AIBU to think these nursery illnesses are taking the piss?

[Tangletweaser]

DD (nearly 1) started nursery 3 months ago. I knew and expected illnesses, I didn’t however expect so much and so many serious illnesses - she is my first so I wanted to know whether this is ‘normal’ and I’m being precious or whether this is a lot.

Illnesses so far
5 x colds
1 x glandular fever (which I am still suffering with!)
4 x D&V bugs
1x RSV (which was serious, required hospital treatment and DD was on a feeding tube for 3 days!)
2 x HF&M
1 x tonsillitis
1 x COVID (was tested)
1 x scarlet fever
1 x ringworm

she hasn’t had one full week (and she only does a 3 day week, was only 2 days the first month as well) since she started. Most of these illnesses DH and I then get, which is causing a lot of issues work wise as well (I have not had a full week back from mat leave since coming back too) for both of us.

AIBU to think this is a lot?

would putting her with a childminder make it less likely she’d get ill? Or would it not make a difference 😩

We had a LOT of illnesses in the first year of nursery (basically every week, either colds or D&V, conjunctivitis, high temperatures, hand foot and mouth, other rashes, other viruses that floored her and us etc) but no, nowhere near as bad as that. It lasted about 7-8 months and hasn’t been anything like that since, illnesses much milder and much less frequent.

That is a lot OP. Being part of the trial, you'd think her immune system would be more robust than most... not less! It's very odd.

DS went to a nice childminder for 11 years and never had any time off for illnesses. I never had to take time off work. There were three other children there. She was very hot on hygiene though.
I'm wondering if this nursery actually cleans anything, I'd find that very worrying.

Do you have an option of an outdoor nursery? My DC went to one and were far less ill than my peers DC at indoor nurseries.

Not normal, no.
You must be hating parenthood. This sounds dire.

You have my sympathies. We had similar with my one year old last year when he started in September and by February he’d had 5 a&e trips and 1 serious hospital stay in HDU. In 4 months of going to nursery he’d managed to pick up tonsillitis, HFM, scarlet fever, multiple rounds of croup (which were the bulk of the a&e trips) and pneumonia which was the most serious. I’m not even counting the permanent snotty nose and general colds during that time. We were told at the hospital that we’d been unlucky and he kept catching these illnesses when his immune system had already taken a battering. Anyway, fast forward a year and he’s not taken a single day off nursery (touch wood) this winter and is generally a robust, happy two year old.

That seems an awful lot in 3 months, but not unusual in first few months for child to be off sick more than at nursery! 😔

That's abnormal, and we had one with a poor immune system due to being a 26 weeker.
I would look into either how many children are in the room and what the rules about staying off with fevers, and hygiene practices at the nursery are, and speak to a doctor about your dds immune level.

Maybe a childminder with just a few children would be better for now

I don’t think that’s normal. That’s a lot of different illnesses in a short space of time. Some illness is inevitable and build up their immune system but it sounds like your child has been worn down by fighting all these off and is now more susceptible than ever.

I’d work on her immune system- lots of sleep, pre and probiotics, vitamin D, good diet. You should not be picking all these illnesses up either - you should have immunity to lots of these so I do think your immune system is under par too. Though stress and lack of sleep won’t help. It’s a vicious circle!

In an ideal world you’d all take a week or more off. Her off nursery and you off work and try and get on top of this. If you can’t do that then yes it will improve in time but she does need a break I think from this onslaught of illness

Even a short nanny might be a good idea to break the cycle and get her well and rested?

@TheBeeb yeah I started with multivitamins after her first bad illness at nursery. Doesn’t seem to be making much of a different which is so frustrating

@Makeitmakesensetoday she has been on them since 3months :(

My daughter had the sniffles regularly, and one bout of scarlet fever. Also chickenpox, but that's all in about 3 years of going to nursery 3 days a week.

And vitamins? A good varied diet? I would definitely speak to the GP in that case and ask the nursery manager for a tour (to see for yourself the hygiene of the place) and ask for their hygiene processes - how do they clean down when closing/opening each day? What is their sickness policy and how rigidly do they stick to it? If you're met with No for these requests/questions I'd consider moving your child to another setting.

When my DDs went to nursery I think they were off about 50% of the time due to colds, croup, and/or D&V. It slowed down after about 5 months. On the bright side, one of them very rarely gets sick these days!

I think my first port of call would be the GP and I'd want blood work done to do a bit of digging into her general health. I know it must be hard to tell when she's constantly ill what her 'normal' is but how's her energy levels and her appetite?

I think the hygiene in the nursery is worth investigating but a) surely not all the children there are getting ill so often? And b) while hygiene is obviously really important in nurseries at the same time it can only go so far given that babies and toddlers regularly stick their hands in each others mouths etc. While you'd expect more illness in a nursery with dodgy hygiene I don't think it can explain that level of illness, which I do think is quite extraordinary. Everyone I know says their children 'got ill constantly' when they started nursery but none of them mean it to the extent that you've described here.

Mine were like this 25+ years ago. Every scrap of my annual leave went on being home with sick children. Nursery is just a germ pool.

Once you've caught glandular fever you are usually more susceptible to we every little thing for a good few years.

Nurseries are usually pretty filthy and babies put everything in their mouths.

Childminder would probably be better as usually home are cleaner than nurseries/schools, and there will be fewer children.

@Mariposistaaa parenthood definitely isn’t fun for us atm, helps that DD is a very ‘good’ baby but my god does this suck

@Makeitmakesensetoday yep, she has multivitamins, has been on them since her first nursery illness (aka day 2 of nursery 😩)

Her GP is aware of all these issues and hasn’t flagged it, which is the only thing that made me feel a bit ott getting concerned with it

Ive had a tour of the nursery before she started and during her settling in sessions. They wipe down daily and do a proper clean each week, but some toys will come into that weekly clean over daily.

@RandomMess ah fuck

@Hardbackwriter yes I agree on the hygiene point, two of her little ‘friends’ go there and are in the same room and haven’t been this ill. Maybe 2 proper illnesses in the same time period and they’re both full time.

DDs issue is she is surprisingly ‘fine’ when really unwell, she eats normally, plays, drinks well etc. all whilst being seriously sick. Had this issue when trying to get the RSV taken seriously, after she hadn’t taken a bottle for 36 hours we went to the out of hours GP at the hospital, he sent her home. The next day our normal GP on the phone was spitting feathers about them sending her back, until he saw her and said ‘ah, now I see why they sent her home, despite being seriously dehydrated she looks absolutely fine’ I had to really fight to get her admitted during that period as she wasn’t triaged properly since she appeared well

4 colds in 3 months is surprisingly low! When mine started nursery at 6mo he had a cold every 1-2 weeks for about 5 months. He’s also had Strep A 3x. He’s had to have a lot of time off due to fevers but at 2yo it has tapered off a lot. The nursery has quite a stringent sickness policy and I believe relatively good hygiene policy. Some of this is postCOVID immune debt; the nursery has reported a lot more bugs over the last 2y than they usually see, and last winter in particular was very bad. I don’t think it is anything they are doing wrong, or that there is anything wrong with him. Agree with others that glandular fever is an odd one for your DC though !

That's alot

I would think a few episodes of cough/cold, plus a tummy bug and an eye/ear infection would be normal.

Problem is that once they get a couple of infections they get run down and more susceptible to others.

Definitely look into probiotics, also does she have vitamins ? Plus what's her weight/milk situation like ?