Nursery illnesses

[Minieggmug]

DS 12 months has been in nursery for a few weeks and has been ill constantly. He’s only managed five sessions as he is sick so much. We’ve had colds, croup, hand foot and mouth, conjunctivitis, sickness x 2.

I feel so sorry for him, he’s constantly miserable and not eating, so he’s also losing weight and he’s tiny anyway. He sleeps badly when he’s poorly so I’m finding it hard to focus at work anyway, especially when I’m having to arrange emergency childcare etc and I’m always catching his bugs.

I know this is normal but when does it get better and how do you manage it? I can’t pull him out as we need both our incomes.

I think usually around 1 year of nursery or around 2 they get better at fighting the bugs. A full year allows them exposure to all the bugs that come during different seasons.

It is totally brutal but it does pass. My eldest had similar to yours, lots of colds and croup, conjunctivitis and we all suffered with the sickness bugs...

My second started about 5 weeks ago and again we've had sickness bugs and she's coughing and snotty. I'm hoping that going into spring it'll improve a bit. I'm still breastfeeding and hoping that helps comfort her a bit and I had great intentions of having both kids taking probiotics but I always forget.

If its any consolation, my eldest is now at school she's very healthy and rarely off sick. They just need to work their way through these illnesses when they are young.

Go easy on yourself with work, its a big adjustment and nobody should be expecting you to be firing on all cylinders when you're newly back.

Hope it passes for you soon.

My DGC seems to forever have a runny nose and they only go twice weekly.

Seems they catch every cold going, not to mention HF&M....

Hopefully it'll put them in good stead for when they start big school.

Entirely normal! Just had a message today from an employee that it was his wife’s first day back after maternity leave and he’d just had a call to collect his son from nursery as he had a fever.

In the ideal world, this is where the child’s dad should step up - you are trying to re-establish yourself at work so he should be the one to have his work interfered with while this settles down (like my employee). Or if you have helpful family members who can cover that’s also very useful. If not, you just have to battle on and remind yourself that this run of ill health would have happened whenever your DC first came into lots of co tact with other kids. Even if you never used nursery, it would happen whenever DC started reception. Generally it will settle down a lot after the first three months, and certainly it after the first full winter, as DC will have immunity to everything going by then.