In the past 2 years, nursery illness has ruined

[Wouldloveanother]

Every bank holiday bar one. Maybe 15-20 weekends? Both of DH’s birthdays. A weekend away. Too many occasions and plans to even count. I am so done with it, another weekend ruined and I just want to cry.

With respect, so you count every slight cough or cold as an illness ruining a weekend? Most people would just crack on with their plans for minor illnesses like this. I appreciate it's harder during covid but restrictions have ended. My two kids are still both in nursery.

Croup
chest infections (with high temperature)
vomiting bugs
always a 38.5+ temperature

No honestly if it was just a cold I would carry on. But it’s a high temperature every time which makes her very cranky, tired and unhappy. I don’t think she’s ever had ‘just a cold’ without a high temp for about 3 days minimum

I work with toddlers and I agree with others that your toddler must have a weaker immune system as that's a crazy amount of illnesses to the point of cancelling all those plans. When kids started mixing post lockdown, there was definitely a few months of worse illnesses but not for long. I guess it depends how bad but as an adult if I'm under the weather I dose up and crack on. Depending how bad. And most kids are the same.

Your experience is really bizarre. The average is 10 bugs a year.

I would carry on with certain activities if DD had a high temp, keep her dosed op in calpol and nurofen and power through. Same as i would as an adult

*Croup
chest infections (with high temperature)
vomiting bug
always a 38.5+ temperatures

That doesn't explain the amount of cancelled plans you listed in your post though?

Unless your saying she's had 20+ vomiting bugs?

I'd be going back to the gp for more tests her immune system sounds very poor.

Same here OP. Mine is 3 and started last September, so only a year and he hasn't managed a full month. We've had 4 bad respiratory viruses that have lasted at least a week each time, all bar one have had diarrhoea/vomiting with them too. We've also had covid and a couple of more typical colds where he's stayed off a day or 2 because he's been unwell. Fortunately my partner is not working at the moment so has been able to look after him, but God knows what we would have done had we both been working ft.

He's my third DC and never experienced this with the first 2

Sounds terrible and must really get you down.
I haven’t tried using it myself yet, but I have heard amazing things about Sambucol and was thinking of getting some for my little one.

It is not unusual, and does eventually get better. Mine didn't go to nursery, but we had the same issue from age 3 onwards.

I honestly feel like people forget what it was like when their kids were younger and building up their immune systems - covid has made everything so much harder. I’m sorry you’ve gone through this rough patch OP, glad nothing sinister is going on medically. You just have to ride out this rough period, eventually it will ease. My kids used to catch every bug under the sun too - the second there was talk of something in school you could bet your arse we’d get it. I have a crap immune system myself so I understand how frustrating it is. Hang in there!

The last 6 months has been fairly horrendous here. My youngest is 5 and in reception. It's quite a feature on the mums WhatsApp group just how utterly grim it has been, lots of us have had older children so are used to normal years but it's been awful.

I think this is a consequence of prolonged social distancing and over exclusion for the tiny minor sniffles that all help with immune systems

It seems to vary so much from one child to the next. Mine missed two days of nursery due to illness from 9 months old to 4.5, my friend's missed most of the first two years. No apparent issue ( and totally fine now) and mum's a GP so I trust her judgement!
I don't think you are necessarily doing anything wrong ( nor I did anything right), just pot luck sometimes.

When she has so many chest infections, has she been checked for asthma? Because I have asthma, not the 'classical' version...., this type of astma makes me cough. And when I get a cold it easily 'goes down into my lungs'. So if there's a history of allergy, hay fever, eczema and/or asthma in the family I would get her tested. My GP couldn't diagnose me, hospital and specialist could...

I tell you what OP this is what it was like for my eldest until we moved her nursery. In the end I found a childminder better for my youngest. Cleaner, less children, more fresh air.

You says she always has a high temperature, do you know what her normal temperature is when she's not unwell? She might be a child who usually runs a bit hotter than normal.

Normal is 36.4 and 35.8ish when she is asleep

Thanks for the solidarity and kind comments I really appreciate it ♥️

I agree with others in that I don't see how EVERY cough/high temp was so bad you had to cancel everything. If your child is ill enough to not be able to go out 3-4 times a month, which is hugely in excess of what is normal for children her age, then either she has serious serious issues with her immune system/health OR you over catastrophise what is a normal snotty nose/slight flush.

You've also referred to needing covid tests before she could go back to nursey but they were freely available for at least the last year with near immediate turn arounds so not sure how that stopped you - high temp 7am, test shows covid free by half 7?

I understand how frustrating it must be but what's the alternative? You or DP to quit work until she's old enough to be home alone? If you'd never sent her to nursery she probably would have just picked the bugs up when she gets to school, which would be equally disruptive to you, and worse for her to miss school rather than 'just' nursery.

Not unusual - some kids get this some kids don’t. My first one was so bad she and I were sick, like actual sore throat raging fever sick) for 6 months straight. On advice of my friend, who had the same with her daughter, we took her out of nursery. Their parting gift to us was chicken pox. She went back to nursery a year later at 3 and even though she’s had a lot of illness since then, she’s not had anywhere near like those first 6 months.
if the nursery isn’t very good with cleaning that can make it worse too so maybe look at where you are sending your child and whether their cleaning measures are sub par.
it is rubbish when this is happening totally get it. Just wait it out and try to stay zen

I have a 4-yr old and a 17mth old, both of who attend nursery and I definitely wouldn't say that's normal at all. They've missed a bit of nursery (Hand Foot and Mouth, couple of high temps) and had a few colds but can't think of anything we've had to cancel at all, we've had plenty of weekends away, foreign holidays, trips and parties etc in the last year.

My first was like yours but this was pre_COVID so they just went in with Calpol/Ibuprofen. One of my mates kids was nicknamed perma-snot for the constant dribble. She used to get ear infections so had to be off for 24 hours with each new dose of antibiotics but after that nursery would have her back and administer them. Never really had vomiting bugs. It got better after 18 months or so but everybug she gave me and I seemed to get it ten times worse. Don't remember cancelling plans but for the first two years don't think we had plans other than surviving having a child and working full time. Certainly most of my annual leave was allocated to sick days .

@latetothefisting ok so just to break it down a bit; obviously the plans mentioned above were on the weekends mentioned.

she was ok for about 6 weeks after starting nursery
then was ill twice a month, sometimes more, for about a year. I remember once going 3 full weeks without illness and being overjoyed
the last 6 months have been more like once a month or two months
as I said it’s never ever just a cold - always comes with high temp, lethargy, crankiness etc
we’ve been told it’s too early to diagnose with asthma but she had viral wheeze for ages and has an inhaler which does nothing
every doctor has seen says it’s normal and a very bad couple of years after the stupid lockdowns

Im with you OP! This week we have had our 4th episode of fever/illness with time off work/nursery in 7 weeks!! Never mind the lack of sleep.
Jubilee weekend wiped out with Chicken pox.

Ive taken to keeping her off nursery the week before if we have a holiday planned which isn't ideal & wastes yet more annual leave

And yes according to GP completely normal, lockdown babies blah blah blah, DC completely well between episodes, good diet, multivit daily etc etc

But I cried down the phone to nursery when they called on Wednesday to say I needed to go and pick her up! (She had been fine when I sent her in)
Obviously I feel for DC, but me & DH are at the end of our tethers/burnt out also

We've had it pretty bad in the last year too (the year before was fine, seemed to be still under the protection of restrictions!).

Two DC, now 6 and 4, so double the trauma. Between them since last June, we've had:

6 x D&V bugs (though 5 of them was one DC who seemed to get in a rut of having them every month for 5 months, touch wood hasn't had one for six months now).
2 x Covid
2 x Chickenpox
2 x mystery high temperature
1 x bad cough

I think it's been a combination of the onslaught of bugs post-Covid restrictions, then once they get one, their immune system suffers and they're more prone to others.

Actually, the school-aged one seems to have suffered more than the nursery-aged one and it has been similar amongst her year group. They pretty much all got Covid at the same time, then a month later, all those who hadn't already had chickenpox got that! 🤦‍♀️ And D&V seems to be constantly going around on a loop...