Childminder - is this normal?

[Ariana87]

My 1 year old DC has been with the childminder 4 days since January and each week coming home with a new cough and cold, which have resulted in 3 hospital admissions. We have had 3 full weeks so far. The childminder takes the children to soft play / play group almost daily which I think is where all the germs are being picked up. I used a childminder for years with my oldest DC’s and can’t recall ever having to pick them up poorly or noticed they seemed to be ill regularly. However, it was a predominantly home based service. Has anyone else had the same issue with a childminder and their child being poorly regularly? Do I wait it out a few more months or do I look for a new setting?

I suppose it depends what you want. You have a childminder who takes the kids out and about. The flip side of this is exposure to illness. The alternative is someone who stays at home. I would be thinking more about the quality of the childcare. Is your child happy, settled and well looked after If so, I would stick it out. If you go with a nursery, you will have the same issues. The only way to avoid this is a nanny or a childminder who stays in.

Par for the course at the moment in terms of picking up loads of colds and stuff that's back with a vengeance post lockdown. Have you been given a preventer inhaler or plan following the admissions? Sounds like they could have viral induced wheeze? Having stuff in place is a game changer.

Same issue as if they went to nursery tbh. My son was ill for 6 months after starting.
As pp, I would be glad they are out and about.
My son has a viral induced wheeze so having an inhaler is a god send to tackling it before hospital.

Kids mix... They share germs and all get recurring bugs. That's fairly normal.

If your DC is having to go to hospital with each bout of illness I'd be querying if there was something underlying that was causing them to get so ill.

It gets better with the warmer months

Does your child have asthma? Seems a bit odd to need to be taken to hospital Every time they've had a cold.

My now 5yo went to childminder from when he was 5 months every day. They went to lots of groups etc, out and about every day. He got occasional colds and that’s it.

Thanks for the replies. DC is settled and has really warmed to her. I am happy with the care plus she has 20 years experience. My DC had a febrile convulsion last month and now I’m petrified that any cough or cold could mean another happens. I know they pick bugs up just not sure if this is excessive and likely due to the regular soft play outings. I would have expected lots of bugs with a nursery but not a CM purely because of the number of other children they come into contact with. Considering there are two school aged siblings in the home there was no illness prior to starting with the CM. I think from the replies it’s best to wait it out for a while and hopefully immunity builds. I’m just worn out with the constant illness and feel awful for DC.

DC has had bronchiolitis twice within 3 weeks of each other both requiring oxygen overnight. The febrile convulsion was the result of an ear infection the DR said. The doctors do not seem concerned and said will pick bugs up it just seems excessive to me that each week it’s a cough or cold and this week has been a bad stomach and temperature all week after only going on Monday.

Both my kids had this when they started nursery, for MONTHS. They are prone to chest infections too so also ensured hospital trips. Pretty normal amongst friends of mine, with child minded kids too. When you consider many of the minded kids also have siblings in school etc it’s not hard to see why it wouldn’t be much different to a nursery setting in that regard.

My second had bugs all the time as a baby. We didn't go out that much, but first was in school, so seemed to be bringing it all home, although they never got ill themselves. It's heartbreaking watching them be so ill, but really not much you can do shy of total lockdown.

This year the bugs and viruses my children have caught have been exceptionally bad. I think the social distancing means immune systems aren’t as strong so things are making them worse.

My second is a lockdown baby and at nursery and has something new wrong every week, without fail. Sometimes two things in one week.
Never had this problem with my first - same nursery!
Not sure if my memory has dulled or if we seem to be picking up more bugs now, but I don't think a prolonged period of no mixing did us very well, I'll never know otherwise though!

Another one saying it's an awful year for bugs this year, everyone I know with younger kids (5 and under) is being really hammered. I think the problem is that they have been exposed to so few bugs over the last year they are really susceptible. Because so many kids are susceptible, there's no herd immunity to dampen down infection rates and everything is spreading fast.

Some kids are just more prone to getting bugs badly too, and it sounds like that may be the case with your son. I don't think changing childcare provider would help massively - its most likely he's picking up things from the other children in her charge, not random kids at soft play. And most childminders I know are out and about at stuff pretty often anyway.

Yes normal for those with a cm or go to nursery

Even more so since covid as many of the children haven’t had the usual mix of bugs via usual socialising and playing

It's normal for a childminder to take kids out and about.

It's normal for children starting childcare to pick up lots of colds/bugs.

I don't think it's normal for a child to be as sick as your child is, needing to be hospitalised etc. Maybe that's a combination of bugs being worse at the moment due to lockdown and your child just being unlucky to be one of the few who are particularly badly impacted by colds/bugs.

I don't think it's likely to be caused by excessive visits to softplay.

As others have said, unfortunately this is very normal when a child starts childcare. It’s also particularly bad this year due to the fact most of our children have been far less exposed these last 2 years than a child their age typically would have been due to covid.

I’m a childminder. We go out every day but usually to national trust places, woodland, farms etc so not coming into contact with many people. Regardless, some of my children have spent more time off the last 2 months than they have in my setting. It’s just been a crazy year for illnesses and it will take a while to settle down. My 3 year old is very rarely ill now, but I remember the first 6 months of her life (in my childminding setting) it was never ending and exhausting. X

Thank you so much for all the replies. I think that’s definitely what’s got me on edge as it’s usually only 1-3% of children hospitalised with bronchiolitis then the febrile convulsion to happen was something else entirely and the most terrifying experience I’ve ever been through. Short of wrapping DC in a box it’s clear from all the replies I can’t prevent the bugs. It may just be that we have been unlucky but it’s scary knowing what appears as a simple cough or cold has turned into much worse for us. I do agree it’s not helped following covid as the bugs are running rampant now everyone is mixing again and I hadn’t really mixed DC with many others at all, prior to the CM. I’m hoping the immunity will be building and by school age it will be great I’ve spoken with the CM who said none of her other children have got so many bugs when starting but now I’m thinking about it that could be for any reason (number of children she’s had at the time, days they attend, age etc) so was probably silly for me to ask her about it