To think that gastro / norovirus is not a new thing as mum and MIL claim?

[PlumPudd]

We’ve got an 18 month old toddler and have had around 5 nasty bouts of gastroenteritis or norovirus since he was born. Almost always starting with him picking something that is going round at playgroup, vomiting all over us and then 24 - 48 hours later my partner and I both getting it.

Any time we get it the reaction from MIL is “how did he get that then? You should wash his hands more / be careful what you give him to eat? My two never had this when they were little.” AKA strong implication that we’ve done something wrong. A bit frustrating as we do wash DS’s hands and cook his food carefully etc. but short of keeping him away from all other children there is basically no way to avoid getting it from time to time because it’s a super contagious virus and toddlers are finger sucking face licking germ bags!! MIL is lovely and a hypochondriac and very much one to look for solutions rather than empathise so I don’t think she’s meaning to say it’s our fault, but her reaction to things like this is often to try to place blame.

The reaction from mum is less judgey but equally perplexed and she keeps saying that gastro / noro just wasn’t a thing when she had young kids (80’s 90’s), that we only ever got sick if we had food poisoning and that it must be a new virus.

Can anyone who had kids in the 80’s / 90’s shed light on this? Are MIL and mum right and gastro / noro just wasn’t a thing or are they rose tinting the past?

I had two children in the 90’s and no they never had gastroenteritis so it does seem that your children are getting it a lot.
I wonder if there are particularly virulent strains around at the moment, or it has something to do with Covid lockdown and being away from bugs?

People like to give things fancy names now, but when I was a kid in the 70s we all chucked up at the drop of a hat! It was called "a tummy bug", we were starved for 24 hours, and then everyone just got on with it.

No they are not new. Norovirus is just one of many organisms that cause gastroenteritis and as you say they are very contagious. It’s probably more likely that many more very young children are together in childcare settings these days compared to back then when it was more likely for the mother to stay home longer, and so kids weren’t exposed to each other’s germs as much. Or also quite possibly they’ve just forgotten.

The noro virus is relatively new. It was first identified in 1972 in Ohio, USA. And then took years to spread to the U.K. It had also since the 1980s mutated into dozens of different strains, so you can now catch it repeatedly.

So they have a point that it would not have been as widespread or as repetitive as it is now.

5 bouts in 18mos is quite a few though. I would look into the playgroups hygiene standards in your shoes.

I remember tummy bugs going round school in the 70's, and my mum who started her teaching career in the 60's told me she got bug after bug in her early career. But it wasn't given a name and if you weren't vomiting or totally uncontrollably on the loo you were in school. In fact unless you needed your own bucket, even vomiting wasn't an excuse

It’s the name that’s new I guess, we were just ill with a stomach upset when I was little.
Once when I was 12, everyone said I had Gastro, I was so so sick. What I didn’t confess was that I’d microwaved a raw chicken Kiev in the microwave and ate it while my mum was out and I watched Biker Grove.

My baby and I gave both had Norovirus twice this year though :(

Yeah it was just called a stomach bug. Agree with previous posters though, 5 bouts is loads - unlucky.

I am fastidious about washing my DS’s hands after nursery and before he eats in order to keep these things at bay, and it’s worked well so far. More fastidious than I remember my own parents being about my hand hygiene when I was young. But I only had D&V a handful of times as a child.

It may have been four, I’m not sure. It feels pretty standard though compared to what friends have said about their toddlers, and what our NCT lot have had.

just trying to think of it as a really good boost to his immunity 🙃

For your Mum - norovirus is one of the viruses that can cause food poisoning...

I suspect part of the thing here is the naming of it. Gastroenteritis is just an umbrella term for any sort of stomach bug. Norovirus is just one of the viruses that can cause it.

So when your mum says you only ever got sick with foodpoisoning, you will have had gastroenteritis, and it could possibly have been caused by norovirus... (or a different virus).

I was a child on the 70s and can say with 100% certainty I never heard the words gastroenteritis or norovirus.

When we got the shits or were puking our guts up or both at the same time (washing up bowl while sat on the loo. Lovely) we called it a bug. Or a tummy bug.

My dad used to call it yodelling down the big white phone.

If she's saying her kids never vomited or had diarrhoea their entire childhoods then she's either lying or it was so bad she's repressed the memory.

You've been a bit unlucky: my 2 and 3 year old (bith at nursery) have had vomiting bugs 2 or possibly 3 times in that stretch of time. There definitely were also the same things around when we were little though. I agree with PPs that it was just called a stomach bug.

I'm gonna say I never has Gastroentiritis or Norovirus in the 80's & 90's because it was just called sickness & diarrhoea.

As a kid in the 80s gastro/noro wasn’t a thing coz everything was just a bug. Nobody named anything. Nobody had RSV you had “the cold”. We were also a lot mankier then than now and it probably built our immune systems. Today we’ve got hand sanitiser everywhere, flash and dettol for every surface, clothes washed everyday etc. kids more indoors, nobody’s out in the rain playing in the mud every day like we did. We had a bath twice a week folk shower daily now.

5 bouts in 18 months is a ridiculous amount of times tbh.

I do think tummy bugs are more common nowadays but this is based on nothing more than my own childhood experience and that of now having children. I remember only two tummy bugs as a kid. We seem to get at least one or two a year through the house now. Grim.

Do remember antibiotics being doled out for every single sore ear or throat though 🫣. Not so much the case now thankfully!

I was a child of the 90s and got 24 hour vomiting bugs all the time!

I constantly had vomiting bugs as a child so definitely not new! I had many more than my children have had. But my mum uses one dishcloth to clean the dishes, work surfaces and floor and keeps cooked food like casseroles out on the hob for days at a time.

It may have been four times, not sure. We do wash his hands when he comes home and before and after meals, but he’s always been quite into touching everything and putting things in his mouth so what can you do. On the plus side he’s never really been seriously ill or had to go into hospital and has had very few fevers compared to other kids.

We also started taking to to things like soft play and playgroups from when he was about four months old as he was already crawling, and this coincided with the end of lockdown so he may have been caught up in that post lockdown explosion in viruses as all the kids came out of quarantine.

I never heard the term norovirus until a few years ago. We called it a dodgy tummy before and carried on mostly.

That's a lot of times to have a sickness bug poor lad. I think mine first did in infants but did maybe twice in young childhood.

Yes I agree we just called it a tummy bug maybe kids weren't in childcare so much so didn't pass it around so often? I'd be wondering about cleanliness of nursery. Being sick is a horrid feeling so 5 x in 18 months is really harsh.

That is alot tbh. DS is 17mo and he hasn't had it once. DH and I had it about a Yr ago but he didn't catch it. He's had a lot of sniffles but no sickness. He isn't in nursery but we go to softplay alot. Maybe try a different nursery?

I think it just didn't have a name then though. MIL claims concussion didn't exist when she had her kids. Obviously it did. Alot of things we are careful about and pay attention to they just didn't back then. PILs are still shit at catching and passing stuff on, its like they don't understand it's something being passed around, you just get it, out of nowhere, and then your friend gets it out of no where.

I have had noro twice in my whole life, my kids maybe once they generally get a sickness bug once maybe twice in the winter sometimes my husband or i catch it from them but not all the time.

I think very young children spent less time in childcare in the 70s and 80s, so had less opportunity for catching stuff, but there were definitely tummy bugs. I have hazy childhood memories of one particular night where my brothers and I took it in turns to vomit all through the night, and my poor
mum had run out of clean pyjamas, bedding and towels by about 2 AM 🤢

It's not new. Five bouts is alot in such a short time so you might find he might be free of these for a few years if he had all the bugs going around. DD is 6 and only had it twice and both of those were last year. It's down to contact and after two years of different lockdown s the bugs are really active near us at the moment.....I suspect dd get more this year...

I don't remember norovirus being around until about 2006-ish? There was a huge wave of it from what I recall. I was at uni at the time and it seems like every fucker had it at one point. definitely remember getting it. I was surprised by how quickly it took me down!