How often should I expect my DD to get ill ?

[whiteleathersofa]

My DD is 13 months. She's not at nursery.

How often would you expect her to get colds / tummy bugs etc ?

I know it probably varies, but I would love to get an understanding. How often do they get fevers ?

How often would you expect her to get ill once she goes to nursery ?

I'm quite anxious about it generally because of covid, it really stresses me out. But also just generally I hate it when she's sick. Since she was born she's had 2 - 3 episodes of a fever with no obvious symptoms and one proper snotty cold. She also sounded congested a lot as a newborn ( nasal congestion ). I just wonder what else I'm in for.

We've had a hospital stay because of one of her fevers, as they thought it could be meningitis. So that was a bit scarring for me.

@minniemoocher do you think you'd continue going I to work ill now with covid or after ? Not asking to be rude, I'm just curious, as obviously even when restrictions lift, I suspect maybe people won't be spreading their germs as much ? I speak from being someone who's also gone to work with colds and coughs, we all do right. I wonder if people will do that less now, like in some European countries I know,

Just to add my old gp was brilliant, dd has sn and even throughout lockdown she's been amazing, calling dd to check on her. I've moved now and new gp not the same

My DS got sick constantly when he first went to the childminder. I actually think he had covid last March a couple of weeks before lockdown. We ended up in hospital, he was struggling to breathe and needed oxygen overnight. They didn’t test for covid though because they didn’t want to admit him to the ward, so weird looking back- the doctors had zero PPE. He had a stomach bug a couple of months before that and in the December he had an unknown virus that seemed to last forever- bad chesty cough, vomiting at one point, fever, generally unwell. He hasn’t been unwell at all since he stopped going (I’m on mat leave), I’m dreading sending them both in September...

My older DC all got sick a lot when they first started school too.

We only ever had tummy bugs at nursery. Cold were every so often just like us but once they started at nursery, it was a permanent snotty nose for about three months!

My GP said about 7 viruses a year is average. Mine have had colds, sickness bugs, they’ve both somehow managed to have chicken pox twice. It’s all sort of the fun of having children. Just stock up on calpol!

@GreatTeaMonkey 7 !! That's really useful to know, thank you.

Oh yes, stock up in Calpol, I didn’t have a medicine cabinet before I had my daughter, it now has plasters, painkiller, thermometer, wipes, vitamins, packets of pocket size tissues, bump cream, nit comb, antiseptic cream, antihistamine, sun cream, to name a few, before she came alone I think I just about managed with searching pockets for a stray painkiller. The joys of parenthood..

@Justajot

One of the differences between children seems to be the extent to which they get a fever when ill. Some seem to get a fever with every cold, others don't get a fever often at all. I know families where one child gets a fever with anything and the other doesn't. This is often the difference between being able to go to nursery with a cold or not. Though perhaps caution over covid may change that too.

I think a tendency to get mild illnesses in childhood can also be familial.

You might want to consider private vaccination for chicken pox. Otherwise that can cause quite a long time off nursery.

Yes, this is interesting and certainly true with my family. I have 4 children and the oldest tends to suffer more than the others with every virus that circulates our family. This is just speculation, but I do wonder if it's because, as the oldest and not starting nursery until 2 years old, that she wasn't exposed to much early on and as a result her immune system is slightly less robust than her siblings, who were exposed to the bugs she brought back from nursery from day one? It might help you to think of it this way, OP, that any bugs she does have in her first few years will be helping to boost her immune system. It do wonder actually, that with so much social distancing, in what way this will affect our kids' immune systems going forward, if at all

The other thing about having a fever is to look at other symptoms, children can have temperatures and still be quite happy. One of my DC will have a temperature and still play, eat and drink. It’s when he stops doing these things I know he feels really poorly and I give him some calpol, you don’t always need to treat a temperature.

Constantly! But better that it happens now than when they start school and miss important learning.

DS started nursery at 4 months and caught absolutely everything he possibly could, and brought it home to DH and I. However he didn't have any Calpol etc from age 2 - 7. I know that because he wouldn't have fruit flavoured things and I was always worried what would happen if he was ill and needed it. DD was also at nursery from 4 months and gets a fever at the drop of a hat. As a tween before she started her periods I got calls from school to say she had a temp until it became obvious there was a patten to it.

Everyone is different and unfortunately the last 12 months won't have helped young children develop robust immune systems with so little interaction with others and generally trying to keep everything as germ free as possible.