Separating siblings during illness

[skyfly]

My DH just came home and told me off for not keeping our DDs in separate rooms for the whole day. I feel upset as it’s been a long week with little sleep and trip to the hospital with elder DD. She has an ear infection and tonsillitis and got antibiotics, she was poorly for two days but today was back to her normal self. The younger one has been coughing since Saturday but seems to be well otherwise. They both were missing each other terribly for the last two days and I allowed them to play together today. I now feel guilty as DH thinks I was unreasonable and that our younger one may fall sick now.

What did he expect you to do? Split yourself in half?

Stable door, horse, bolted. They might as well stay together.

He's being stupid.

Unless one of your DC is severely imunocompromised and you haven't said?

Mine share a bedroom so 🤷🏻‍♀️
it’s just not practical (or fair to them) to separate them!

To ensure that the elder DD stays in her room, give her books, activities etc and keep the younger one with me. But she already spent two days on her own and today she was feeling much better and wanted to play with her sister so I allowed them. DH thinks I’m too relaxed and shall be more prudent with our kids and their health. He is particularly concerned for the younger DC as she had multiple pneumonia in her first three years. I understand him but I also feel sorry for both DC when they want to play together and not be kept apart.

I’d say he is being anxious as the younger DC had multiple pneumonia in her first 3 years of life. I just gave up to my DCs plea to let them play together and assumed that the elder DC is well enough already

I don't think ear infections and tonsilitis are typically highly contagious, are they?

I assumed from the title it would be a sick bug, in which case I can totally understand why a parent might wish they could keep children apart, even though it probably wouldn't be effective!

For vomiting bugs, yes, as much as possible, but mine have a 5 year gap, so always been relatively straightforward to do. No one wants 2 vomiting all over the house if you can manage to just have one.

Anything else, no as either not infectious or if respiratory, they’re coughing enough that it hardly matters anyway.

I have 4 children and have never bothered to isolate the sick one as its not practical. If its an infectious illness i try to make sure we are all extra careful with hand washing.

Thank you, I feel much better!

I have tried it with vomiting bugs and has worked on occasion but it’s really hard to keep them apart

I have never isolated my two when ill. Most things are most infectious before symptoms even show. So 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve never bothered to separate mine when they are ill. If they are going to get it they will get it. I remember when my 4 year old had Covid back in 2021 and being horrified because he put his lollipop (that he’d been given as a bribe to let me do a lateral flow test) into his 2 year brothers mouth but the 2 year old never got it.

A lot of illnesses are contagious before the symptoms show up anyway so separating them would be pointless and just extra work for you.

I think with sharing a household if one has it the other will anyway. Splitting off seems a bit pointless to me. You have to do what you think is right for your family, but if they are happy mentally, this will go along way to recovering physically.

They've mixed at the contagious stage before symptoms show so it will make little difference.

If they're that ill, they naturally retreat off quietly to their rooms.

I've never tried separating them and they've never been particularly ill at the same time. DH and I failed to share Covid despite remaining in the same bed.

I've never heard of parents doing this apart from in Little Women. Waste of time given how you're often infectious before the symptoms.

Much infection is passed from surfaces to hands . Unless you can steam clean the house constantly there is no point in separating. However, getting everyone into the habit of washing your hands before each meal/ snack is something that would have longterm benefit. Hope your DH agrees to be a role model for the children!

Well if he was that worried he should have taken the day off and looked after one of them himself then shouldn’t he?