Do you have a child who rarely gets a cold?

[2535and3]

Do you have a child who rarely gets a cold? You know, the one who can sit next to a sniffling classmate, survive winter, and somehow avoid bringing home every bug going around?

What are you doing differently?

Diet? Immunity boosting supplements? Superior genes? Force feed them garlic? What?

Have been enjoying fewer colds over the last couple of months and not wishing summer away but come the 2nd week in September and dc13 will guaranteed be down with a high temperature cough sniffles.

So whats your secret to autumn winter that aren't just cold after cold? My dc catches a viral fever cough every 5-6 weeks. Gets the flu nasal vaccine of course.

Just luck. One of mine (4 yrs old) gets every cold going, and the other one (7 yrs old) never does. Doesn’t even catch them from her sister even though they’re all over each other, sharing toys, cuddling, playing etc.
I give them both a multi vitamin but I doubt it really does anything. And if anything my 4 yr old has the better diet in terms of the veg she’s happy to eat.

Luck.

My eldest is rarely ill. He even dodged covid when the rest of us had it.

My youngest is ill all the fucking time.

My DS (13) has only had 2 days off school in total. He was bottle fed! We eat a balanced diet, lots of outdoor time, windows open at night even in the middle of winter. However, I think it’s also down to genes

Another one saying luck! I rarely get colds, have only had flu once in my life and never tested positive for COVID.
DD was a dangerously ill preemie, had IV antibiotics for the first 6 weeks of life, was ng fed then bottle fed and the first 18 months of life was continuous coughing, rashes, temperature spikes and drs appointments.
Since then however she’s had a grand total of 1 cold, chickenpox and 2 lots of very mild COVID (chickenpox was worse!)
She’s always had a daily multi vitamin, has eaten a mostly home cooked, low upf diet and we’ve kept an eye on sugar. She’s also a farm kid that has drunk from the yard tap, been literally up to her eyeballs in mud and handled many different animals.
She sickness record is total luck of the draw

Yes. I can count on my fingers the amount of times DD has been ill in her life on my fingers and she's nearly 8. She has missed school once for illness.

Her diet is ok, not amazing, she's not eating lentils or beans but I do make sure she has some form of veg everyday. She was only breastfed for the first few weeks of life so it's not that. I was a fairly sickly child but DH wasn't so could be some element of genes. She has a multivit and magnesium as supplements.

Honestly I have no idea

I think it is largely genetic. We don't have fabulous diets or anything like that. We do catch the odd cold, but rarely bad enough to take time off work/school. I've always been like that, I didn't have a day off from year 7 to 11 and the school nurse thought I was new in the sixth form because she'd never seen me before.

The thing I wonder is whether there is a downside. My DM has multiple autoimmune disorders and I wonder if that is connected to not really getting ill much when younger. Like a really strong immune system can eventually go haywire. I know someone else who also doesn't seem to get ill and one of their first degree relatives recently died from an autoimmune thing. But obviously that's a completely unscientific idea, based on two people.

Mine rarely get sick so I’d say it’s luck and genes mostly, however I did breastfeed them
both for a year and they eat raw veg and fruit daily. Other than that I have no idea 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s probably just coincidence and I’m being tricked by “Big Laundry”, but I use laundry sanitiser in every wash (instead of fabric softener). Years ago, after a period when both kids seemed to catch every virus going, I bought some in desperation. And things did improve a lot! After about six months I stopped buying it and they promptly had another run of viruses! So I started using it again, and they do seem to be ill less often. Although that could simply be because they’re older and naturally getting sick less often.

Mine are rarely ill with anything infectious.

They do have other health problems (ENT, neurological, reflux) but those are “in built” rather than from germs.

I have no idea if it’s nature or nurture. I’m the opposite of a clean freak and would let them eat food they’d dropped on the pavement if it avoided a tantrum. Maybe that helped, peck of dirt and all that?

Mine was bottlefed, I had a c-section and she’s probably 50% microplastics. I just rarely got sick myself, I assumed it was genetic, once she was the only child in her class who turned up to nursery. she was also raised on a ridiculous amount of berries. I wasn’t though.

I think this may be true, every time I have had a full bloodwork panel (iron deficiency) I always have a slightly elevated white blood cell count, never been in the normal range. Perfectly fine otherwise, don’t get sick, recover from injuries etc well, heal well etc.

When my kids were young, one seemed to pick up everything, one never got ill. Both ate well, same diet, lifestyle etc so I think it’s just luck. Once the more sickly one got to about 8, things improved. None of us get colds much now.

Yes I think there is some truth in this. I used to get ill quite a lot, especially over winter. Then I had a few solid years of pretty much no illness, even minor colds, then got diagnosed with autoimmune disease

Mine are very rarely ill. They were breastfed until ages 2.5 and I absolutely insist they eat vegetables with every meal apart from breakfast, always a green vegetable (normally brocolli) at dinner and some salad veg at lunch. Could be genetics but I'm pretty sure these things help.

Genetics and luck. I'm not an unwell person. I haven't gone to the doctors unwell for years. My ds is now 13. He has never had a day off school, never had a sickness bug and hasn't attended the doctors since his pre school jabs! He had very little nursery bugs. Started at 6 months old in nursery and was not breast fed. It's just luck maybe.

It's probably luck and genetics.

I did some kind of DNA health test thing last year (it was a workplace benefit) and one of the results that came back was that I'm genetically predisposed to catch/suffer more with colds than the average person.

Someone I know swears by echinacea at the first sign of the merest sniffle. I should probably try it!

One of mine never gets ill, just lucky I suppose and a good immune system. He is nearly 16 and has never been physicslly sick in his life. He used to ask what it was like, and be annoyed he couldn't have days off school.

Both mine were breastfed for 12 months and went to nursery at 13 months. Dc is a bit more hardy but dc gets so many colds with 39-40 temperatures and a lingering cough for a week or 2. Dc also consumes huge amounts of strawberries, fruit, home made smoothies and has a balanced diet. Eats a too many sweets though.

Luck and genetics I suppose, I rarely catch colds, neither do my parents, so i suppose I passed on my immune system to my DC when I breastfed them.
They eat fairly healthily but nothing out of the ordinary

I think it's just genetics and no one has any control over it.

How old are they? It might be they've been unlucky and their immune systems are adjusting to fighting virus after virus.

My eldest was ill so many times in year 1 (like once a month until March 25) and now it's been over a year since and she's not been ill once. Only thing I can think of is we resolved her constipation issues. She eats a lot of fruit and veg, and we've been reducing exposure to microplastics as much as possible in the last year.

Rarely ill here, once a year at most. Very autistic, spends a lot of time licking the floor/dog. I'm sure that contributes!

My kids are 8 and 5 and have never really been ill. Interesting that some have put it down to nursery exposure - I think studies have shown that the opposite is true whoch seems to have proved right for my kids - they didn’t go to nursery and my youngest was born during covid so neither of them really caught anything at all until they were about 4 and 2.

They were both vaginal births, ebf and don’t eat UPFs so maybe that has helped.

It’s luck DC 1 and 3 rarely have colds, middle DC has several colds a year.

Do they wash their hands reliably? I think a lot of kids don't see the point and just skip it after using the toilet etc. At 13 though it's probably a bit late to start drumming it in.

Schools in general are absolute germ pits unfortunately because of the sheer volume of people mixing in close quarters. I found it worse with DC2/3 who are close in age, DC1 didn't seem to pick up as much (despite worse hand washing, actually) - I think they probably just would get exposed to the same bugs and then pass it back and forth to each other, increasing the viral load compared with one child with no close sibling.