Are you ill much more frequently as a parent than before?

[Doesntfeellike25degrees]

I feel like so much of my life is spent fighting off things caught from school. Packed trains, busy bars, long meetings, playgroups etc - nothing prepared me for the frequency of so many viruses from school though. It’s eased off a bit the last couple of months, but even at pick up time, it’s weird to see so many parents and children (and teachers) just looking ill. So many seemingly unable to shake things off? All ages. Is this it now or have I just picked virus academy?!!

I've decided that immune systems don't improve with age. They just get worn down by the constant onslaught. We've all had back to back colds. I'm sick of it.

Constant onslaught is right.

Not for me, no. My child is 3. I haven't had colds any more than I used to. In fact, I can't remember the last time I had a cold, so it wasn't very recent! My child currently has a runny nose and cough so we'll see...

When they were little yes but now they are older and ill less frequently it's much better.

I’ve never been more ill in my life since having children

Before I had toddlers I thought I had a pretty good immune system. Turns out I just very rarely had people sneezing directly into my face.

Only in the first year or so of nursery before we fully got the hang of infection control in the home. By the time they got to school all of our immunity had caught up and even the DCs rarely got ill.

yes I was constantly poorly.
my DC are adults now, I frel
healthier and have more energy and less sickness.
but I actually think this is mostly due to getting lots of sleep finally!

🤣

I am more ill than I am healthy on an average month. The coughs / colds / virals are unbelievable. I have been coughing for about 2 months solid. To the point I even thought I must have TB (I don’t)!

I have a 3 year old. When she was 16 weeks I was diagnosed with cancer and I went through chemo etc. She was not in nursery then of course. Was I as ill with constant snotty nose/cough/feeling generally run down back then as I have been in the last year?!? NO. No I wasn’t 😂 but I have to say it is getting better (for both of us)

No, never ill, parenthood had not affected my health at all.

No difference for me

They picked things up at nursery, but they weren’t in every day, so I wonder if that helped (as in they (and me) weren’t relentlessly being pounded with so many viruses, so bodies could fight off better). I dunno. Nursery was also freeflow, so lots of fresh air coming in from the outside play area in the back probably made a difference. It’s the real, heavy hacking coughs that seem to be everywhere for months on end the last couple of years though too - I don’t recall that being so prevalent before.

I was sleeping less when kids were in nursery and keeping some very odd hours to try to balance work and having time with them, which should have impacted my immune system more than now in theory. We also spent lots of time outside at parks and farms etc and the toddler groups were only an hour or two in much bigger spaces than a classroom (plus you could subtly move away from the kids with endless, pendulous candles swinging from their nose that day or the parents that would say how unwell their kids had been that morning - I know that sounds harsh). It’s weird how some seem to be hit harder than others on here.

To the PP who thought it was TB, I wondered whether we had whooping cough earlier in the year! Testing is so rare, so I don’t suppose even those who are meant to have a handle on these sorts of things have much clue what actual numbers are.

To parents that are unaffected - what’s your secret?!

The first winter DS was at nursery our house felt like some sort of biological experiment. All 3 of us had almost constant illnesses for months. After that everything went back to normal and it hasn’t been repeated since.

I got soo much iller after having a baby. I posted about it previously. It went on for years. I would get much iller than other household members with the same bug, whereas before childbirth I always used to be the healthy one . Nothing seemed to help until I took probiotics with l.paracasei for a couple of weeks (saw research that said it helps the immune system) and started taking a daily vitamin D spray. Haven’t been ill for six months now since that, and have been able to do exercise without immediately going down with something. They gave me antibiotics at birth so I don’t know if that caused it and the probiotics fixed it or if it’s the vit D, but something has fixed me. Worth a try.

No

I had lots of colds in the first year of nursery. And mega colds in my first year of getting the train to work. Then nothing, never ill (other than Covid a couple of times)

No, it has made no difference. My dcs have also managed not to catch very much except minor colds - very rare for them to be off nursery or school.

I feel quite lucky my DC are teens and I can probably count on one hand the times I've been ill, since being a parent

I caught a lot of cold type viruses when my child was younger in nursery, but now he is at school he doesn't pick up much. Things are very much back to pre kids for me , I might get 1 or 2 minor colds a year.

🤣

once i had children i was far less likely to be off sick

@KeepGettingIllthat’s interesting

Yeah it really did seem to work for me, and I’ve also prescribed the same to a family member who normally goes down for weeks with every little cough/cold bug and they’ve seemed much healthier since - theirs is not child/birth related. I was put onto the vit D spray by a friend who found it helped for this. Both of us had taken multivitamins previously without it helping. I don’t think it’s placebo or one of the many things I tried previously would have done the trick.

I barely took a sick day in 10 years until the first winter at nursery when I was sick pretty much for the entire winter. The 2nd winter was only slightly better. I think it’s easy to end up run down and prone to viruses plus if you are looking after a sick child at the same time as being sick yourself you don’t really get a chance to rest and recover.