How are young children presenting with covid?

[SkinPaperThin]

My partner has had a cough & runny nose for a few days and now my 5yo has a cough and slight sore throat. Both have been functioning normally and dp had negative lateral flow. However it is impossible to test my 5yo. She screams and flails around and last time we tried she managed to knock the swab out of my hand on to the floor 🤦
My 9yo manages much better thankfully and so far she doesn't seem to have any symptoms, although she has allergies so often hard to tell. I now have a runny nose and feeling a bit tired but have had 2 negative lft's since Friday as I do them for work.
I think it's unlikely to be covid as dp caught this from work where loads of people have had it and no positive cases that he's aware of and I'm pretty sure they'd be told if there were.
Also from what I've read kids also tend to present differently to adults and my 5yo and dp have exactly the same symptoms.
Do I put her through the trauma of trying to do a lft again or shall I just accept that we probably don't have it and stop being paranoid?

My 4 year old has it now. Started with sore throat. Horrendous cough now, took a few days after sore throat b4 it came on.

Just to clarify 5yo has a runny nose too and dp also had a very slight sore throat. Both have tickley coughs.

@MistyFrequenciesy that sounds rough. Hope she's better soon. My 5yo says her throat only hurts when she coughs.

My youngest just had a runny nose, eldest had no symptoms. Will your 5 year old do their own test? My 4 year old had to do daily lateral flows and wouldn't let us anywhere near, but he would copy daddy and do it to himself!

My 3 kids aged between 5 and 11 presented differently

1 was completely asymptomatic
1 had a very mild cold
1 had a cough that lasted for 2 days.

They followed the same pattern for all the colds and viruses that enter our household.

If they have coughs, they really need to isolate and have PCRs. Your partner at least should have PCR and if positive, I'd assume the child has it too if you really can't test them. The 5 year old really should isolate with symptoms though if they can't have a test

@ScarlettSunset I've been wondering about this. I really wasn't sure what to do re: pcr's, especially after reading that lft's are more accurate than first thought. I could go and do one myself and maybe book dp for one too.
Out of interest, those with positive children did it show up on lft?

My 9 year old started complaining her legs were hurting. Then she developed a very mild temperature. After the positive test she came down with an awful cough. She’s coughing almost non stop and has barely slept it’s so bad.

12 yo DS no symptoms on days 1 and 2 after positive LFTs.

Positive PCR day 3 and symptoms started same day - fever, body aches, headache, blocked nose, vomiting, fatigue over days 3 to 7. Day 7 now and still has mild fever and blocked nose but otherwise feeling quite a bit better.

No cough and no change to smell/taste so far.

Your DP needs a PCR if he has symptoms.

DD2 had a headache
DD1 had no symptoms

Both tested positive on PCR after school sent DD2 for one.

[quote SkinPaperThin]@ScarlettSunset I've been wondering about this. I really wasn't sure what to do re: pcr's, especially after reading that lft's are more accurate than first thought. I could go and do one myself and maybe book dp for one too.
Out of interest, those with positive children did it show up on lft?[/quote]
I think LFTs are pretty good, but can still miss positive cases. PCR trust has been a bit dented recently but they are still the recommended test for those with symptoms

If you have symptoms you need a PCR as people say. LFTs do miss positive cases (two kids in our case, performed before we could access a PCR test).

They had fierce colds and actually more like influenza fever, chills and stayed in bed.

With coughs you should be getting pcrs anyway.

2/3 of us only had +LFT after we had tested positive on PCRs. You can’t rely on them completely.

This is exactly how it presented in myself and dd to begin with. Dd had a sore throat, a runny nose, then a tiny tiny cough a few days later. Our lateral flows did become positive by not until several days after the symptoms started. You need to get PCRs

LFT was negative on my 4 year old the same day PCR was positive.

Did any of your DC present with chest infection type symptoms?

My 2yo can't tell me what's wrong verbally but he's got a horrendous chesty cough, temperature and lots of green snot.

Littlest babe is 8 weeks and has brochilitis.

I assumed it was a chest infection but now I'm starting with headaches, off taste and sore throat.

Worried they've had covid. Booked us all in for PCRs.

We've had negative lft though

A cough? PCR is needed and isolation until negative result.
Lots of kids in my kids school have 'just' had a runny nose as a covid symptom. Some had a sore throat, some a mild cough and some a mildly high temp. I think you should all be getting PCR's.

Dd (3) had a raging high temp, no cough but ended up with chest infection afterwards so the cough developed from that. The chest infection after was horrendous, the actual covid part wasn't too bad.

Thanks all, we went for pcr's last night and just got the results this morning. All negative thankfully! Really impressed with the turnaround time as well, only 12 hrs.

Many freinds say in young kids colds,sickness and the runs.
Glad pcr is negative.
We had quick turnaround on home test too.
Nightmare pcr testing kids.