Could it be the nursery's fault

[Cannyapper]

My 18 month old has been in nursery since September. It is not an exaggeration to say that every time she goes in she gets ill. Every time. HFM x2, tonsillitis, colds, viruses etc etc. I have got ill each time too and have ended up having so much time off work. Family are suggesting that she is getting too ill (one not ill week since September) and questioning whether it's the hygiene of the nursery. Do you think this sounds like too much illness? Would be so grateful for your feedback. Feeling exhausted and fed up.

The first few months kids get everything, it does normally settle down as their immune system gets better

This sounds pretty normal unfortunately. My son caught everything going when he first started. It’s eased off now but he still seems to come home with a runny nose each week.

Nope, this is normal.

Your child is being exposed to a large non of children & needs to build their immunity. Unfortunately this is a rite of a passage which pretty much every child goes through, if you pull them out of childcare it only delays the inevitable & will happen once they Go preschool nursery or start school. It will get better with time. Children get I'll & are generally infectious before symptoms appear so pretty much impossible for nursery to prevent air borne viruses.

Unfortunately can be normal for some. Nurseries aren’t inherently hygienic - it’s impossible to stop a bunch of toddlers exchanging saliva etc - and regular hand washing can only do so much. Next winter will be better in my experience.

I mean it's almost definitely nursery, but that doesn't mean it's nursery's fault.

Children are snotty germ magnets.. the good thing is that at nursery they hopefully get everything out the way and they are less likely to be off when they start school. And it will settle down after the first 12 months or so if nursery IME

Sounds normal. She will get to the point where she is exposed to it but doesn't come down with everything.

Could you move her to a childminder? Fewer children = fewer germs.

Our first winter at nursery was like this. After that though it was fine, they hardly ever get ill now.

Totally normal I’m afraid, especially this year. How exactly do you stop a room full of toddlers spreading viruses between themselves?! What kind of hygiene do they imagine a nursery can implement that would prevent that? I’m surprised by HFM twice in one season though.

The only thing might be if they’re lax about letting sick children attend (my cousin sends her kids to nursery with everything, takes no notice of 48h rule etc and her nursery doesn’t seem to care) but complaining about that is a double edged sword and in any case often things are infectious before symptoms show.

Normal and given recent events you g children haven't developed any immunity.

I'm a childminder and I always warn parents that their child will catch everything during their first few weeks of being in my care. Chances are that they've never been in childcare before so their immune system is very low and will build up over time. It's not because the nursery is not hygienic, it's because children sneeze and cough over each other, share toys and are in close proximity to each other. Its a pain but it will get better!

Sounds normal. Great news is, you are almost at the six months point when they’ve (and you) had everything.
wit DC 2 I thought we wouldn’t have this because they had all the illnesses from DC1 - nope - DC1 mainly had snot and coughs, DC2 brought stomach related things home

With an 18 month old at home and her brother who catches everything she brings home it's normal. Also post covid winter is the worst we've seen for either of our 2. We'll get through it. Make sure your oh is pulling his weight with time off

Good cleaning process and hygiene are important of course, but there's only so much a nursery can do about the spread illness. It doesn't help that some parents send their children in when they shouldn't.

Sounds normal and also probably depends on how much your child was around other kids before nursery. A lot of babies start at 9 months, so start being around lots of other kids mich earlier

Totally normal. It's because of the number of children she'll be in contact with, higher chance of catching something. For example, I work for a couple of childminders, we have 9 children in every dat, 18 on our list in total. My son used to come with me and he was always catching something. He's now been going to a separate childminder since January, only 2 other children there and has his first cold since starting.

Yup, annoyingly normal. Think of it as building up their immune system.

Totally normal fir nursery

some children catch everything

good thing by the time they go to school their immune system is ok

She hasn't been there long so yes, normal. Plus some children become unwell more than others.

My DD started nursery at 12 months and had a cough for about seven weeks in the summer linked to various colds. Then D&V. Since then (she's now 2.5) it's mainly colds with the occasional blur of conjunctivitis. One of her friends in particular always becomes very unwell, temperatures with every cold, conjunctivitis more often than my DD. I think she is just a bit more prone to things, despite the fact they attend the same nursery. My DD has had one set of antibiotics so far and that was quite recent, but most parents I know had to get some long before we did. I think we have just faired 'well' but it still feels brutal when you have to collect them of continuously mop up snot.

Totally normal I'm afraid. For the first 6 months of my daughter starting nursery she was ill literally constantly. She's been going since April last year and it has gotten better now, although she's still ill fairly often. Frustrating and exhausting but 100% normal.

Thank you all. I love the nursery and think they've been brilliant. Really hoped this would be the consensus! I just have nothing to compare it to!

Kids will either get everything either when they start nursery or when they start school.

unfortuantely this year there are just sooo many things going about after the pandemic. Big spikes in various things were expected last year and just didn’t happen, but have happened this year.

hopefully their immune system will have been well built up for the next few years and they will have fewer illnesses!

One healthy week since September seems a lot (and I had two in full time nursery from pretty young).
5 months of being ill every week seem very high.

How are you and your partner managing work?

I do remember some situations triggering a deep clean of the nursery (maybe a certain number off with noro, or some other highly contagious disease).
You can ask to see their cleaning policy - it should be pretty clear how often things are cleaned and to what degree.

As a student nurse, constantly moving to new clinical placements every 8 weeks, I spent the entire 3 years of my training with one bug or another. Once qualified, I rarely caught anything for the next 35 years, my immune system was fully primed. Children and nurseries/schools are germ factories, it’s perfectly normal, good for them, even.