To ask if the first winter in childcare is as bad for germs as everyone says?

[childcaresettling]

Particularly if it’s a small setting (5-8 children total each day, goes two days).

no other new starters so they’ve all done at least a year in childcare. My LO is nearly 2, so went to baby classes etc last winter but I’m sure that’s not the same

So I have an idea, can everyone share how disruptive it was to their work (or not), how often they were off and if it really was like everyone says?

See we haven't had anything like this. Two children who started nursery at about 12 months old and COVID aside (which they managed to dodge but had time off for being a close contact) they've missed maybe 5 days of nursery between them in all the years they were there. Now in school and they've not had more than a day of absence a year, often less. I think some children definitely get ill less and also parents have different thresholds for what they consider ill to be.

Yes - even though I said upthread that DD2 “caught everything”, it was still nothing even close to 25%. And that’s with me always following the 48 hour rule for d&v.

Thanks everyone

As they say,
"Before kids I used to think I had a good immune system. It turns out I just hadn't been spending time with people who like to sneeze on your eyeballs"
😂

I basically used all my annual leave on time off for poorly children for four years. This was a while ago, I don't know whether employers give parental leave for these things now.

Yup awful though nothing like 25% of their time.
Worst part was it all spreading through the house so it was constant illness / caring / illness / caring.
It gets better

It's not a guaranteed nightmare - kind of a matter of luck. Neither of mine got more than a slight sniffle that didn't merit staying at home during their first winter, but SIL's oldest had non stop bad viruses in the equivalent period. And I was worried about this because I have a dreadful immune system and catch everything.

It’s the first 3 winters really. 😱 That said, I rarely missed days of work, exceptions being for vomiting bugs and chickenpox. Our nursery was happy to have them if they were snotty or coughing as long as they didn’t have a fever. They were snotty and coughing about 6 months of the year. But maybe had a fever for 4 days max, which was not hard to manage between Dh and I.

They are secondary and late primary school now, very rarely ill, and hardly miss any school.

I also took extra vitamin C and zinc all through the winter and started on an echinacea tincture as soon as anyone got a sniffle. I was rarely ill.

It was horrific for two of mine, one was out a little, the other was always well (hilariously our most picky eater, but gp/ teachers always said given he lived on fruit, yoghurts and ham and cheese he possibly got everything he needed!!)

Mine barely got sick, but the nursery is clean and most of the other families have jobs where they can keep the kids at home. We got sicker than he did!

Permanently luminous green from October until April/May, a brief pause for assorted other rashes, blotches, chickenpox, coughs and the like until September, two weeks until the first bug (we're not even going to touch upon the nit situation) repeat for another year - and then once they start school, they'll be practically invincible as the other children are dropping like flies. Except for the nits. They'll be a constant presence and you'll be hyper alert to the smallest scrap of dark dust in their hair until they're practising for the Y6 Leavers' party.

Think it is luck of the draw. Just a few days off for chicken pox and hand/foot and mouth. Two in a large nursery from a year old. One incident where ds seemed so unwell we were blue lighted to hospital from nursery. On arrival he decided he was fine and started playing! Biggest problem was the nits. DS had a buzz cut but many long hours combing dd hair with a nit comb every day after preschool.

Yes, it's terrible, but it has to happen sometimes, otherwise it'll be their first year at school. You will catch some of it, especially the winter vomiting bugs, because I think there's no immunity to that. Any sign of diarrhoea or vomiting they usually have a policy of having to be out a certain length of time from the last symptom before they can come back. It's worth getting the chicken pox vaccine I think, and then the annual flu vaccine.

And oh God the nits. Buy a nitty gritty comb to have it in the house and get the hedrin spray and spray on them each morning. Good luck!

It just depends on your child. Mine was fine. Never caught anything. Didn’t even catch chickenpox when it was rampant. She never missed a day. So you might be lucky!

I don’t remember mine being particularly ill themselves during their first year in childcare, but I have never had as many colds, before or since, as I had during DD1’s first year in a childcare setting. Even now I get the annual back to school cold (which I appear to have caught early this year)

Yes. Its brutal. My boy went to nursery in the Oct at 10.5 months old. He was snotty for at least 6 months

Mine were in quite big nursery settings. Ill every 2-3 weeks all winter for the first winter. With DC1 I caught most of it as well. DC2 not so much. They tended to get ill on Thurs/Fri then be ill all weekend, so less nursery missed but a lot of other plans got cancelled!

Save loads of annual leave for winter.
Expect to maybe use unpaid parental leave for really grim periods.
Don't share towels at home. Keep your hand own hand towel out if reach of your dc's.
Take your vitamins and fresh juice.
Keep the odd weekend totally free and quiet, just get out for walks. Get as much UK winter sunshine as possible.

If it's any consolation, mine had 100% (or near enough) attendance from year R onwards.

It wasn’t for us, I’m not sure mine ever actually missed a day of childcare through illness. But mine did forest school while probably helped.

Granddaughter has been in childcare for three weeks and so far has had a puke bug, and hand foot and mouth. Both parents also laid low and off work with same illnesses a few days later.

Urgh it was the tummy bugs. Dealing with sickness every couple of months was just hell.
Luckily we had a childminder who had a handful of kids in a home setting and she didn’t make a fuss about snotty noses so kept the kids through that, just not bad bellies. Fair enough.

Mine barely had any days off. They did get a few things but they either went in (coughs colds etc) or they had the odd day off. They went two days a week only though and my parents had them for 2 days.

25% is about right. It varies from child to child obviously, you may be lucky but its pretty brutal.

It does get better.

Yes. It’s awful. I dint think I managed a full week in work October to January.