Sick children at nursery

[Redsocks]

So my otherwise healthy, happy DC (4) is sick for the fifth time in a row since starting a new nursery 3 months ago. He manages to recover and is back for a week, then catches something else and is back at home for a week at least each time. I know I am a bit oversensitive when he is ill - he is prone to ridiculously high temperatures that worry me senseless.
I know children will catch things when they go to nursery, but is this normal? I just seem to get him settled back in and he's off again. This didn't seem to happen at his old nursery when we lived abroad. If a child seemed under par they would take their temp and send home instantly.
As a result of him passing things on we have had an awful family time of swine flu, pneumonia, strep etc....
Am I being overly suspicious that the nursery are not sending sick children home? Does yours? The reason I ask is that numerous times at pick up or drop off, there are DCs who are obviously not well - by which I don't just mean colds, but big hacking coughs, flushed red faces, ie. Looking genuinely ill. My friends DC was looking like death, flushed face, sunken red eyes, pouring nose, cough and clearly upset on pick up one day (he was staying for the next pm session)- I found out the next day that he had flu. If I noticed, why didn't they?
Am I being sleep deprived and oversensitive, or do you think I should speak with the nursery?

It is very frustating, especially as my ds loves pre school and gets ever so upset when he cant go because hes unwell.

The pre school always send out letters saying to keep your child off if they have temp/sickness etc and for 48 hrs after but i dont think many people stick to the 'rules'.

Iam hoping with spring on the way that things might improve as its been a constant few weeks of all 3 dcs being unwell and passing it back and forth to each other!

we use minadex as well, seems to boost them a bit esp after all the antibiotics so that is def worth a try, i think iron boosts the immune system (sure i read that somewhere)

I have had an occasion very recently when I called a parent because their child developed a temperature very quickly (38.5) and the parent asked "can you not just keep him til the end of the day, I'm terribly busy". I explained that her son was clearly unwell and must be collected for his own sake and for that of the other children in nursery. She appeared almost 3 hours later.

While I completely appreciated how difficult it is for working parents when a child is sick, I am a working parent myself, it's a chance you take when you work and have a child in nursery.

Thanks for the recommendation - will def try the minadex!

Megatron - I also think that it is a vicious cycle. If sick children are not kept off or sent home, more sickness is spread, then more time off work is needed in the end.

Loads of parents take the piss, sending in kids with temps or vomiting.

They do nicky, nothing pisses me off more when a parent comes to pick up a child and casually mentions that they were sick the previous night but just decided to send them in anyway without any mention of it to the nursery.

As a nursery nurse, I don't want sick children to remain at nursery as they obviously need to be at home to avoid infecting other children, they need more care whilst there etc.

I do feel terribly sorry for the children, obviously its a pain for me as a parent to have ds keep catching illnesses but it must be horrible for the children involved to be pushed in time and time again when they probably feel rubbish and would rather be in bed.

I suppose iam lucky in that i dont work so can keep ds off for as long as necessary to get him properly better.If i was a working parent id have got the sack by now as ds is always unwell and has hosp appts for lots of other things.

Ds was ok last week and i nearly sent him in thu and fri to pre school but then decided not to as i knew he would end up catching something and i didnt want everybody ill over half term, it might just be that his pre school is particularly bad but they always seem to have 1 or 2 children there who really dont look well.

It sounds awful. Have you had to take 5 weeks off work? How do you manage that?

In your situation I would have a chat with the room leader or nursery manager, just to clarify what their exclusion policy is and whether they are sure all parents are aware of it. I think it would be fine to voice your concerns about how ill your son has been. I did this last year when my son caught a cold, then chicken pox, then D&V, then another cold, then conjunctivitis. It just seemed never to stop!

I was recently told by one of the carers in my son's room that another child had been sent in even though they had been sick in the morning before arriving at nursery. I'm sure they weren't supposed to tell me that, but anyway I emailed the nursery manager with my concerns and she told me that there is not much they can do in that situation , but as soon as a child is sick then they send them home. They don't send them home with a high temp, but do phone the parents. High temps are caused by SO many things and nurseries are there to care for your children, it's not just about having fun unfortunately.

If there are more than a certain number of cases of some conditions in a nursery then they have to inform environmental health (or someone like that). In our nursery, a bout of D&V in a room (3 or more children or so) results in a deep clean of the whole room. The staff don't want these bugs either so do all they can to stop the spread.

the nursery my youngest goes to is pretty even handed on this, clear policy and if they do not think that child is well enough to be there, then they say so.

unfortunately, all dcs get a never ending stream of illness when they start. mine started at just shy of a year and we had weeks and weeks of illness- i had kept back some of my accrued leave for this. after a couple of months though she has been fine and i suspect has the constitution of an ox.

Purple I really wouldn't care if you 'appreciated' it or not. If I had concerns about my dc's nursery I would want to speak to you about it and would hope that you are as professional as you claim to be and would listen without getting offensive. I'm sorry but my child's health and happiness is much more important than your feelings.

I am absolutely astounded by how many bugs dd has had since starting preschool at the beginning of Jan. She's had conjunctivitis, tonsillitis, an ear infection, coughs, colds, temps etc. She was so robust before going, never ill. Now we're in a cycle of temps and green snot, few days off to recover, goes in again and a couple of days later is ill again. I sometimes wonder if it's worth it.

I've also had the send her in at 8.45am and she seems fine thing. By 3pm when I collect her she has a temp and they say she's been sleepy and quiet. To me it's obvious she's unwell but to an outside eye she might just be tired or quiet. That said, I do also see the preschool manager patiently explaining again and again to parents that no it's not okay to send them in with d&v and yes impetigo is contagious and please keep your child at home. Some parents do it all the time. I'm hardly surprised dd is catching things when there are parents on the doorstep at 8.30am with their child flushed, snotty, coughing, crying and begging to go home and the parents are shushing them because they don't want the staff to notice they're ill.

I'm finding it very difficult seeing her be so poorly constantly.

I agree this is a difficult one. I am guilty of treating temps as 'less serious' than D&V and while our nursery has a clear exclusion policy for that which I follow (and HFM, chickenpox etc) is does not exclude for 48 hours for a temp - I suspect that if they did so they'd be half empty half of the time - as someone said temps can be caused by so many things, even teething.

Cue flaming but I was guilty of this yesterday - DS had a temp on Mon and was 37.3 on Tues am - I gave him calpol and by the time we left for nursery he was below 37. I had a course that had been paid for to attend. He could have gone either way and as he was fine in himself at the time I couldn't justify missing the course. As it was he went downhill and nursery called at lunchtime to ask us to collect him. DH went and picked him up and we've kept him off today. He could just as easily have been absolutely fine and I would have taken a day off (with all of the problems that causes) for no reason. Another difficulty of being working parents with no family to call on for help!

Nurseries do seem to have different policies, at mine we DO send children home with a temperature of 38 or over and all parents are aware of this.

I do feel that if a child has had to have Calpol/Nurofen before coming then they should probably be kept at home. It's a vicious circle really, child gets ill, goes to nursery and passes it on to other children (and staff) and so it goes on. Most parents are fairly responsible but not all, I've had many comments like 'oh I thought you'd have to call today he was up all night'. Our children all have record books in which a parent fills in how the child slept, mood, etc but sadly, people lie.

If your DS is being continually ill, it sounds like this particular nursery is not taking exclusion policies seriously.
They should be sending sick children home, but it sounds like they're not doing this. Some parents can be unbelievably nasty about coming out. I once terminated a contract because a parent insisted her child was just teething and refused to come out at all after the child produced some vile nappies. My personal opinion is that a parent who deliberately sends a sick child in is selfish and inconsiderate. One who knowingly sends a child with s&d is beneath contempt - I don't care what excuse you think you have: My 2 month old daughter was hospitalised after a parent did this to us. Babies and children with suppressed immunity don't have their immune systems strengthened like this: they become seriously ill and can even die.

It doesn't sound like there's much incentive for your nursery to take action at the moment. You keep your child off and pay full fees, no doubt, when he's ill; many parents seem to bring sick children as though it were a sanatorium rather than a nursery.
I think you should say something. I think you should threaten to find a setting that will insist on sick children staying at home and will send home those that become sick: they do exist.