Are multiples and nurseries compatible?

[Cerubina]

Also posted in 'Nurseries'.

Can I realistically expect to be able to send my twins to nursery and spend a decent amount of time at work? I just made the return last week, twins aged 1, and so far out of 6 working days, 5 of them have been disrupted by either leaving work early or not being able to come at all because of illness.

Obviously I was forewarned that they would catch a lot of bugs in the early days so I was expecting some disruption, but it is in danger of becoming an issue at work and I am alarmed that the twin thing might mean nurseries just don't work. If one comes down with something and the other gets it 24-48 hours later then potentially that's a lot of time one or both can't be at nursery and hence I have to stay off work.

Can anyone reassure me that they were able to make it work and didn't have to either hire a nanny or give up employment? Thanks.

It really depends on the child(ren). dd1 is rarely ill and in 4 years (3 years in childcare) she's missed 5 days with slapped cheek and 2 days with chest infection (that was 2 weeks ago). however today she has a high temp so doubt she'll be in tomorrow. I found a nanny to be cheaper than nursery for the twins but I'm actually going back on an hourly rate and working from home to avoid the issues. tbh it sucks and is very hard to balance. Sorry I'm not more positive. Good luck x

Sorry it's been so tough for you Cerubina. Bad enough when they are `proper' ill & you stress about that but the stress of not being able to work especially right at the start / for a number of days is awful.

I only work Mon-Wed and was `lucky' in that the boys were each poorly for a (different) week right at the start but work messed up my start dates anyway so it worked out OK. I hated having to tell my boss if the boys were ill after that and sometimes it does seem like it will be neverending. Probably not so bad for me though since I/they knew I was off on leave again soon so they hadn't planned on being so dependent on me anyway (not that the reality worked that way!). Dp & I agreed that he'd do term-time illness on my work days unless he absolutely couldn't since I'd be doing Thurs/Fri and could have a lot more flexibility out of term time. We did some half days each too which helped us feel we were trying our best to be flexible. Not so easy if it all has to fall to you though.

We had a rough couple of weeks when they first started at nursery, lots of colds, coughs, weeping eyes and DD even ended up in hospital with a non-blanching rash, which turned out to be viral. Like you I wondered if it would ever work, but after that first fortnight it did settle down a lot.

Mine are at school now but I've worked full time since they were 6 months. You do get bad spells, DH and I usually split and do half a day each, which we've been lucky to be in the position to do. This time of year is never good and I think it's especially rough dealing with this when you're finding your feet back at work too. Hang on in there, it will get better.

We make it work, mine are been in nursary full time. No major illness that have required them to be at home. The odd day here and there, hubby and I take turns to be at home to spread the load.

Also I've found just cause one got it, it didn't mean the other one did.

Are you able to work from home at all? I do if either of mine are ill and DH currently does anyway now. We've had D&V twice and chicken pox oncethat has meant they had to be at home but that's all. As chutney says, it dis gt easier as their immune systems develo