To send a sick toddler to nursery?

[user4321]

Im on my way to work feeling awful having just dropped my 18month old off at nursery. He is unwell in the sense he has a cold and runny nose and temp, is being more clingy and is more sensitive to tantrums than his usual self. It is more likely than not that the nursery will call one of us to collect him, but my DH has a meeting first thing (after that he is free and can leave work if required). With my employer, it looks better if I’m called away than to not show up in the first place. But I’m feeling guilty and thinking I shouldn’t have left him there in the first place, is it unfair on the staff?

OP you didn't ever think anyone would agree with you did you? A temp is always a no! Poor kid, not doubt he feels rotten

To add. Every year we get ill in October and don't fully recover until February time. Situations like this definitely don't help..

It’s really not fair to send him in if he’s got a temperature. It’s so hard to get the balance right with work though, especially if they aren’t very sympathetic about ill kids. I’d arrange for your husband to pick him up after his meeting regardless.

Cold, fine. Temperature, i wouldn't.

My child spent his first birthday last week with slapped cheek which starts with a fever and a cold! So yes, YABU on everyone! Cold, fine, fever not ok!

Yabvu

Until employers become more family friendly, people are going to continue to feel forced to send sick children to nursery/school. It's an incredibly difficult situation, especially when children are very little as they are ill so often.

I sympathise with both sides tbh. Luckily I work from home so I can continue to work whilst having my children off sick (they are school age now). So far this term I have had an ill child at home for 6 days.

I hope your little one feels better soon OP.

I know how you feel. My 10 month old has been ill constantly with a cold and cough since she started nursery in September. I would of been sacked weeks ago if she couldn't go in with a cold. She now has hand, foot and mouth and been hospitalised with it for 2 days (1 night) so I have been off all this week. She is home now and as bright as a button today so I will be sending her in tomorrow. Others will no doubt on here complain but Public Health say there is no exclusion period for HFM and she no longer has a temperature and she is getting bored at home as she thrives at nursery.

I would get your husband to pick him up after his meeting.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think you have confirmed that yes I am totally BU.

His temp was 38, and 37.8 when I checked so high but not too high. I thought colds sometimes come with a slightly raised temp?

Given the responses I have called the nursery and explained again. They said he seems ok at the moment, has had his breakfast fine and the only symptom is a runny nose. They will call me if he gets worse but they don’t think he needs collected.

With the clingyness, he is at quite a needy stage with me and DH any way, and that doesn’t happen at nursery, which is probably why they haven’t noticed he is being more clingy.

I find this quite selfish of you. So your poor child isn’t well but you sent him to nursery anyway. Then the other children pick up his germs and pass them to all and sundry.

@Emlou07 Ah that explains things a bit more. It does make me a bit sad that I can't snuggle up with them on the sofa when they have a cold and I have to pack them off to nursery. My 2 year old is still suffering aftereffects of bronchiolitis that she had as a small baby so seems like she is constantly coughing through the winter, although nothing major or temperature inducing. Enjoy all the snuggles!

Ok op you have my sympathies because it’s never nice to have a sick child and with a sniffle I would probably send them in but the fever is the one that would worry me. Though different people have different definitions of fever. My son suffers with a wheeze so any cold goes to his chest and he has inhalers so I’m always iffy about sending him in. And I do always think what if I send them in sick and the kid who catches it has a pregnant mom or a newborn sibling.
But at the same time chances are your kid caught it at nursery because people do send kids in with colds because not everyone can take time off or have in laws to look after poorly children.

Snotty nose acceptable.

Fever your being unfair on everyone.

My nursery and baby are fine with a temp if calpol brings it down.

If paracetomal is not controlling it you are being vvvv unreasonable.

The nursery are also BU if they’re happy to have a child with a high temperature mixing with all the other (currently not sick) children in their care.

It's unfair on everyone.
I have been there, I know it's hard.

ChocolateChipMuffin - I had a scare last year when I was exposed to slapped cheek while pregnant because someone had sent their child to my son's nursery with it. It was ery stressful week waiting for blood test results, but fortunately it turned out I was immune.

I hope your little one wasn't too ill and was still able to enjoy their birthday.

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. He may perk up in a couple of hours and if he doesn’t then your husband can pick him up once his meeting is done!

Yabu

In light that the dealbreaker seems to be the temp can I ask would you define a Fever? We have the ‘Age Precision’ Braun thermometer which we are guided by that is green for normal, once temp hits 37.6 it changes to yellow, then red after (I think) 38.5. I checked his temp a few times this morning (as he kept perking up), and it seemed to vary between 37.6 and 37.9, so yellow. I had one 38 reading in one ear.

I think it's fine. I know I'm in a minority, but the way I look at it, if they don't pick it up at nursery they'll get it outside somewhere, whatever it is, colds, the various poxes - kids are forever touching stuff and putting their hands in their mouths, it's unavoidable. In terms of the one off spotty viral infections, we immunise against the dangerous ones, and the others (hand foot and mouth etc) you want to get as early as possible - I had a weird childhood and as a result didn't get some of them until I had kids myself, and they're really quite bad in adults where kids are ill for like 48 hours and then bounce back mostly.

With this in mind I will share with you a small piece of dodgy nursery sick kid cheating that I figured out. Lots of nurseries have a policy of not admitting kids who've had Calpol that morning, so you might have the situation where they wake up and they're like 37.8 or something and you want to give them Calpol as a precaution but then the nursery might not take them. But if you lie, and the kid gets worse, nursery's going to phone you at 10.30 and say "his temp's 38, can you pick him up and do you want us to give him Calpol" and you have to say no because it's not 4 hours since his last one so then they know you were telling porkies. So the best thing to do in that situation is to give them liquid ibuprofen instead. NOT if it's not indicated, and not if you suspect chickenpox, because ibuprofen and chickenpox is bad news - but if it's clearly a cold, yep, ibuprofen, and then if they want to give him calpol at 10.30 you can say OK.

Now I don my tin hat and wait for the flames to engulf me. I know ideally you don't do that, but sadly people's employers aren't always that understanding and in these times of precarious employment and redundancy and whatever, if you have to do it once or twice and it keeps you safer in your job, it's still in your kid's best interests.

wtf?! I sure hope you're a troll.

Your poor child.

And that's without even mentioning the other kids and staff.......

I feel sorry for you OP. You’re being called ‘selfish’ for going into work to support your children, no doubt afraid you’d lose your job if you didn’t. You feel the pressure to be everywhere at once.
You feel rotten yourself but if you lost your job you’d be ‘selfish’ for relying on your husband or the government.
No doubt there will be some fucker sitting there thinking you’re ‘selfish’ for having kids in the first place.

I get it. It’s bloody hard to make the right call when you have pressure from all sides.

Temperature is the indicator that toddler needs the day off but reality your employer may not understand.

AIBU is a nasty place sometimes so from me and I hope you both feel better soon.

The temperature stuff can be a bit of a red herring as well. In her first year, nursery kept trying to send DD2 home because she had a temperature post nap. I started doing her temperature on the weekend, post nap, and discovered that when she's just woken up her forehead temperature is usually above 37.5. She sleeps on her tummy with her arms up by her sides so her face gets really hot!