Conjunctivitis and nurseries

[morningpaper]

Dd woke up with red eyes - GP said it looked like it MIGHT be starting conjunctivitis and to give drops as a precaution.

I have taken her into nursery but they looked at me as though I said it might be Bird Flu.

How contagious IS conjunctivitis? The baby gets it a lot but none of the rest of us do, including her sister. I know it has a reputation as being horribly contagious but it is really that bad?

Could you take her back to gp and get an official diagnosis? Then if they say it isn't conjunctivitis get them to write a note and take it to nursery?

It will take several days for an official diagnosis because it needs swabs and lab tests

I know that they need to avoid passing on infections etc but I don't think they understand how HARD it is when you are working

So this month I have 42 hours of nursery time and my bill is £600 - So I'd have to earn £15 an hour just to break even. Mad innit.

Fortunately Dh accepts that he is heavily subsidising my career

I do and so do the nursery staff understand how hard it is. I am a working mother and if my children are sick I have to take time off BUT so do the 20 parents of the children I teach unless I can get a replacement. I resent having to take time off time and time again because parents don't keep their children out of nursery/school for an appropriate time and MY children get the same thing over and over again. Further if my children were to get very very sick from something because another parent didn't want to take time off work I would be furious. Point is some illness are mild in some children and when passed on are quite serious conditions and that is therefore why YOU have to take time off work when YOUR children are sick.

I don't have the option of DH heavily subsiding my career I have to earn my money to pay for my childcare.

"Point is some illness are mild in some children and when passed on are quite serious conditions.."

In ds's case colds = ear infection & tonsilitis = possible febrile convulions & temporary hearing loss = speech delay (does speech therapy) & behavioural problems.

IME I really can't agree with sending children to nursery with worse illnesses.

Calm down Mary Pop

I appreciate that it's even more of a nightmare for you, being a single mother and I'm not claiming otherwise

But I've hardly been wildly irresponsible - I took my baby to the GP to check her over because she had a cold, the GP said that her red eyes might develop into conjunctivitis so gave me some a/b drops as a precaution but said that it would be fine to send her to nursery. But the nursery disagreed, which I think was a bit of an over-reaction. As a consequence I have lost a lot of money for a meeting that I have had to cancel tomorrow and the nursery will have re-sold my dd's place because they are very well organised like that.

I'm sure that the nursery knows what it is talking about but I am still allowed my little rant, non?

can your nursery resell the place - is that really what they'll do? that's the argument ours puts for making us pay for holidays etc., that they can't resell the place, and they still have to pay the staff - and I totally understand this. Surely they can't be getting the money off you and someone else?

mp, you may be able to get your GP to prescribe an extra course of chloramphenicol drops so you can keep them at home in anticipation of the next bout. Mine have all had blocked tear ducts as littlies and tended to ooze gunk at every opportunity, and the GP eventually just gave us a couple of prescriptions in reserve so we could blitz it at the first sign of oozing. It does make a difference if you get in there fast. Alternatively, breastmilk is very effective (express a few drops onto a clean teaspoon and drizzle into the eye).

frogs I do try the breastmilk first but it doesn't seem to work very well - it seems to stabilise it rather than clear it up, if you know what I mean.

Her eyes are absolutely fine this morning.

Yes the nursery re-sell the place - they always have a waiting list and you can ask what additional spaces they have free each day if you need extra childcare.

The only lesson I've learnt from this is that next time I am worried about anything like this, I won't let the nursery know because I don't trust them not to over-react.

I'm not a single mother however husband works away from home mostly and therefore cannot be relied upon to stay at home. When possible he does but its a bit difficult when you 1000 miles away to do anything.

CADS the point is conjuntivis can be serious for some children, perhaps not yours BUT that means as responsible parents saying somethings mild and your child has probably got it from nursery doesn't mean its okay to send them back with it to pass along. It therefore becomes a never ending illness that is impossible to get rid of.

Nits is one of those things that is mild but very uncomfortable and I don't see why I should have to not only clean my hair every few days but my dd's because one child in her class is not cleaned properly. Okay nits is not serious or even potentially serious but it is antisocial to send you child to school knowing they have nits or may have nits so they can pass to every other child. I have had a parent tell me its okay to send her son to nursery with lice (which I can see crawling on his head) because he doesn't like his hair being washed. Because that is NOT on the list of infectious deaseases I cannot say he cannot come to nursery so he has passed it along.

Marypop: Apologies, but you said "I have to earn my money to pay for my childcare" so I assumed you were single. Makes me very sad when women use phrases such as "my childcare". Aren't they joint children?!

Both my children regularly had gunky eyes when they were small. Ds's nursery were very good about it. Doctor said it was fine, and they accepted that. They were also great about taking them with minor illnesses. They said with things like colds, it was inevitable that children would get them, and they didn't expect them to be kept off for that reason. Their view was that if the children would be happier at home, that's where they should be. But if they were happy at nursery, they could stay. One of the advantages of nursery over a child minder for me was that there was space in nursery for a bit more down time, without affecting the other children. They were pretty strict on vomiting and diarrhoea though!

I agree with beckybrastraps. Vomiting, diarrhoea and fevers...children should be kept at home. I wouldn't mind if parents sent children to nursery with conjunctivitis.

one of mine got viral conjunctivitis for almost 2 weeks - I remember crying tears of frustration because the nursery wouldn't take her and I really had to go to work (ended up paying for emergency childcare so those 2 weeks I was actually paying out money rather than earning it). She was totally fine in herself but as a baby used to get it every time she had a cold!!

This is one of the reasons I would never opt for a nursery again (not that I'll have anymore!). I honestly think it is the least flexible childcare option!!

MaryPOp - You must have misunderstood me. I would definitely not send my dcs to nursery with conjunctivitis or anything other than a mild cold. Both of mine stayed off nursery this week because they had bad colds with gunky eyes. I was trying to agree with your point by explaining what problems constant colds during winter have created for my ds. Hope this is clearer.

CADS sorry my misunderstanding. It is my childcare because previously I was childminding so it wasn't an expense we have. I decided to change my career and for a period required them to use a nursery or childminder. My situation for further complicated because I worked in the nursery my youngest attended. So neither he no I attended when he was poorly. I haven't so much a problem with babies because if the staff are properly trained they hygiene is effective and therefore don't pass it on. When you are decussing moving children it is almost impossible to prevent it from spreading and some children get very uncomfortable and poorly with it. I feel for them because others, as has been said hardly suffer just gunky eyes, but then they pass to another who really does suffer. Also, 9 times out of 10 they keep getting it because it keeps coming back via other children. It hardly seems fair, then of course the parents come in irrate because its the fourth time their child has caught this and the only place it could have come from is the nursery. By parents bringing their child in with something contagious it puts the nursery in a difficlut position and unfairly risks reinfecting the other children.

Plus the only way of really treating it effectively is antibiotics which children build an immunity against with overuse. I think you'd agree it not reasonable to do this when its preventable by when you see you child has the infection, they stay at home until they are not contagious thus preventing infecting or worse reinfecting other children.

The agrument could be the same for chilckenpox no? Its at it most congatious whe it is without sympom. The damage has been done by the time the spots come so why not send them to nursery? Because by doing so you are knowingly passing a contagious illness to another child, thereby ricking their health.

I haven't read the whole thread, and I am sure that it has been said many times over, but conjunctivitus is HIGHLY contagious. My eldest ds is 5 and he routinely gets it 3 or 4 times a year, his 2 yr old brother, maybe twice a year. My 5 year olds school attendance last year was 92% and almost all of the time he had off was due to conjunctivitus, needing 3 or 4 days off at a time as it always spreads to the other eye just as the first eye is getting better.

Heartmum2jamie, but its only a mild condition, why didn't you send him to sechool to infect everybody else. The you wouldn't have to take time off work!