Nativity or no Nativity?

[Usedphone]

I had a separate thread about our DS (5) and how he was dealing with the flu.

Long story short, his nativity is on today and school has let me to just take him to play his part, rather than having a whole day at school.

The problem is that due to a scare yesterday, my DH left work early yesterday so wouldn't want to leave early today for the nativity and he doesn't want to miss it.

The second complication, is that I have to travel to my Christmas do tomorrow (which includes an off site) so there's the possibility that my DH might have to leave work early as I don't think our DS will be well enough to have such a long day at school (with all the wraparound).

But I don't want him to miss his first Nativity, but I understand it's probably for th best.

So is mine!
She still won't be going to school tomorrow because those are the rules to protect others.

Definitely don't send him In. Keep him at home, let him recover, don't let other kids get ill for Christmas. it's not fair. I don't know what the business with your husband or Christmas do has got to do with it. It's pretty obvious that the child should not be at school

Sorry, I’m totally confused. Is your son going to school tomorrow because there is no childcare at home for him? Sorry I’ve read through it but I’m still not sure.

Correct.

So selfish. Why ruin 30 other families' Christmases? Your child's illness is your responsibility to find childcare for.

Someone sent their child in to my class (teacher) after vomiting and lots of other children. I heard lots of sad stories about not seeing grandparents and spending Christmas morning in bed. Don't do that to other people, please.

The vomiting and fever rules would have passed by then anyway.

We have no one to leave him with and from what I can gather, we would be ok in terms of window of contagion. Six full days would have passed since he became contagious.

He'll be contagious around 5 days, today is the 5th of those days.

No he needs to be kept at home 48h from last time he vomited. If he vomited yesterday that means he shouldn't be back in school until Thursday.
It's tough, I know I've been there but unfortunately children get sick and you have to take time off work to look after them sometimes.

The 4 hour would make in practice zero difference. If my DS hadn't had the later (around 11/12) this would be a non sequitur. It's not like virus say "hey it's been extra 3 hours so it's ok guys!" It's all down to statistics on viral loads.

Speaking of viral loads, we're talking about an upper tract one and not a digestive one.

Ultimately I know my DH will be very unlikely to stay just because of those three extra hours and I have to leave at 8.

I would probably still not send him in if I didn't have to travel across the country for work, and could stay with him, but I can't stay.

Are you in the UK?

No child should return to school for any reason within 48 hours of last being sick.
Reasonable employers would make allowance for this (and a lot would prefer not to see you, especially this close to Christmas, if you have been in contact with a sick child). So I would expect either: your work trip is cancelled (can you do it remote) or your husband takes a day off.

And flu doesn't normally involve sickness and diarrhoea. But Covid can.
And pinkish vomit isn't blood usually.

You'll just have to make it work on terms of someone staying. Parents work obligations are irrelevant.

How is your dh's work schedule got anything to do with if your ds is attending school???

From my cousin (a pediatrician) influenza (so the flu) can give diarrhea and vomit (the GP confirmed this yesterday). There has never been any suspicion of norovirus involved.

No, I can't do it remotely. Yes my work is completely aware of the situation, I'm even carpooling on Thursday and nobody said "oh no don't t come".

Same for my husband who had a physical job and everybody knows over there we've had the flu at home.

Vomiting and diarrhoea is indeed a common symptom of flu. A flu that your child very much still has. Please don't send him in and screw up a whole load of other families' christmas. I say this as a teacher who had to self isolate during covid on day one of the xmas holidays and got to leave my tiny flat for 2 days before having to go back to work. Great holiday, that one. Christmas officially ruined.

Irrelevant.
He needs to stay off at least tomorrow morning.

Many schools insist on 48hrs even if it's due to an allergy. There is no excuse for sending him back before (work is irrelevant) given he's had a bug.

Do you not understand the school rules on this? Are you so special they don't apply to you?

Yes I understand rules, but also understand 44 Vs 48 won't make any difference to little Mr virus.

Anyway, as our son has been coughing basically non stop for the last hour called my husband and told him he's going to have to tell his work he's not working tomorrow because with that cough the school would send him back within 10 mins.

So he's off to school tomorrow!

Am I missing something, you're taking your son into a busy school the week before Xmas when he's been really really poorly with the actual flu. Don't put that on any of the other families in the run up to Xmas please please please.

Another bizarre thing about this thread is that your Husband would ban your son from being in a nativity if he couldn’t make it to watch 🤯

He might still go in on Thursday, for all terms and purposes he won't be contagious any more as that would be the 8th day for him.

It's really all down to how weak or how bad the coughing fits are at that point.

Still .. a reasonable employer (esp these days) tend to be super flexible (I guess depends on the industry..) and if someone isn’t a shirker, then when things happen, they happen.. if you’re a surgeon and you want to cancel an operation, but if there are some spreadsheets to update and you’re not creating lots of extra work for others.. it’s crazy for an employer to create extra stress for an employee- replacing them is very expensive!!!

We're talking about an (and I hate the word) "unskilled" job where he's being paid reasonably well. It's a manual job that up to not that long ago (like 4 years maybe) was just above MW.

Re illness - do you remember Covid?