If you have a kid in nursery...

[howlongtilsummer]

...what's the longest period you've gone this school year without them bringing an illness home and how big is the class? Mine is 2 weeks, 30 children.

Probably 5 days is the longest without any symptoms. Horrendous. But this is the first year so I'm hoping it gets better.

1 day off sick in the past year. Class of 13 but free flow with the class nextdoor of 20-ish. A few minor sniffles. We never get any of them. Second kid though!

Hope it continues. Mine is also the youngest.

Is that freeflow to each other's rooms or freeflow to outside?

@Mielbee fingers crossed

Thanks! Forgot to say that there are 12 or so children in the room.

3.5 days off sick in total in almost 4 years of nursery. Yes, colds and sniffles came home but not much that needed time off or which made the rest of the family more poorly than a cold or cough.

Free flow to the other room. There’s no direct access to the outside and actually they share their playground with reception as it’s a school nursery so that’s another 25 in the germ pool!

I do wonder about the nursery and how clean they keep things. I have two friends who's kids are always sick, often with very nasty things. Mine didn't start until 24 months and there children can't start until 20 months. They also have a rule if you have green snot you have to stay home. Mine has had about 5 colds in a year, but only very mild. No other illnesses.

She had a tummy bug in September and maybe one or two days off since but none that I can actually remember. She does five days in a private daycare nursery, about 20 in the room but obviously it's not the same 20 every day.

Is this your first winter? It should get easier. In 21/22 we had two in nursery, PCR testing was still in place and from September to December we had one week where we managed to both work five days.

Luckily our DC seem to take after healthy DH rather than asthmatic, picking up everything me but it does get easier for most families.

I think mine is between 8 -14 children in the under 3's room

Numbers wise it was 8 in the baby room, probably 20 in the toddler rooms and 30 in preschool. Obviously more actual children than that as most people didn't have a full time place.

All rooms on free flow to outside with outside space shared with another couple of rooms.

I do think hygiene must play a part. Nursery was rigorous about cleaning and hand washing. DD has never had a tummy bug (ie D and V) which seems to be common in friend's children.

Not nursery but my youngest is in reception and I have three overall and we get to be illness free for a week or two before something new appears. And I think my resistance has worn down as I keep picking the bugs up too. So over it.

Overall, the younger or newer they are the more often they are poorly. Some children seem to get everything and it seems they are always snotty whereas others never seem to be off ill, especially ones with us for a lot of hours.

Generally by time they reach the preschool room they are off far less but at that age they aren't mouthing everything so much and are getting better with tissues and hand washing. The main problem in younger rooms is the mouthing and dribble carrying viral loads. There is only so much you can do to reduce this when busy. If giving X a bottle you can't immediately stop Y and Z sharing mouthing a toy, for example.

Forgot to say that this is the preschool room. This winter just seems particularly brutal. Seems clean etc. It is a different nursery to previous one where she wasn't ill. There were much fewer children there though. At her latest nursery, there do seem to be more occasions of pretty ill looking kids at pickup, so maybe their parents have a very relaxed approach to (spreading) illness. Or maybe her immune system is now shot from the continual onslaught of bugs.

In the baby room (up to 12 children) and have been getting a new illness at least every 2 weeks.

Mine aren't in nursery anymore, but our nursery was maybe 20-25 (it was all ages from baby to age 5 together, but sometimes they did separate them out to do various things, but contact was with all ages about 20 ish but maybe sometimes more). They were ill or recovering or had a cough pretty much from November to May each year, but it was only rarely that that meant I didn't send them in. It was fever, d&v or something like chickenpox only for staying home. Cough and sniffles, in they went, same as at school. So we actually rarely missed much time.

Might depend on the nursery - ours was very strict about not letting a child with a temperature in or sending them home if it went up during the day.

They also spent a lot of time outside and the rooms were very well ventilated which I think Covid showed, reduces the risk of bugs being passed on.

I think that makes a huge difference and is probably better for the kids overall.

DS is 2.5yo and been at nursery since 10months.

He's not been off sick/brought illness home in about 6 months maybe? He's in the preschool room now so there are about 15-20 kids in there.