Help, 2 kids under 3 years - I have been constantly ill and so have ds1 and 2 since ds1 started pre-school. Is this normal??

[doodledandy]

DS1 started pre-school last autumn. Before this I was hale and hearty and seldom ill. I must have had one cold in the past 5 years. Since November, ds1 and 2 have had colds and ear infections on and off and currently both have coughs. I have been ill with flu and colds and have now had 8 weeks off work with labyrinthitis, which has included a stay in hospital it was so frightening and debilitating. (I am now waiting for an MRI scan to eliminate any more sinister cause of the dizziness but still, assuming it is viral it is still bad enough).
Does anyone else have experience of this kind of thing happening once the oldest child statrts npre-school, and if so, does it get better??? I can't carry on like this with 2 kids under 3.....

Yes I was never so ill as when DS started nursery as a baby. Both DC picked up lots of things when they started school and DS (older child) passed the lot on to DH and me. Then DS found a whole load of new germs when he started in reception. Again these were spread round the family.

I imagine that it will improve as spring comes and will not be anything like as bad next winter.

Sorry second sentence should say when they started nursery.

same here....dd mainlines bugs in from wherever she mixes with other kids and they rattle around our family and i'm sureour immune systems just go to pot.....as a family, we seem to be ill oct-march each year i sometimes feel that there can't be a bug out there that we haven't had.....think it should be stated in a prepregnancy contract!

would also like to hope that it will improve

sorry to hear about the labyrythitis....my mum had it and it's awful isn't it?

same here ds went to playgroup not sept gone but one before and since then myself and 3 fishes all been ill with something or other. Ds is 4.4yrs,dd1 2.1 and dd2 13mths. Dds started a nursery for 2 session a week before christmas and they now bring a whole host of different bugs home.

We had a couple of winters like that when dd1 and dd2 were 2 and 1, and then 3 and 2. All of us ill for about one week out of 4, in a cycle - one dd for a week, next dd for the next week, DP or me for the next week, one week "off" being ill, then round again.

It got loads better for us, after that couple of years. In the last 4 years - since the sickly couple of winters - none of my dds or us have been ill much at all.

Yes for the first winter out of 34 I have not had a single cold. And I was a very cold prone child, had loads of colds when I au paired in America for a year, when I started university, when the children were babies etc.

Now if I could just sort out my reversion to teenage acne.....

Yes it is a bit of a shocker . It also seems so perverse as before kids I could just go to bed, watch tv, read books etc on the rare occasions that I would be ill. Now however I can still be found valiently attempting to grill fish fingers, wipe up sh*t, do the shopping even when feeling like the world is revolving as if I had drunk about 8 pints of stella. Unfortunately, unlike when you have drunk 8 pints of stella, you actually care.... I am referring to the labyrinthitis, which yes, is really bad pollywobbledoodle. How long did your mum have it for?
Thanks bozza - spring is on the way so hopefully the bugs will disappear.
Fennel - I don't think anything could have prepared me for the illness merry-go-round. Thank God it seems to have been self limiting in time for you - gives me hope....except I am only on the first winter

Dd1 started nursery this year we have had cold after cold, dd2 seems to have had it 5 times. Can't wait for summer to get here.

mum was bedbound for a few weeks then it grad improved, 6-8 weeks i think...

Thanks polly w d, I thought it was about that long. HO Hum, thank God for my mum, she has helped me look after the kids...