Poorly toddler all the time- any help??

[OS22]

My son is 15 months and started nursery about 2 months ago 4 days a week. At first he developed a common cold which was expected at some point - however he has never really recovered from this and we have counted now he has been under the weather for around 7 weeks. The cold lastest around 1 with the couch staying for a while, then came high temps and screaming which dr couldn’t put finger on.. then came an ear infection and conjunctivitis. The nursery have also constantly told us he has loose nappies (which has always been quite normal for him) however how recently they are terrific. Exploding everywhere. Having to bath him each time he goes. The nursery have rang and said if it happens more than once a day he will have to go home. I work full time, I’m stressed, my baby is always sick I’m tired from being up in the night changing and bathing him, he seems unhappy every now and again and fed up.. can anyone shed any light on illness within nurseries, or any ideas why he has such chronic Diarrhea!! -

I forgot to add, we have always had a slight issue with his milk as he had reflux when new born, and then colic.. I’m wondering if it could be the milk :/ he is still on formula.. I tried with Cow’s every now and again however he doesn’t really like eating we struggle to get him to eat at home! So I feel like formula may still be best and have all the goodness in he needs.. should I be considering lactose free?
I can’t carry on like this it’s ruining my life 😭

Formula will need be providing everything he needs. It does sound like an intolerance but don't assume it's lactose. You need to see your GP and get a referral to a paediatric dietitian.

not be

Sorry meant to add that it could be dairy/cow's milk protein. Is there a reason why it hasn't been looked into before as you say he's always had loose nappies?

We have been to the drs numerous times when he new born and they just said reflux which eventually stopped, when he was a little older I went back and said about his nappies and they fobbed me off with teething, it seemed mangable when he was younger as I wasn’t at work and he was home with me and it was still contained within the nappy! It seems to have recently become a lot more violent and now getting in the way of day to day life.. this along with all his other little illnesses he is picking up has turned what I thought was nothing into a big thing really! X

We had a similar situation where our boy had a cows milk allergy as it caused bad reflux. Eventually the doctor prescribed special formula and it improved massively. Slowly over 6 months we introduced dairy foods as per the milk ladder and he he is now tolerant. As for nursery for quite a long time our boy seemed to be I'll every week and its slowly gets better (not much). By the sounds of it it could be teething mixed with a virus and intolerance. I would recommend cutting out dairy and look at the milk ladder, give him multivitamins and take note of what he eats. This age is pretty horrific as I don't think our sons stools got hard consistently until he was about 19 months and has had every big going and it can be one after the other.

It may be an intolerance to another type of food which is why it's good to keep a diary and also ask the nursery what they feed him so if you have to back to the doctors they may see a pattern.

I feel your pain as it's such a hard stage with so many colds/vomiting/exploding nappies. Always come back to mumsnet as so many people have been through all this before

Does he eat at nursery?

Yes they get him eating all sorts which really shocks me.. all he will eat at home is sausages!! Feeding is a very stressful time for me. He won’t allow me to put a fork or spoon near his mouth just bats it away with his hand so it’s finger food only and he is very picky!

I find it's all about giving them a choice with as much as possible. For example if he wont let you feed him then say do you want to do it yourself or give them a spoon. Also try diversion tactics like airplane with the fork or try to do it in a way that relates to what they like, cars, TV program etc. Our boy was really fussy for a stage and lived on fish fingers. Now our boy is 2 he stuffs his face.

As you give him finger food and he eats it let him have that. Its perfectly fine and we get stressed to and sometimes they just go through horrible phases.

Try different techniques but most of all try to make it fun as we eventually found out it makes it easier.

Btw our nursery have always said he eats everything and no problem and when he got home he was fussy as anything so sometimes kids will act up at home as they usually expect to get what they want and will push the boundaries

Catching lots of viral infections and bugs at nursery is unfortunately very common and normal though I know it doesn't help you. My son started creche at 15 months old and he caught everything at nursery so we lasted all of 6 months before deciding it was just too much for him and us to deal with and rearranged both our working hours in order to make it possible to pull him out of nursery and look after him between us two and granny one day a week. I realise this is not possible for everyone. He did get sick less when we pulled him out of creche but low and behold at 3 years old he started proper nursery school and again began to get sick. We realised this time that there was nothing we can do about this and just had to endure it, and I mean A LOT of sickness to the point where he was referred by gp to peads at hospital to make sure he was OK immune system wise. He is 4.5yrs now and is still just one of those kids who catches everything going around.

Also like your ds a very picky eater and always has been since weaning at 6 months old (he is now diagnosed with high functioning ASD so we now understand a lot of this is due to sensory issues). We give him a multivitamin every day and just feed him the best we can, even school can't get him to eat properly to the point where they refused to take our money for school dinners as they felt it inappropriate due to him eating so little!! We've gone through phases of tense meal times, and tried every trick in the book. One thing I find works best is distraction during meal time... Favourite cartoon or YouTube video on while having the plate in front of them. Put out a selection of finger foods if he won't let you use a spoon, such as cheese slices or a bowl of grated cheese, with buttered bread finger slices (its the same ingredients as a sandwich just eaten differently). You say he eats sausages which is very good actually because he's getting iron from it at least. Is there anything else he eats? You could try a bowl of dry cereal no matter what time of day if you pick the right kind that has iron in it like fortified cereal. Plain pasta without sauce is also a good starter.

In terms of the diarreah, this could easily just be toddler diarreah if you Google it, especially if it's occurring no matter what you feed him.

Sorry this is so long, I hope some of it helps.