To be pissed off at mothers who take their kids to toddlers full of the cold!!!!!

[elliemac]

Have just been to toddlers where one of the mothers was moaning that her DS had been up all night coughing. He was stood there with green snot all down his face poor little mite. He should have been indoors. Now its going to be passed round all the kids

There are so many colds around thant they are hard to avoid really and for your average person build up immunity.I have had a reansplant and am on immunosuppression which means I catch things easier but tbh I wouldn't worry about coughs and colds it is more chicken pox etc that would worry me.Kids are very resiliant and will be much tougher adults if they get their bugs out of the way now

, and do you know what's so good is that even when I think they should take a day off to get better or fight something, they refuse as they don't want to miss school!

My eldest was struggling to fight something off a few months ago and I suggested a day of vit C and chicken soup with me at home (I fancied the quality time really ) and she refused saying I'll be ill at the weekend Mum, haven't got time this week!!

Well my daughter (3) is in rude health too, after having been kept at home in the warm at the slightest sign of illness and not having gone to nursery. She has had antibiotics only once in her life (when she and I both caught a really nasty bug - in July ) and that was the only time we have ever been to the doctor for illness.

My sister, however, has suffered all her life from the state of her lungs after repeated bronchial infections in babyhood... when medical and recommended parenting practices were different from recommended practices today. She would have been one of the children who would have perished in infancy another age/country.

well yes, but on planet Real World, I cannot stay in at the hint of a cold

I have to work and do the school run

and do shopping etc etc

so out we go

Anna you may find that once she gets to school (unless you are going to home school) she will come down with every infection that she has missed so far; and although it's a pain when they pick up everything as toddlers, it does mean that they have already been exposed to all the normal bugs by the time they are at school so don't miss their education.

Wisteria - she is at school and she's never picked anything up there.

Surely the recommended practices for today are to get on with it if you have a minor illness. Certainly the doctors I have spoken to have said that is the way to go. No need to keep the children at home unless they have a temperature or have D & V.

I have a friend who boosted how healthy her daughter was for the first two years of school. However, in the last year she has been through the mill with one thing after another. It gets them all in the end and if you can build their immunity sooner rather than later so much the better.

The rise in asthma is linked to the increasing cleaniless in our homes and also, I have read to children not getting colds as babies. In fact I have even found a link

Golly at 3?? - oh I forgot you're in France aren't you?

I've just clicked on another thread where you are talking about your cleaning routine and you do seem to have very strict rules in your household - my aunt was like this and obsessively clean with my cousins when they were younger, my Mum used to call her a 'bleach freak'.

My eldest cousin developed a serious digestive disorder, eventually diagnosed as Crohns disease when she left home. The specialists related it to her never having developed a healthy bacteria tolerance/ immune system as her previous environment had been too sterile. I am not suggesting that you are as extreme as this but there is a lot to be said for a little bit of muck does you good you know - and please accept that there is no 'should' with these things as you seem so fond of tekking everyone, you are not necessarily right you know .

telling

interesting niecie. I don't see GPs much but do GPs actually write a sick note for a common cold or a cough? I can't imagine them doing it.

Niecie - well, my sister has asthma linked to all those bronchial infections she had as a baby...

Anyway, here in France recommended practice is to not allow illness to develop in babies and toddlers. The French paeds prescribe a lot of antibiotics, because many children are in daycare while their parents work and that is the easiest way to get those children well again. But, where small children are at home with their mother (and these children statistically only get 1/5 of the respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses that children in daycare get), it is best to keep them in the warm.

I shouldn't think they would write a note for a straight forward cold. I have taken the boys to the Drs with sore throats for example (it has been tonsilitis in the past and I want to check) and asked whether they should be kept away from school/nursery and they always say, so long as they are feeling OK they can go.

Both school and nursery have actively said do not keep them at home for a cold and a cough. Can't argue with that.

Well I wouldn't go with the French paediatric advice then Anna, as it is a proven fact that overprescribing of antibiotics is seriously damaging to everyone's health in many different ways.

Let them be ill for heavens sake and get over it!

anna, could be a cultural thing as well - I am from that background. A lot of Oriental and Asian families have this thing about wrapping up their babies warm. You see these wee ones all covered up in summer or bundled up like a polar bear indoors in a play gym in winter.

lots of antibiotics are frowned on by my gp

and they don't work on colds anyway

Wisteria - well precisely, I don't go the antibiotics route. I let them "get over it" without letting my child get any iller than necessary.

French people have a greater life expectancy than any other developed nation. So I am quite interested in advice given here. Not that I like all of it by a long shot.

thanks, niecie, I thought so, and sensibly too. When I took ds to the GPs with a fever, the GP would not prescribe antibiotics (not that I asked) but said to wait a few days to see if he could fight it off. Agree about over-prescription of ABs.

Nowadays, I don't even bother to see the GP for fever or green snot. Just let ds get on with it. It probably takes longer, but so good for him, sadist I am.

But we aren't talking about bronchial infections Anna we are talking about common or garden colds.

Your sister obviously had a weak chest to begin with.

In a not very scientific of the only French people I know well, I found them to be a sickly bunch who were always on AB's for colds as children and no, they didn't go to day care.

I do have sympathy,
i met one woman with her two LOs at a toddler group, I take my DS2 to. Her DD1 is in the same class as my DS1 in Reception and she had kept her off SCHOOL 'full of the cold' green snot temp etc but then brought her along to TODDLERS with her littlest one. That, I did think was pretty antisocial!

My eldest was off school the following friday with the same bug so I obviusly didn't take him to toddlers and the next time I saw her at the school gate made a point of saying we weren't at toddlers cos big one was off school SICK and I didn;t want the litle ones to get it! I hope she took the hint!

yes, anna, the French paradox. Although I usually hear it uttered in relation to their diet (generally higher in fats, loads of wine).

We had somebody like this a toddler group yesterday Marge. That is not on really. If your school child is not well enough for school they aren't well enough for toddler groups either.

Respiratory/ENT infections all start from colds.

death starts from being born as well

i agree with needmorecoffee in that if it is a school for kids with disabilities, with many on oxygen etc, then parents do have to be more considerate. i had a niece in a similar situation and a cold would often land her in hospital in a life threatening condition, a lot of it is about the inability to cough, needmorecoffee, speak to the hospital about physio you can do to clear your child's lungs, i think they also give you one of those suction thingies for their mouth.

however, in environments where the vast majority of kids were healthy i don't think a cold is a big deal, would be more careful about it though if e.g my child was going to attend the same venue, function etc as a child who i knew had serious health problems as i've described

toddlers with a cold - get real - this is the uk -it is winter
a cold?!?
think of the mothers mental health!