Toddler constantly poorly since starting nursery

[MamaagainJuly2026]

Is this normal? I feel like I was warned about this but surely it shouldn’t be like this!?

Since Nov he has had a cold, temperature or croup on and off. He’s poorly, recovers and within days poorly again! I feel so bad for him

He also then passes this onto me or DH.

Luckily he has only had 1 bout of croup in this time but I just feel for him

Was anyone else’s toddler like this?

I’m also pregnant so it’s getting me down a bit!

I don’t think we’ve gone a week here in 3 months of being fully well

Totally normal. It’s miserable. People lose their jobs over the absences - there are threads like this on here all the time. Sorry.

If you have a second child, the upshot is parents don’t get so many things themselves the second time round.

Make Sure you fight against default parent syndrome where it’s always you and not DH who has to take time off work

It’s just so frustrating! I was warned about the sickness but I can’t believe how often it is. It’s been so miserable and we almost joke about the fact we usually feel normal for a couple of days before it hits again. Luckily I’m part time so I’m with him mon and tue, but yes equal time off work 100%!

I hear this all the time. I worked as a childminder for years and years and this never happened with my mindees or own children and no, they didn’t suddenly collapse with illnesses when starting school as is always being trotted out. By that time, they were older with better- developed immune systems

The odd illness when minded, yes but not like this. Of course there weren’t dozens in a room and we were out and about a lot or with a much smaller, mixed age group

I find it horrifying to be honest, and the complacency about it happening. Poor parents, how on earth can they hold down jobs and be taken seriously as professionals?

My eldest went to a childminder with three other kids and was constantly ill.

My youngest goes to a nursery with ten children in the baby room and obviously lots of others in different rooms and he's also constantly ill.

My mother remembers all four of us being ill all the time when small.

It's normal, it's how they build up a functioning immune system.

I always say the only things toddlers share well are germs / viruses and head lice. With a carer ratio of 1 staff member to 3-4 children depending on age its probably impossible to keep on top of nose wiping and handwashing well enough to have any chance of minimizing spread.

Hopefully it will improve by the summer and I think the first year of being in nursery was worse than the 2nd and 3rd years with my 2. I just take it as a given that a co-worker with small children will be off a lot, though I don't think workplace sickness policies tend to have much leeway.

I'd suggest working out with your own workplace policies whether taking it as sick leave on your own account, or leave to care for a sick dependent is best if you are both ill, if you are pregnant then pregnancy related sickness maybe treated differently in your sickness policies. I was fortunate to have a boss who agreed that things like colds and coughs could be recorded as pregnancy related because I was not able to take the medicines that would have enabled me to power through & was affected more by the tiredness, so that might be a discussion to have. (I would not advocate lying to your workplace because getting caught could be classed as gross misconduct.)

I hope you and your little one are better soon.

Yeah miserable. However when mine started school she was rarely unwell. The first winter is the worst.

Totally normal, sorry 😔

For the first 2 months of a new job I was in my daughter missed 8 days of nursery - 2 days every other week. So stressful.