To ask them to control the children?

[PyjamaMuddleduck]

I attend a specialist baby and toddler group for families. There’s a separate baby room with socially distant mats for each family and a bigger toddler/child room.
This week, a very snotty toddler came into the baby room and to the mat where we were, leaving a toy behind. Several other children also ran around the room close to the babies.
My baby now sounds snuffly and has a cough (covid test pending) - we’ve not been anywhere else this week.
WIBU to ask the organisers to remind parents to keep the older kids out of the baby room? And maybe not to bring their children if they’re clearly unwell?
I love going but not sure we’ll go back now

I’m an HCP and my husband is a teacher. I am fully aware that a runny nose can come with covid but our employers would be even more fed up if we isolated and tested our two preschoolers for covid (with associated isolation - they can’t be at home alone - and it would be 1-3 days at a time) every time they had a runny nose. We would be having 1-3 days off every couple of weeks and that has an effect on my service users and my husband’s pupils. I am no covid minimiser - we see the effects of covid professionally and personally - but we have to be realistic

@PyjamaMuddleduck - @Letsallscreamatthesistene isn’t giving bad advice, it’s just fact. One of my children became quite unwell with tonsillitis this week because he couldn’t be seen until his pcr came back negative. Covid is just one of many illnesses children can get, others are far more serious for children (but obviously we need to not be spreading covid to people more likely to be seriously unwell).

@HalloweenScrooge thanks, that is interesting. Accept I need to gain some perspective - sleep deprivation is an awful thing

Huge sympathies - sleep deprivation is so horrible

My child has a cough. A cough is one of the Government symptoms that should trigger a test. It’s not ridiculous to test just on a cough, and it is bad advice to suggest otherwise.
(Runny nose not yet a symptom that triggers a test, no, but that is not the case here.)

Im not giving bad advice. Its a fact.

I don’t think many people test their babies for covid!! At least I don’t know anyone that does. I mean I’d ltf test myself regularly during the time my baby had a cold but that’s probably it.

@Letsallscreamatthesistene

Im not giving bad advice. Its a fact.

You are mistaken. It is a fact that a cough OR a temperature OR loss of sense of smell/taste should trigger a test. This is clear. To suggest otherwise is bad advice.

My 3 Very young GC all have inhalers for symptoms of asthma .....they have snotty noses and cough most of the winter....we certainly wouldn’t be PCR testing them every 5 minutes

I’m not sure getting colds build their immune systems as the circulating bugs change every year - that’s why we all keep getting them!

Unless you have a compromised immune system it's very unlikely you get as many bugs now as you did when you were a child. An untested immune system has to start learning how to activate its response and it becomes more efficient at doing this through exposure to lots of similar low-level viruses. So yes, it's worth accepting that it's beneficial to your child in the long run not to wrap them in cotton wool. It might also enable you to feel less uptight in situations like the one you described.

I'm not sure that unattended toddlers should be in the baby room actually. Different for those families who have both, but if there is a separate room for babies it's not unreasonable to expect that most toddler play takes place elsewhere.

Won't mean you avoid all the sniffles but it should help a bit.

There does seem to be s subtle move away from testing children I think. My DS went to hospital and was admitted overnight for a viral induced wheeze, with covid symptoms. We hadn’t yet tested, and the hospital didn’t suggest testing or actually even mention covid or isolation or anything..they just treated him and sent him home

I’ve done two pcr’s in the past 10 days - one was for a hacking cough (negative), that his whole class seem to have and have been tested for.

The second was the aforementioned tonsillitis, where the child was very obviously unwell with a high fever and a range of associated symptoms.

I have not tested my children for random snot (but otherwise well). Even though snot may be a delta symptom, because it’s just not practical. I’m lucky that many other parents at school do share when they have been testing and what the result is so that we do have a feel for what other illnesses are in school. As yet, not much covid. I would test for sure if they had been near covid positive children.

You're correct but most parents I know wouldn't test for a cough alone. Because they have coughs every five minutes and when you look at the bigger picture and the risk of transmission in very young children, regular testing or isolation are worse options than hoping for the best.

I'd test my kids for loss of taste or temperature, but not cough alone. It's simply not workable.

You'll have a toddler this time next year, you won't want to stay in every time they have a cough or cold because it is 90% of the time and you will lose your mind.

When your little one goes to nursery they will get virus after virus with hardly a few days break inbetween. I'd say this happens for at least the first year. Our immune systems definitely get better than that.

I agree with you OP. I don’t think it is fair if people allow their snotty nose toddlers to wander about unsupervised in a baby area. I would be annoyed too. I do think the safety issue (little babies vulnerably lying on mats), is probably the thing that would annoy me mostly, but the toddler spreading their germs among those babies would also really bug me. I know babies need to build up their immune system, but I think it is a parent’s right to not have that foisted on them from unsupervised older children in an area they shouldn’t be in.

You have reminded me of the absolute horror I felt when a snotty toddler came up to my ds in his car seat in a GP waiting room.

It took everything I had not to shriek "get back, you are a giant child with a cold!".

Once I had my own toddler they didn't look so huge anymore 😂

I would talk to the organisers - they separate the rooms for a reason and should make sure the two don't mix.

Thanks @whoopy1, glad I’m not totally at odds to the rest of the world on this

@Caspianberg

Mine was walking by 9 months. Would he be banished from the baby room then? He was too small to have loads of toddlers running into him and still a ‘baby’. But one who would have no less left his ‘Mat’ rather quickly He was crawling by 5 months. Surely crawling 5 month olds aren’t then not allowed

In the baby groups that we attended yes, he would I’m afraid! The ones that ran at all last year were very clearly for non moving babies, we had to stop going when DD started crawling and I was really sad as it was such a lifeline. This place does also run groups for babies from crawling up to about 18 months, and then one for toddlers - but they didn’t run again until fairly recently because of the impossibility of social distancing.

There’s a bit more mixing of age groups now eg parents with a toddler and a baby might bring both to the toddler group. But not the other way around - the baby group is still strictly for non moving babies.

Mine walked at 11 months so not so early, but definitely couldn’t have coped with toddler type groups then - although none were running so wasn’t much of an issue!

OP I think you’ve had a hard time here - yes I think you do have to accept they’re going to get germs and colds etc but you’re not being OTT testing if your baby has symptoms. My GP told me to test my dd when she had none of the official symptoms but what turned out to be a viral rash, and my friend was told to test when her son had sickness and diarrhoea (in his case it was positive - apparently that’s how Covid is presenting in some babies).

All this is reminding me of how sad I felt that I couldn’t join any of the baby groups that were allowed to run last year because the babies were immobile and could stay on mats. I had a toddler as well as a little baby so there was nothing for us. Toddlers were unwelcome everywhere because they couldn’t socially distance. Months and months with nowhere to go and no one to see. I’m a fully paid-up member of the “pop them in a puddle suit and get outside” brigade but it was so hard to keep up the enthusiasm even for that.

Im not giving NHS advice. You're perfectly able to read that yourself. I think its ridiculous that the advice hasnt been updated when its common knowledge that COVID symptoms are so generalised in reality its hard to spot any common signs, especially in children. Im giving my opinion based on overwhelming experience over the last 19 months.

At work when kids present with diarrhea or an ear infection etc they're seen as 'hot patients' in an isolated room, or if its too busy, in the carpark (not ideal) which is based on NHS advice given to clinicians gathered over the last year or so. I often say to them after assesment something like 'its likely gastro/an ear infection/upper resp tract infection but its best to get tested'. Thats not because I think its COVID, its because the realities of the symptoms and what the mainstream NHS advice is doesnt match up.

@RichTeaRichTea

“ But… if all the babies were on mats lying down, I don’t think toddlers should be running around in the room for safety reasons as they could step on the babies. ”

I agree with this.

Agree too.

OP your baby could catch a cold anywhere so the 'snotty' toddler thing is tough. Honestly it's just part of it.

But I wouldn't like toddlers rampaging unsupervised by their parents around small babies on the floor either, it's not safe and the parents should be watching them. I would email or speak to then organisers about that. Actually I'd have politely said something at the time but I am quite bolshy about stuff like this.

If a parent has both a toddler and a baby then they should all be in the toddler room where mum holds the baby, or it's in a pushchair/sling etc. Most groups are not suitable for both tiny babies and crashy toddlers, that is just as 'tough luck' as encountering snot is.

And I'm not PFB - mine and 5 and 3 now (so the HUGE rampaging ones compared to a tiny babe or a snotty toddler!). I'd never let them trample around babies.

I was shocked that my PFB had a cold for the first 6 years of her life… or so it seemed. Robust health now though

I have 3 DCs so am not PFB and am fine with a toddler with a slightly runny nose, but even before covid was always amazed how parents in the UK would show up to entirely optional leisure events with children with snot everywhere or coughing consistently. Then they'll say 'but otherwise we couldn't ever go out!' as if they weren't part of the reason that there are always so many viruses circulating, because of what they spread and the norm this type of group behaviour sets. It's really not the norm everywhere.

With covid also, even a 'just a cold' can end up meaning someone taking days off work while they wait for PCR results.

Really selfish.

@Peanutbuttercupisyum

I don’t think many people test their babies for covid!! At least I don’t know anyone that does. I mean I’d ltf test myself regularly during the time my baby had a cold but that’s probably it.

And yet plenty do. A quick read if MN yesterday shows they do. Thread about a 3m old baby testing positive, another a 5m old. Just two from a brief half hour I read MN yesterday.