What do other people do in this situation??

[sickbabyagain]

When your child is repeatedly unwell and you have to be off work (again)? Toddler is almost 14 months, since Christmas she has had multiple viral infections which have meant she can't go to childcare. We have no family support so DH and I just taking it in turns to be off with her.

Docs see her every time and say it's "normal" for her to have so many infections at her age and we are in fact "lucky" that she's "only" had 4 or 5 since Christmas and not 10?!

Anyway. I'm off again today with her (DH's turn tomorrow) and I'm just so worried about our jobs! We are both public sector (I'm NHS).

Do you think work run out of patience for this sort of thing? Could my job be at risk? I'm so worried but I don't know what the alternative is!

The first year my DS was at nursery it was hell, he was never well ... we took turns, however after that he hasn't been sick/ill at all since ... apart from 1 D&V bug last month

My first born was like this and it was a nightmare. I guess childminder or nanny at home or babysitter / au pair arrangement could work if it’s affordable?

It’s awful isn’t it.

both DC were constantly poorly the first year of nursery and DH and I both took huge amounts of time off. Nursery are very accepting of colds, coughs, being generally under the weather…. but they had some really nasty ones with fevers etc and things such as chickenpox, hand foot and mouth, covid etc etc.

both of us have really understanding bosses who have never given us any grief about it but it’s a nightmare habit reschedule our meetings etc etc.

we have no family who can help and love nursery so don’t want to change that, but the nonstop illness was insane.

Years ago we had an au pair who my daughter loved. It helped a lot as she would be at home with my daughter if she was unwell. If my daughter was very poorly or wanted her mum, then I'd stay home with her.

(An au pair sounds much more glamorous than it. Some families treat them terribly. However we treated her like one of the family. We'd take her out for dinner and pay her extra if we were held up at work etc. We are still in contact with her now)!-

If your NHS I wouldn't worry, plenty of parents have this problem. At my trust they have 5 days carers leave a year, after the first day annual leave has to be used. You just have to save your annual leave for this purpose until through this stage. If you run out I'm sure unpaid leave can be arranged, its notoriously difficult to get rid of someone!

Yep this ^ The OP's problem is one of the main reasons I don't get why people move 100s and 100s of miles away from family and friends. Maybe it's just my upbringing and background, but where I come from, communities are close, and families help each other, and although people travel and move away for a while, most people do return and come live closeby again.

I think it's fine to live in different places, different towns and cities, and different countries, and to travel the world, and maybe even live abroad for several years, maybe up to 7 to 10 years even.

However, completely moving away from everything you know ... your family, (close family, and extended family,) and friends, permanently, is a different matter in my opinion.

I think once you've had children you really do need support of friends and family. If you're hundreds of miles away where you don't know anybody, you are definitely going to have an issue when it comes to help with childcare. The most obvious answer @sickbabyagain is that one of you to give up work, because as you say the vast majority of employers are not going to like it when their employees are having a lot of time off. Even if there are valid reasons.

Indeed I do actually know a number of women in the recent and not so recent past who've actually had employers (and their fellow employees) say 'why are you even working if you can't do the job properly, you should really just leave and be a full time parent - it's not fair on the rest of us to carry you!'

Sadly, I have no answers, except as a few others have said, get better/different childcare, or one of you gives up work.

Apparently it's been recorded as carers leave. I'm not sure what happens the next time or the time after that. Just have to hope she stops getting sick so often!

Your trust should have a carers leave policy. It is often five working days paid per annum.

the policy should be available to all employees so you will know where you stand

We've only had to take 3.5 days off between us for DD being ill between starting nursery at 12 months and now (6yo). She's caught her fair share of bugs but has gone in with sniffles etc. We've only kept her off for high temp, D&V etc.

BUT it's hugely helped that I was part-time working 3 days as a block eg Wed-Fri. We found she'd frequently pick something up at nursery and have a temp, signs of illness by the evening of the third day. But then four days at home being quite low key meant she recovered in time to be back at nursery the next week, easily past the 48 hours for D&V etc. If she'd been in Mon, Wed, Fri she'd have had a lot more time off!
Is it possible to switch working days around to help like this?

It truly is awful when they’re poorly so frequently. In the end a childminder part time and me going part time worked well. If I hadn’t done that I would have lost all my income due to my unreliability.
Hope she’s feeling better soon

I think it sounds normal although of course I understand it’s extremely stressful. Where I am we get an extra 19 days sick leave for that first year and that is how frequently a child is expected to be unwell during their first year in childcare.