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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To resent other mums and group leaders for showing up at baby groups with horrible streaming colds and hacking coughs?

38 replies

IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:07

I stay home when I'm ill and try not to infect everyone. I have been home for 3 weeks with a bug my daughter and I picked up from the childminder of the lady running a paid for baby class, as my daughter was too poorly to go out anyway. We went out on Wednesday,finally well again, to a group where several people were looking for sympathy for their awful coughs and colds. We are now ill again. Am I being unreasonable to wish the sick childminder had stayed at home with the kids instead of coughing and sneezing all over my baby, and that the sick mums at the baby group had stayed home for the day? If it was a question of missing work and not getting paid I feel it's different, but where it's a social thing, I stay away if I was contagious, rather than inflict the bugs on my friends.

OP posts:
Original poster
IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:10

I am entirely willing to accept 'yes, YABU, bugs are unavoidable this time of year, get over it' as a valid answer, by the way, I'm interested in whether it's just me being germ phobic :).

OP posts:
CaptainTripps · 20/12/2013 15:11

YA totally NBU

People who do this are selfish.

Tapiocapearl · 20/12/2013 15:12

If its only a cold, I can't see the problem. If its a proper illness like flu or being sick then fair enough, they should stay at home.

AmandinePoulain · 20/12/2013 15:13

It depends on the germs. Going out with d&v, or a virus dangerous to immunosurpressed people or pregnant women is very unreasonable. Coughs and colds not so much, they're unavoidable when you've got children I'm afraid!

ODearMe · 20/12/2013 15:14

I would take my son to a toddler group if he had a cold and was well in himself other than that. I don't see a cold as illness. If he had a cough, fever, diarrhoea, sickness, or seemed fragile, i would not take him to groups.

Original poster
IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:15

CaptainTripps, you have cheered me up immensely. Even if I AM being unreasonable, I have good company :) Thank you. I'm so grumpy about having another cold I can't tell if I'm just being generally unreasonable today!

OP posts:
DeepThought · 20/12/2013 15:15

you are absolutely sure the childminder was the person carrying the virus/bug/infection that you got? You touched no doorhandles or lift buttons or trolley handles at all around the time of infection, no one else sneezed and shed virus just before you entered a building?

sleepyhead · 20/12/2013 15:17

I think when you're at your most streaming and miserable with a cold then it's a kindness to others to keep trips out to a minimum, but obviously there's no point in quarantining yourself and dcs until all symptoms have gone.

Colds aren't infectious after about 5 days anyway even if symptoms are still present, unless of course you've picked up another virus in the meantime.

SourSweets · 20/12/2013 15:18

This week my baby has had 2 illnesses. A cold and now sickness. I took him to groups with the cold but have just cancelled today's one because of the sick.

Colds are unavoidable, but if it's a bad illness then YANBU that people should stay home.

mumofweeboys · 20/12/2013 15:19

If I didnt go places if myself or the boys had colds, we wouldnt go anywhere as one of us always has a cold in winter.

Original poster
IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:22

DeepThought, I was about to say that I entirely take your point, and who's to say who we got the bug from, but thinking back we hadn't been anywhere for a few days either side, so in this one instance, I would put money on it! :)

OP posts:
Original poster
IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:24

Mumofweeboys - Yeah. I could easily talk myself into germ phobic agoraphobia if I'm not careful!

OP posts:
MrsTerrysChocolateOrange · 20/12/2013 15:24

I have a friend with twins. There has literally not been a single moment since August when one of the family hasn't been sick. Not one day. It's just a clod. If they were easy to prevent, they would have died out.

MrsTerrysChocolateOrange · 20/12/2013 15:24

*cold

plummyjam · 20/12/2013 15:34

Every time I've been to a playgroup DD has picked something up I don't think it can be helped. I don't bother going to them now, not worth the sleepless nights.

Original poster
IrritableBitchSyndrome · 20/12/2013 15:34

Hopefully this cold will go fast. The last one was a bit scary - visits to A&E with a baby struggling to breathe, chest recession from being so full of phlegm, feverish and hardly eating... I'm probably over reacting because her last cold was so severe.

OP posts:
maillotjaune · 20/12/2013 15:34

I am another one that doesn't see a cold as being really ill. Flu doesn't really come into this because if you really had flu you would not be going anywhere due to bring unable to get yourself out.

I'd stay in with a cold coupled with temperature or shakiness, or anything worse and stick rigidly to advice on post-D&V time off etc.

So I can't really say if YABU as it depends on the illness.

maillotjaune · 20/12/2013 15:35

Cross posted with you OP, it's understandable why you feel like this Thanks

noblegiraffe · 20/12/2013 15:39

The lady at the supermarket checkout had a cold as she handled all my food. A bit grim, but you can't phone in sick with a cold.

toobreathless · 20/12/2013 15:40

I will take my children out with a cold or cough. My eldest is asthmatic and coughs can drag on for weeks. I would never take them out if they were properly unwell- sickness, diarrhoea, high temp or miserable with it.

My baby has just had bronchiolitis & spent 24 hrs in hospital. We have just missed 10 days of Christmas activities, parties and seeing friends. But life cannot stop because one of them has a cold- we would never go anywhere!

Pawprint · 20/12/2013 15:48

It is annoying. I also hate it when people smug martyrs come into work with bugs.

I remember being annoyed when a woman brought her chicken pox ridden toddler into the baby clinic. He was covered in spots.

ThurlHoHoHow · 20/12/2013 15:57

Colds - YABU.

Anything properly ill, with a temperature etc - YANBU.

sisterelephant · 20/12/2013 16:23

YANBU

My DS has cough and a very very snotty nose, he's a but irritable at times but is still happy to play at home. I've kept him away from our usual baby group for the last two weeks as I would want any of the other babies to get a cold, or watch the other mothers wince as he sneezes copious amounts of snot bubbles.

We'll go aga

sisterelephant · 20/12/2013 16:25

Stoopid touch screen!

We'll go again when he's better but I would be annoyed if any of the babies are poorly and give it back to him!!

quesadilla · 20/12/2013 16:37

Depends. The thing is that kids are most infectious before they have symptoms. By the time they are at the point of having a hacking cough you're probably in the clear.
I wouldn't take a very sick child to a "social" mums and toddler group either, but if I kept her off nursery every time she had a cold I would have lost my job months ago.
You can't really avoid exposing kids to colds.

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