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.

Thanks @Scottishskifun yes Dd seems to be very much the same so the dr’s letter might be worth a try. She’s ok in herself right now with a temp hovering in the late 38s. She just woke me up to say she could hear the birds ‘shouting’ outside lol

@Abouttimemum sending you ☕️ and 🍰! How is your DS feeling now? Have you been seen? We’ve had 2 A&E trips for croup, a few more trips for DD ‘sucking in’ under her ribs with a chest infection, and a 4 day stay so she could go on oxygen with another respiratory illness. A&E with a sick child is basically hell!

@JenniferBarkley I was saying to DH it likes it ‘knowns’ when you have plans and arrives just in time to ruin them! Of course I’m not that paranoid but the timing is always spot on - usually a Friday, so always over a weekend or bank holiday, and runs into the Monday/Tuesday. I swear work just think I’m making an excuse to have a long weekend off. Currently getting a couple of hours sleep because I’ve got my first day of intensive driving lessons (4 hours) I feel pooped! We will never take a few months health for granted again!

He’s 4.5 years old. It’s been going on for so long now. It’s so stressful.

It’s normal and really so hard when you’re in the thick of it.

Is she getting recurrent tonsillitis do you think? I was just ill constantly as a child until I had mine out.

For those saying 'dose them up and crack on' my nursery won't give more than one dose of calpol, if they need a second in the day, they get sent home. Calpol works for a while but isn't a magic off switch for illness. And there is only such you can give them anyway.

Also if it's d and v, calpol and nurofen can actually make it worse in my dd's experience. And my kids nursery has a 48 hour exclusion for either diarrhoea or vomiting, same as most places I believe.

Dd has gone in again today with nose running, hoping it's just a cold but I totally get the comments about the anxiety you get with every cough or runny nose. I feel like I'm just waiting for them to call me to come and get her.

Ah thank you @Wouldloveanother we’re still here, he’s still sucking his belly when he’s breathing and just generally struggling so we’ll be in again tonight I think while they get it under control. I feel so sorry for him. It is a special kind of torture. You just nod off for a few minutes and in they come again with the next checks / medicine / doctor update. It’s utterly exhausting!

OP, we have been in the same situation with our DS who started at nursery just after restrictions were lifted. We ended up in A&E due to a really nasty tummy bug and the doctor there said they were seeing lots of nursery age children who were getting back to back viral illnesses at that time, they put it down to having been in lockdown and then everyone mixing again. The GP said the same thing, that this level of illness would have been unusual pre-covid but not since.

There was a time last winter when I started to get quite depressed because it was just relentless...HF&M, sickness bugs, coughs and high temperatures. As soon as he got over one illness we were onto the next and would then pass it onto our DD who is at Primary school. We were lucky if I made it through a full week at work without getting the dreaded phonecall. All the worry, lack of sleep and feeling constantly torn between home and work really got to me. I know other parents who were in a similar boat so it is absolutely not as strange as some pp are making out.

Our nursery has the same policy - they will administer one dose of calpol if the child gets a temp during their day at nursery, but typically this dose is just to relieve the child whilst they wait for parents to collect. We would still get a call to come and get DC from nursery if they'd given calpol.

We're also not allowed to give a dose of calpol prior to sending DC into nursery. This has been the same at all my DC's nurseries/pre-school settings and I thought it was pretty standard (maybe not...). The rationale being (I assume) if they needed Calpol at home they're likely too sick to attend AND parents might not tell nursery they'd already dosed DC on Calpol which could mean the DC got double-dosed if nursery later pick up that the DC is feeling unwell and then go and give them more Calpol (unknowingly).

Our nursery also has a rule about DC not being able to come in for the first 2 days of antibiotics. That rule annoys me a bit, because my older DC had antibiotics several times as a toddler>school age for chest infections - he was not necessarily ill or feeling poorly, but he had a bad chest and Dr gave antib's to see if it'd help shift it. DC could happily have carried on and gone to nursery each time. FWIW, we always suspected asthma but had the usual GP stumbling blocks that they won't diagnose asthma at that age etc. We eventually got a reliever inhaler on prescription when he was 3, and finally, preventative inhalers on repeat prescription when he was 5 and his chest has been totally fine since!

Ah OP I really feel for you! My DD1 was like this at nursery (pre COVID). It must have been so much harder having to test for COVID every time.

I will say, it definitely got better after the age of around 4+. They still pick things up at school of course but not at the same frequency as at nursery! So I would say hang in there!!

Same rules at my children’s nursery - they will give one dose of calpol but if calpol is needed then you have to collect them, and can’t send them in dosed up. ABs require 48 hours prior to going back - I’m ok with that one but mine have always needed that time to be well enough anyway and also to make sure of no adverse reactions. When covid rules applied we had nearly two years of being sent home for coughing more than once, not allowed back until negative PCR result - this was completely standard throughout my county and by my understand on MN it was common everywhere in England

I felt the same right up until my toddler was just over 2 years. She’s been Ill this year but no where near the same extent (every 2-3 weeks prior). I was so fed up of being sick as well as a result but it seemed to magically get better after Xmas of this year. She’s almost 3 and I’ve not had to take much sick leave at all so far

Yes thought that was standard in England too

Going back a bit now, but my DS caught every virus going at nursery from the age of 1 until 2. I was called out of work every other week. Any temperature over 38.5 was an automatic call out. It was always upper respiratory viruses that would lead to secondary throat/chest/ear infections with very high temps. I thought there was something very wrong with him. He got over it, but he did get bacterial tonsillitis a lot as a 6/7 year old and had to have his tonsils out. Best thing ever.

I feel you .. Ds 12 is like this the temp just runs him down even with a typical cold/ cough that his sister and friends would probably manage to carry on with . If he’s ill we have to cancel stuff.

He’s on vitamins and just hoping it’s gets better as he gets older . Definitely has a different immune to the rest of us .

Well what d'you know. Call from the nursery, 'please come and pick up DD, temp of 39.1'.

dose them up and crack on is precisely why this happens.
We've all done it. I did it 20+ years ago when they were mildly snotty but not ill because I had used all my annual leave up on child sick days.
I would have hoped the pandemic would have taught us all a bit about spreading or how not to spread, illness.

FWIW the child who spiked a temperature at the drop of a hat and had febrile convulsions is now an adult who gets a high temperature with every bug. They are also a teacher so pick up everything going from poorly kids in school.

oh no katmarie my heart sunk when I read that. Pissed off for you!

You’ve all convinced me to get her tonsils checked

I can totally relate, I’m so sorry, it’s so hard. My youngest is coming up to 6 and has missed so much school this year thanks to the need for getting PCRs. He gets a cough with every cold but, when I finally felt like we were getting somewhere and he wasn’t reacting so badly, we’ve ended up in A&E twice for the first time since he was 2. My health anxiety is off the scale again especially as we now have an inhaler for emergencies but no formal preventative treatment plan as we’re not sure what’s causing the sudden wheezing.

The hospital consultant told me getting a new cough every 2 weeks was normal. They also said they were getting lots of children presenting with more than one virus/bug at a time thanks to Covid and their lack of exposure.

I got my two vaccinated against Covid last month and they both ended up unwell as a result - the conclusion was they’d been harbouring bugs/infections beforehand that had then taken hold because of their immune system dipping. A normal reaction to any vaccine. You can’t win!

@Wouldloveanother our DD is similar. She started nursery last September and has had about 5-6 bugs before the year ended and another 3-4 since January including covid. Much like your kid - she also gets very high fever only hers runs for 24h (39+), then we have 12-24h of slightly elevated (37.5-38) and then it's all gone as if by magic and she's her happy bouncy self again. Hers rarely come with cough though (usually its just a runny nose or a sore throat).

Also much like you - we always cancel all our plans when she falls sick - part of it is her fever and not wanting to risk it getting worse due to exhaustion (she gets tired faster when under the weather, which I expect is normal) and partly because we don't want to expose anyone else to obviously contagious bug.

Unlike you, however, we are lucky in that my ILS are local and happy to step in and I can work from home so what usually happens is that MIL will come over and be with her whilst I work upstairs and can come down to help/check on her. I will say that it has gotten better this year and we're hoping we'll be out of the immune buildup soon. I wish you the same!

Please ignore comments saying this isn’t normal. I have a 3 year old in nursery since September 2020 and has also been unwell pretty much every week since minus a few weeks. It’s always a cold, some cough virus, occasionally norovirus or something else. Numerous doctors have said it’s happening because of lockdown - super bugs were created and peoples immune systems aren’t as strong. We’ve been through the whole blood tests, paediatrics etc to check if something was wrong but nope all fine. Please don’t listen to people who don’t have a toddler in nursery right now!

My DD was sick so often at nursery my husband and I used all our leave by Easter when she was 18months old. This was long before Covid. She had a permanent runny nose until she was about 6. Now she’s 10 and rarely unwell but it’s been a long slog. OP you have my sympathy 💐

I ended up quitting my career and going freelance and very part time to cope with illnesses and school demands. I hate to tell you but one parent needs to be available a lot until the end of primary. It’s visiting the classroom at 2:45 every 6 weeks to see what they’ve done, sports day, plays, school trip helpers, fairs, book day, finding costumes, and all the bugs. I couldn’t keep a proper career throughout the primary stage. Luckily I could freelance but I know many talented women now working as teaching assistants because work wouldn’t flex enough.

Last week I was offered a brilliant role in management in my new career. We struggled for the last decade (£30 budget per week inc nappies anyone) but there is light at the end. And of course there’s been a lot of joy with the kids along the way.

If she takes a multivitamin that could be masking a B12 deficiency. You need to have taken nothing containing B12 for 4-6 months prior to the blood test. If she’s not absorbing B12, it could make her very poorly - I used to catch everything going before my deficiency was identified.

Take child out of nursery and become a stay at home mum. Simple.