Too often ill at nursery

[FryingPam]

DS started nursery 4 months ago, but he’s more often ill than not. Last month we only managed a couple of days at nursery, and he’s now off again. I wonder if I should pull him out, financially we’d be better off not paying nursery fees because with him ill all the time, my work hours have reduced drastically and last month my income didn’t even cover nursery fees. Shall I pull him out and quit my job, or is it worth riding it out? I’ve heard that it gets better when they’re 4/5 years old, that seems a long way away. DS is 16 months now.

It will get better in the Spring/Summer. By next Winter he should be bigger and stronger and better able to fight it off.

Thank you. Apart from the financial aspect and the stress with cancelling work all the time, it’s so tough to see him ill. I wish I could just spend the days doing fun stuff with him like before.

It will get better - the first winter they are in is the worst time. My DS2 started at 11 months and the first winter had the usuals colds then also chicken pox, hand foot and mouth and viral
ginigivitis. I got an attendance letter from work. It got much better after that.

I had this issue with dc1. I missed so many important meetings at work. So many days trying to wfh with them at home too, banned from nursery without 48 hours due to a .1 over the temp threshold.

Yeah he was admitted to hospital with rsv and then I thought fuck it and quit my job. Sahm.

I would keep him there, there’s a bad period but then they do get immunity. My kids who went to a childminder got lots of stuff as toddlers, but then were barely ill in primary, especially compared to some of their peers who hadn’t had the exposure before.

It’s while thy immune system builds but is unfair. They get ill from another child then they can’t go and you still pay

nurseries are the worse and esp winter

if you can find a cm less likely to be off so much

It's totally normal for very young kids who've just started nursery to be more often out of it than in it in the early days. It's really annoying but they do get over it quite quickly. I suggest gritting your teeth and riding it out if you can.

DGS is the same. Hopefully as they get bigger their immunity will improve 🤞

You either go through it at nursery and then they are fine by school, or you go through it at school. It’s one of those things. It’s a bit relentless for the first year and winter is peak for it. We averaged 44 days absent a year at nursery but that was the Covid era

If you can, you should absolutely take him out and do fun things with him like you say. Yes it’s normal that he will constantly pick things up at nursery because they are like Petri dishes but it’s not necessary to build a robust immune system (in fact constant illnesses with no recovery time in between weaken the immune system). It must be miserable for them to feel poorly all the time.

It is tempting…it’s just so tricky, feels like dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. I have a good job (no idea for how much longer though with all these absences) and my marriage is a bit on the rocks which makes me even more hesitant to give up my financial independence.

Sorry to hear. That sucks. I don’t know the underlying reasons for your marriage being on the rocks so this might be irrelevant to you but for us, the combination of 2 people working full time in high pressure jobs and the constant nursery bugs was not helping the marriage. In fact I feel like that period of time has given me some kind of PSTD 😅 hated seeing my child so ill too. It’s much less stressful now that I’m a SAHM and can focus on the kids.

Completely agree. Two of us working with a toddler at nursery was awful. Much calmer now I’m a sahp