Is this normal? Nursery related

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Dd (just turned one) has been in nursery for two days a week for the past month. In that time she has had strep throat, an ear infection and now had a hacking cough. I expected her to get unwell due to exposure to all of the new germs but this feels excessive. The strep throat in particular was very nasty and she had to have two courses of antibiotics to clear it up. No sooner is she better from that then she gets a nasty cough. I'm hoping it's not a chest infection.

I'm listening to her coughing in her bed wondering when I need to worry about it. Is the first 6 months of nursery just an endless course of antibiotics? Was your child like this when they first started nursery and how long before it improved? Thank you

It is very normal, all the bugs going round. It's not nice but it does get better

Yes, sounds very normal. It's very hard though and I have a lot of sympathy. Things seem to get a bit easier in the warmer months

Yeah, it is. My son has been at nursery three days a week for the last 7 months and he’s had countless runny noses, coughs, colds, conjunctivitis, sore throats and whatever else.

It will get easier but I’d advise having about 200 bottles of Calpol in the cupboard!

The first few months at nursery was a nightmare. I had just returned from a year of maternity leave and I was either having time off with looking after poorly DS or off sick with whatever germs DS had passed to me! It does get better

Yep, sorry.

Normal in my experience. DS started nursery at around 8 months old. He's 4 now and still ill with one thing or another at least once a month, which is a vast improvement on how frequent it used to be.

Yup unfortunately 😩 DD literally lasted 2 days before being off 😂

Yes it’s normal. It was hell from September to March with back to back everything. Then nothing until May, and touch wood he’s been fine since, apart from the odd snotty nose.

It really was awful though. My sympathy x

Sadly, yes

Gosh, seems pretty common then. I'm hoping it's not going to be an antibiotics job every time as they are very hard to come by at the minute.

Yes very normal. DS 3 started in September and has had back to back illness since mid December. I reckon somewhere between 10-15 various illnesses so far. Some nasty some just snotty,
Currently has a hacking cough and sore throat.
Baby is 6 months and has also been back to back Ill. Has had 4 courses of antibiotics already and been hospitalised with RSV / bronchitis and narrowly avoided being hospitalised with D&V bug brought home recently.

It's been absolute hell .... I'm praying that it's nearly over, with spring on the way & hopefully his immunity building. I think we had a double whammy as he was a covid baby and also starting nursery in winter time post lockdown.

Can only pray it gets better soon. Spoken to other parents and it seems pretty normal!

Yes it never ends! My son is 4.5 and still poorly lots! Give her a multivitamin but other than that, you have to ride it out I’m afraid!

They say it takes 2 years to improve. From my experience i'd say at least 2 years. One of mine has been going for 2.5 years and the last winter was the worst - I think we're seeing the effects of the first year of normality with no masks etc, combined with general low immunity.
Mostly it's been viral though - susceptibility to bacterial infections is innate I think. Some children just get the viruses while others frequently get secondary bacterial infections such as strep throat and tonsillitis. So hopefully your child's strep throat was a one off!

My 3 month old started a few weeks ago and he immediately caught a cold/cough. I thought this would just be the start and looks like I'm right!

Hope she feels better soon.

Yes. And on a positive note, it’s really a good thing. Children need to catch viruses and bacteria related illness in order to train their immune system. There is a wealth of research showing correlations between higher incidence of childhood illness and lower risk of leukaemia later in life.
We shouldn’t hide from bugs, although it’s hard to watch them suffer.

Also, remember most of the symptoms you see are actually caused by our immune response - sore throat is damage caused by destruction of cells invaded with virus, high temperature is our bodies way of killing an invader, a cough is the removal of dead/live virus, etc. When we see these symptoms it means immunity is working - this is a good thing!

Hopefully with warmer weather and spending more time outside and with better ventilation, the illnesses will decrease.

Sadly it is

Yes. My son had something new every couple of weeks for the first 6 months. So tough just having gone back to work, then have to take a whole lot of leave to look after him.

Normal. Especially if they've not been socialising much (after covid it was ridiculous)

Normal, even for staff. My first 6 months or so working at a nursery I caught everything going, including glandular fever. It eventually calms down

I think it's almost worse when the child only attends a couple of days a week! They seem to get ill more often than those attending full-time, presumably because of the differences in exposure. It is normal though. Frustrating beyond belief, specially when they've only just started and therefore settling in takes so much longer as they're always off, but normal.

Yup, sorry. Next winter will be shit too, be prepared for that. It does seem to quieten down during summer, but we're talking one illness a month rather than one a week.

Mine is in pre-school and still gets ill every three-ish weeks on average. Not always antibiotics jobs, but a temp and couple of days off nursery each time. I'm just grateful we don't have to whisk him off to the Covid testing centre anymore.

I strongly advise you get chicken pox vaccination done now!

This is taking me back to when my DS started nursery! Was September 2021 so we had the added joy of having to get a negative PCR test every time he got a temperature. Good times.

Agree - chicken pox itself is 5 days of hell, worse if they end up infected, but it also depressed the immune response for several weeks afterwards leading to them catching everything going.

Also - don't plan any holidays that you can't cancel

It’s horrendous but totally normal. DS would go to nursery for two days if I was lucky then be off for a week, rinse and repeat from April til august last year. September to October was fine then winter bugs kicked in and he picked up tonsilitis. It’s now about six four to six weeks between bugs/sickness which feels heavenly compared to what it was.
I was genuinely paranoid he had some kind of underlying condition because he seemed so sick for so long and the COUGHS. he would just start improving then get another one. Solidarity and sympathy OP.

Yeah that was fun...not. my child still tries to stick things up their nose.