DS starting nursery before 1st immunisation...

[Numbthumbs]

Hi,

I feel really awful but im having to put DS (and 20 mo DD) into nursery at 8 weeks old as DP is being made redundant at some point soon and i need to go back to work earlier than anticipated.

Its only 1 day a week but he wont have had his 8 week injections when he first goes and obviously im worried about infections. The nursery are ok with him starting without being immunised (im not suprised at £39 a day) but i just wondered what other peoples thoughts might be?

I dont really have much of a choice as DP has still got to work full time until his end date is announced and has no holiday left, my DM is having them the other day im at work but cant take time off to help me out with this.

Thanks, im really fretting about this and feel so guilty about putting him in nursery so young so appreciate any replies.

Well, he's been out and about generally and there's no way you could have stopped him getting one if the diseases that babies are vax. against before now anyway.

Also, there are children who don't have vax. either through parental choice or for medical reasons and they attend nurseries, play groups and schools so his not being vax. shouldn't be a barrier to him attending.

Sorry you're having to go back earlier than you'd have liked

Agree with all flisspaps says, particularly that as ds already has an older sibling you are bound to get a level of exposure to germs that you don't get with a pfb.

Also a lot of stuff in nurseries is the kind of stuff you don't vaccinate against so I am not sure ds is necessarily worse off . Am sure that nursery will take extra special care of him (my experience of very young babies in nursery is limited but they applied sort of careful handwashing and cleanliness you see in hospitals).

The diseases the injections protect against are fairly uncommon these days, things like diptheria, polio, whooping cough etc., which your son would have to be very unlucky to contract. Nursery illnesses tend to be things like coughs and colds, non-specific viruses, chicken pox etc which he wouldn't be vaccinated against anyway.

Please don't feel guilty and upset about putting him in nursery. He'll be with his sister and having lots of fun. DS started nursery at 16 months and DD at 12 months and she settled much better - I think being younger helped.

Both whooping cough and measles are no longer uncommon.

Would it be possible to have him with a childminder for the first half year or so? This way he would face less exposure compared with nursery.

I agree with dikkertjedap. just organise earlist posible date for immunisation, even if he/she is at nursery first. baby rooms are often seperate from other children, check that this is the case.

Measles would be an issue until ds was 1 (assuming you would vaccinate ) so not sure you are much worse off than if you put ds in at later age.

He will be in a room with up to 10 other children aged under 18 months (he is the youngest) all of whom are vaccinated (i checked). My DD will be in the next room but as there will only be 4 of them on a thursday they will all join up after lunch and have their nap/quiet time together so he will be exposed to 18-24 month olds aswell.

Ive got his 6 week check next week so im going to bring it up with the GP. His vaccination is booked for the monday after he starts on the thursday but he has 3 days of settling in sessions that week so if there was something going around he would catch it surely.

My head hurts just thinking about it.

Thanks for your replies