mention in advance in case a reschedule is more appropriate. A temp? Stay at home.

Initially I disagreed with you, under 5s are constantly poorly over winter, it’s one thing after another and if you stayed in everytime they had a cold you’d never go out at all.

However, if they were so poorly they weren’t running around and now one has been sick I agree with you, that’s a step too far and they were selfish bringing them over.

If a child is miserable with temperatures and lethargic they aren’t well enough for school and they shouldn't be going out exposing people either. I’m well aware of the amount of colds and bugs kids get. I still wouldn’t dream of bringing them all out to someone’s house when they are that miserable.

"Just" a virus is such a ridiculous thing to say. As if a virus is nothing.

I agree which is why I said unless you have a POC virus testing unit you can’t know. Which is why it it makes no sense to be ok with just a sniffle but not coughing, severity of symptoms does not relate to transmissibility of the virus. People can be asymptomatic carriers and spread viruses. Which is why I said if you are going to have this level of anxiety over viruses in the winter then probably not a good idea to host a gathering with lots of small children in your home because you can almost guarantee one or more of them will be carrying something. And sneezing CAN happen in flu but it is much more likely to be a cold. Otherwise is everyone just expected to self isolate every time they get the sniffles? Because that “could” be flu? Children would never be at school, work places couldn’t function, we as a society would get sicker not healthier.

You don’t know you’re going to catch it. What an overreaction fgs.

So every single child that visited your house today was really poorly. All of them? Every one? Behave

So much drama. I have kids. I haven’t had a cold in well over 6 months

I think they’re very selfish. If they had calpol on them then they knew they were poorly. And a room of them in the winter is increasing the germs! It’s also very rude for the parents to be drinking so much the need a taxi and can’t drive. If I was unsure about my kid being unwell I’d make sure one of us could drive.

if they’re obviously unwell - by this I mean snotty/sneezing and temp - of course I wouldn’t take them.

some people just don’t care.

I’m in two minds.

It doesn’t seem very kind to the kids to drag them out when unwell, for one thing.

It’s also unfair to you if you’ve got a compromised immune system - they should at least mention it first. You might not get it though - sometimes a person just doesn’t, it’s not as predictable or certain as that.

On the other hand, I’m sure that back in the day people did just press on with Christmas plans whether or not the children were unwell. We didn’t all quarantine.

The people saying you’re overreacting are likely the people who wouldn’t have the courtesy to let you know in advance that their children are sick so you can make an informed decision.

They can take their children out to houses and to see people comfortable with the risk of bugs and all enjoy together.

Those that do not mention in advance are gross and selfish. People react differently to colds, viruses, etc. You have NO right at all to assume that other peoples’ tolerance is the same as yours.

Huge sympathy to OP as now you have to worry and wait and see. I am immunocompromised and have been reduced to hospital stays twice in the last 3 months having caught something from two different toddlers. The parents are now people I think much less of as they had every opportunity to communicate with me - someone they knew was compromised.

If my child was unwell in himself and needing calpol I'd always keep him home (and not drink.) For a bit of snot but otherwise ok, you can't shield them for every cold. So it just depends.

If people stayed home when their kids had a snotty nose they would never leave their house.

yabu

I only catch about 10% of the same colds as my kids, they have worse immune systems

I'm so sick of this - dodged a party two days before christmas because I happened to run into one of the families who were all just 'getting over the worst of a sickness bug' (still vomiting) but going anyway because they didn't want to miss out on seeing everyone!