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.

I get the feeling a lot of posters haven't experienced nursery during covid restrictions, or in the aftermath. During restrictions, a high fever/cough meant automatic exclusion until you obtained a negative PCR.

After the restrictions ended, it has been like a plague pit with all of the childhood infections all making a comeback at the same time- in the past month alone, my daughter's room at nursery has had cases of chicken pox, impetigo, scarlet fever, HFM, slapped cheek as well as variety of coughs and colds. They aren't unique in this at all- friends with kids elsewhere report the same infections, plus summer flu, covid and norovirus. The kids were kept away from most exposure to these kinds of things during covid, so it makes sense that they are going to be hit hard now that they are circulating and they have zero immunity to them.

I find the judgemental tone in this and some other messages on this thread incredibly depressing.

That does sound excessive to me but I do think it varies from child to child. DD has the constitution of an ox and has only really been knocked for six by norovirus and two random “temperature and sleepy” viruses in 2+ years at childcare. She’s 3 and a bit. Has a lot of minor bugs that are solved with calpol, cuddles and carrying her so plans can continue, albeit with slightly crankier than usual child.

I’d want the non-stop nighttime cough looked at – a friend’s kid had this and it was only resolved when she camped out at A&E and finally got a course of antibiotics.

OP you could be describing my DD here.
She is 3.5 and has been on a preventer inhaler for about a year. It's helped the cough at night a lot but every time she gets a cold it still goes to her chest and we have to use the reliever.
She was very prone to high temperatures and febrile convulsions too so if she was ever running a slight temp we would have to keep her off in case she had a convulsion. Luckily she seems to have grown out of the convulsions now.
I think 95% of the arguments I have had with DH in the last 18 months have been us frantically arguing over whose turn it is to miss work to look after a poorly DD.

My DD hasn't suffered to the same degree OP, but I do know a couple who seem perpetually cursed. One little boy's fine sign of illness is always a temperature, and that has hampered his family's plans a lot.

DD has had D&V a couple of times, maybe even three, in the nearly year she has been at nursery. Touch wood apart from that we've had about 847276 colds but that's it, I think. She was sent home for minor temperatures a few times which were either linked to colds or possibly teething too. I consider it luck tbh. Initially when she started nursery it was constantly bad and I worried she had a shocking immune system. But now I just think we have been reasonably lucky as she tends to cope with things and shake them off reasonably wellZ

I feel your pain. I ended up taking time off with stress last winter as the kids just took it in turns to be ill every week. My youngest (who is coming up 3 this Summer) caught every bug going and always ended up with scarily high fevers and a croupy cough. Ended up in A&E on several occasions due to insanely high fevers and one of the doctors told me that some kids are more prone to high fevers. We ended up getting an inhaler to help with the croupy cough at night which helped massively. Touch wood he seems to have come out the other side of this year and seems to have built his immunity up. But I know exactly how you feel as I pretty much lost the plot at one point. I've lived to tell the tale and just wanted to send hugs 🤗 xxx

Could your toddler have an allergy like lactose intolerance. Every child I know, including my own, who has lactose intolerance seems to be more susceptible to every bug going! I feel your worry about work I went through the exact same thing and was taken to a few disciplinaries which never amounted to anything - this was meant to be a family friendly company as well

@Chicci1 👏

I’ve only scanned the thread but push for an inhaler. They can’t formally give an asthma disagnosis but they can say it’s “pre asthma” and give you inhalers. The difference in my 2 year old was amazing once she got an inhaler

The first year my son was in nursery he had virus's/bad colds 5x. Each time we would have to take turns staying home, then each time he would pass it on to one or both of us so we were off ill. It was hideous. The second year was better, but I can imagine with Covid the protocols are even stricter.

DD's started with a runny nose and cough within a week of starting nursery and the cough only cleared up after eight months while the runny nose is still there after nearly a year. Obviously it's not actually just been one mega illness, just bug after bug rolling into each other. On the other hand she's had maybe four days of fever, three bouts of D and/or V, and one episode of hand, foot and mouth.

Honestly I never thought of the runny nose and cough as worth worrying about and we just carried on as normal. She's always been fine in herself so the fact that her nose was like a leaky faucet didn't seem too bad and we didn't let it interrupt our plans.

I'm a teacher.. my kids are 6 and 4.. apart from chicken pox and covid they are never off... I can't be off with them for every sniffle and neither can DH.. if they are really poorly we'll keep them home (and DH can work from home if necessary) but just like I'm real life if a bit under the weather you've got to crack on as normal!

Does your DH take time off when your child is ill? Because it really should be shared! So your career shouldn't be ruined at all!

Honestly kids get coughs.. they get sniffles., with a bit of calpol and carrying on as normal they are usually fine!

It's been ridiculous since covid the isolation at any tiny illness!

OP I feel your pain. My eldest was like this. I honestly thought she must have something seriously wrong with her. The worst was when she ended up in hospital on DHs birthday with febrile convulsions due to spiking temperatures from a severe dose of tonsillitis. One Christmas Day she developed bronchiolitis and when we went to our gp two days later he sent us straight to a&e so I ended up missing my friends 40th birthday party. She was like clockwork for every event and after the febrile convulsions started I'll be honest and say it put myself and DH on edge everytime she was unwell. However she did grow out of it all by three.

Has she had Covid? And did the start after she had Covid?
My DC is 18months and since having Covid had the same recurring temp and cough. They were prescribed a preventative inhaler and everything calmed down. Until they caught Covid again 🙈.

But, I don't let it stop our weekend plans, I may cancel seeing other babies etc if they had a temp - but would still do other things!

She did have covid but didn’t suffer with it at all - I think she coughed twice and that was that, oddly enough

Vitamin D is your friend in this situation. I used to be ill all the time when I was a new early years teacher untill I started taking d3 supplements

We had constant illness last autumn and winter - it has, thankfully, got much better since around March. Like you I found it frustrating that people seemed to not believe how bad/constant it was. I do believe it's post-covid restrictions - my now four year old started nursery at 10 months before Covid and he got a 'normal' run of illnesses but it was nothing like the constant illness he and his baby brother got in the second half of last year. I don't think anyone is to blame for this - the restrictions were the right thing to do under the circumstances and following them was both legally required and morally right - but I do think it had some, hopefully temporary, effect on children.

I also think some children (and people) are just more prone to temperatures than others - my four year has had one twice in his life, once when he had a serious infection and once when he had Covid. I also basically never get them - I had one when I had Covid two weeks ago and it was a really unfamiliar feeling. I did learn from doing my basal temperature when trying to conceive that I run right at the low end of normal when I'm well, so I don't know if that has an impact. But it clearly is a lot worse if a child gets temperatures easily, and has particularly been so during Covid when that was used as an immediate trigger to isolate, and that's just bad luck really, and I can see how it could turn the run of illnesses from unpleasant to unbearable.

I think a lot of mums on here with pre-covid kids just don’t realise what it’s been like this last 2 years

I think the constant illness sounds pretty normal at the moment, especially for children in bigger groups like nursery with 20 in a room. There have been a few weeks when both of mine have been completely well since this time last year. I never bother to check temperatures unless really ill. Nursery don't seem to either. Chicken pox, a particularly nasty vomiting bug and maybe 3 other things have been bad enough to need to cancel plans. Luckily we rarely have any plans as between the 2 of them we would have had to cancel a lot. I also work part time from home so illness doesn't affect that too much. I do think people who rely on full time nursery probably notice it more

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?

This was literally never the case where I live, ever, so (head tilt) not sure how you can say so with such certainty. My toddler missed SO MUCH nursery because they were never done asking for PCR tests and she goes on two consecutive days so she was never able to go back before the following week.

Yeah the ‘instant PCRs’ never happened for us either. They wouldn’t accept LFT. So it was book PCR (usually an hour or two’s wait until appointment) and test results took around 23-36 hours

Are you sure? That is a lot?

I mean I get it, I have two kids and when they started nursery (particularly my oldest) they would pick up everything but it's not as often as you describe.

I guess that's just life with kids though. Once we were all packed for w day out, got in the car, Dd vomited out of the blue, brought her in to clean up and bam more and more vomiting so clearly a bug. Dp and Ds still weren't without us... other than that nothings really been ruined - but we don't have a busy social life so maybe haven't noticed it as much.

it does get better. Mine are older and rarely sick now.

I think the issue is probably your child’s immune system rather than nursery. My son started nursery aged 6 months when I went back to university and he’s now 3.5 and has been full time at nursery since 6 months. Incl. the entire 2 years when covid was rife. He has probably missed nursery on 3 occasions in these 3 years? I don’t think it’s normal for a little one to be ill as often as your have discussed

But lots of us also have young nursery aged children who have lived their life through covid so sadly it is just as much the lockdowns as it is a case of her having a poorer immune system than many of her peers.

I would still get her checked out again with regards to her chest it could flare up again and if hate for her to have another 6 months of nightly wheezing especially if the inhaler isn't working.

given then number of other replies from mums going through the same thing, I think it’s more the lockdowns if I’m honest