GAH! DD (2.5) has chickenpox... i have a busy work week ahead, naturellement. Come, MNers, give me your combined folkspun wisdoms as to how to make the next few days not Absolutely Hellish...

[ExterminAitch]

pretty please?

she seems fine in herself... blah blah blah LIKE I CARE.

how bad is it going to get? (can't believe we're stuck in the house when the upstairs neighbours are knocking down walls with a pneumatic drill. i had hoped to get dd into nursery next week and escape to a pal's house to work).

not too fab, but not too bad thanks. she wet herself, the poor wee thing, and came in with us in the middle of the night. she seems to be finding it very itchy today, keeps asking 'what's that?' pointing to a spot and saying 'is it a chickenpops? poor soul, she's desperate to scratch them but i'm trying to get her to stick to the ones in her hair.

i don't want to tempt fate, but she doesn't seem to be covered, iykwim? maybe 100 or so spots at varying degrees of readiness? there are more coming up but they're not galloping, i hope. fingers crossed she's getting it mildly. or can they just keep appearing for days and days, do you think?

I don't want to alarm you but our nursery wouldn't take little ones back until spots had all scabbed over, regardless of the 5 days from blisters appearing thing. If you think about it it's probably 5 days from the last blisters appearing as that would leave enough time for them to scab over. when ds had it new blisters kept forming for almost 5/6 days whereas some kids just get a few blisters and then no more pop up.

I would ring your nursery and ask what their policy is so that you can plan accordingly.

Also, children can catch C.P. more than once or it can trigger a viral rash reaction to re-exposure to the virus so it would be kindest to check with other parents before letting your dd have any contact with other children. We didn't know this and indavertently gave another set of parents a problem with their child (who had already had C.P.) then having to be excluded from nursery for a couple of days due to the viral rash thing.

cheers, i phoned them this morning and they're saying the same as you about the scabbing. gah.

will check with parents with whose kids she'll come into contact as a matter of course, although i'm trying to keep her under house arrest anyway. this is Not A Good Time, the neighbours upstairs have just moved out and a team of builders is in to knock down walls and refurb the entire flat... the banging has started.

so... builders upstairs. check.

trapped inside. check.

hot weather. check.

all-day hosp appointment for me tomorrow. check.

interviews to do today and tomorrow, with pieces to write thereafter. check.

sometimes i really wish i had a garden.

Aitch!

Long time no virtual contact. Sorry to hear about the dreaded pox. We had it last month. DD1 was fine - crabby at the end. Piriton helped the scratching but she hated calamine. Also dosed up with calpol and calprofen. Our nursery said five days after the first blisters and back she went.

DD2 was horredous. Poor thing was only 4 months old and we had an ambulance visit, out of hours doctors, antibiotics, expolding bottoms. Just getting back to normal. We used aqueous calamine for her which was much easier to get on.

I shall return to the BLW forum next month when we begin weaning number two!

Aitch, take a look at this from the Health protection Agency. It's the quarantine periods for schools and nurseries for various infectious diseases - you may find that your dd's nursery has a copy of it on display (mine has)

It clearly states 5 days from onset of rash, and this advice is what the nursery should be following.

hth

Oh, Aitch!

She may get a more mild-to-moderate case, as DD2 did, because they're that good bit younger.

DD1 started out in heaps of blisters, so if your wee one hasn't got many, she might not get so many.

Here's hoping.

Those ones in the scalp are yucky when they scab over.

Has she got a fever?

Hope she gets better fast.

God, I really feel for you in this heat with building site noise going on etc.

We did a lot of playing with a teaset in a bath of tepid water to cool ds (and my feet/ankles) down and ran the water throught a sock of porridge oats. It seemed to soothe his skin well. He liked dabbing cold water on his spots with a paintbrush too.

Onset of the rash could still mean 5 days from when the spots arose and as some of ds's didn't crop up until 5 days after the earliest ones. I would hazard a guess that the child is still contagious and lets face it if, it's a private nursery and they say no you're stumped, whatever the national guidelines.

If you keep dd away from other kids at the park or maybe go early in the morning and tea-time'ish I'm sure it would be fine. Lots of people will have holidays booked and contact with Chicken Pox is not what they need.