Germs!!! Help!

[Cuppatea88]

Hi I hope someone out there understands me and can help. I’m a first time mum after fertility issues, I’ve always been a bit of a geramphobe but now it’s taken to a whole new level! Also after Covid. I get scared going anywhere m, infact I’m scared all the time. I’m so desperate to keep them safe! Worry about rsv and covid and flu. I worry about small children being around my baby because of germs at nurseries, I don’t want to go into shops or to a cafe. I’m feeling so anxious, how do you deal with illness st home when you’ve got a little one? Any help or advice would be greatly received.
xx

Children’s immune systems need to grow and develop. They only do this by being exposed to life - germs and all! It’s a way of protecting them when they are adults , building up their immune tolerance so they don’t get really unwell.

I guess what I’m asking people is as a new mum, What do you all do? Say if your partner catches something say the flu, Do you banish them to another room for a week or if you get something what do you do? Any advice would be great! 😊

Thankyou for your advice @Porkyporkchop

You need to get therapy for this, it’s outside the realms of normal cleanliness concerns with small children.

@Garman ok thanks.

How old is your baby? That kind of intense anxiety can be common in the early weeks but if it continues I’d look at getting some help ASAP. There’s no harm in being a bit cautious with a newborn during virus season for the first few weeks but if anxieties about germs are putting you off doing normal things then I would definitely seek help.

@wishIwasonholiday10 thank you for your reply. No she’s not a newborn now. I am waiting on an appointment for therapy, Think because of the fertility struggles it’s made me quite nervous. I just wanted to see what other parents do when there is illness in the household and what they do as it’s my first time being a parent. Thanks for replying.

i just make sure hands are washed, if they vomit I wipe down the toilet and the taps, wash towels and bedding on a hot wash.

They will always be exposed to germs, you can’t avoid it. If it’s not nursery then it’s school or siblings. If they’re miserable and feel rotten I give them calpol.

DS was born in 2022 and I got covid when he was 5 months old. I did isolate from him back then and and neither DH or DS caught it. I worried about DS being ill when he was so small but as long as they're comfortable, breathing ok, drinking etc then you just have to let it run its course.

We caught things at the baby groups we went to but I just tried to make sure he'd had chance to recover before taking him back and exposing him to the next thing.

I understand this as I'm a naturally anxious person, the first year at nursery was illness after illness and you have no choice but to get on with it. It's never nice seeing them ill but I don't feel panicked now if DS gets a temperature as we've dealt with it now so many times and feel we would know at what point to need to worry. I also think as the child gets older and more robust it's natural to worry less.

Planet Earth is not a sanitised environment. In order to live a full and wonderful life you need to accept that you share it with lots of other organisms, most of which will not do any lasting harm.
You could artificially sanitise your whole life, thereby limiting your joy massively, or you could accept that Earth is full of different creatures and just crack on and enjoy everything. Choose!
(I appreciate that some people need therapy to be able to make this decision logically, and it's great that you are getting this).

In terms of how to act practically, I would personally keep a slightly greater distance from my baby if I was sick. Eg I would not kiss on the lips or sneeze near it's face. Basically if a caregiver has a normal winter illness then baby is 99% going to get it too, but you can limit the viral load. No banishing anyone to another room for a week though! Healthy babies desperately need to be exposed to normal illnesses. If you prevent this you are massively screwing your child over in later life.

Also it's usually DS that brings germs into the home but if one of us was to get ill first then it depends what it is. A cold, even a bad one we'd just carry on as normal but in our household someone with flu would be isolating from the other 2 so one of us was well to look after DS. You have to do what you think is best. Not socialising at all though doesn't sound fun.

@DrEggman @MightySnail @ringmybe11 Thank you so much for the advice. I really appreciate it, it’s all new to me, so things like colds go on as normal but flu/covid isolate. My baby is bf so I can’t isolate from them. My partner has brought a few things home, Most recently a flu type thing so he’s hiding himself in a bedroom. I just question myself guess. I will start going to places it’s just when it’s in my house I’m not sure if that made sense x

We've all had covid, colds, norovirus etc.

Never isolated

I think the negative impact of being anxious and worried will outweigh any benefit of avoiding the odd cold.

Their immune system needs to be challenged. Getting sick is a part of life.

Obviously don't let them eat mud, don't sneezing in their face, wash hands etc.
However, going OTT does more harm than good.

I think my one exception is newborns, who are so vulnerable. DD did have rsv at 3 weeks and was hospitalised and if I had another winter born child I'd keep them a bit less socialised in their first weeks.

@FutureFry thank you. I just wasn’t sure what was best to do. There’s awful things going about. They’re just so little and you hear so many scary things. Raman’s for the advice.

You just have to be sensible. You carry on breastfeeding.

Their immune systems need to develop.

Breast feeding and taking all vaccines offered, along with reasonable standards of household cleaning, increased when someone is ill has been sufficient here.

Exposure to a wide range of germs is important to develop the immune system and prevent allergies.

If children are not exposed to germs their immune systems don’t learn to recognise viruses and bacteria.

it’s not simply ‘all germs and viruses are bad’ - our relationship with the world around us is more complex.

https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2022/04/living-with-germs-has-its-upside

In my house if an adult had a vomiting bug or flu they would keep to their room for a couple of days but not a whole week. We’d all be more careful with hand washing etc but that’s it. However once you have more than one child it all goes out the window really!

@RosesAndHellebores @Muchtoomuchtodo @Rainyblue Thankyou for you replies. There’s such awful things about I didn’t know what people would expose their babies to x

We do nothing if one of catches cold or flu except normal hand washing, coughing into elbow, disposing of tissues quickly etc. My kids were asymptomatic with covid when it floored us, DD2 was only a baby. DD1 got RSV multiple times and did have suspected asthma and hospital admissions with bronchiolitis and croup as a baby and toddler. We dealt with it as best we could, got her help when needed, kept the prescribed inhalers in the medicine cabinet after the first instance. We couldn't avoid her catching things though. DD1 grew out of it. DD2 has had no issues dealing with croup, never gets wheezy or struggles with breathing when ill like her sister did.

@MarioLink Thankyou for your reply and advice.