Your experience of illness from Nursery

[Marsupalicious]

Hello MNers,

My young child is starting nursery next week. Is it just a given that they’ll be constantly sick with new infections?

My sister’s poor little kid is just constantly sick. Really hoping that doesn’t happen for mine.

I’m trying to understand if it’s just down to the individual kid or not. And also prep myself.

How has it been in your experience?

thank you!

I work in a nursery and sorry to say yes this seems to be what happens to most children when they first start. Some are more unlucky than others and will catch every single thing going. There are a lot of bugs going around at this time of year but they will lessen over the next few weeks as we head into spring.

I've never known a child not to get lots of bugs when starting nursery no matter what age they were when they started. I'm sure there will be someone along to say their kid didn't get everything going but they would be in a very small minority.

I think it's better to go in with the idea that they are likely to get everything and that whilst incredibly frustrating it's also perfectly normal.

Yes, it's inevitable. With DS1 we used all our built up annual leave before returning to work, with DS2 we've kept it all because we'll need it to cover illnesses!

I think it also does depend on the nursery to a certain extent. Some will keep a child that's a little under the weather, but others will want them picked up immediately. I've also found that's age dependant and they'll be far more likely to call about a poorly baby rather than a 3 year old that can explain how they feel.

There are some things we found that helped. A good multivitamin and baby probiotic in milk each night helped cut down the sickness for us. We didn't realise or we should have done this from the start (after we got 3x sick bugs in just a few short months). Since introducing the vitamins and probiotics, he's managed to skip two more sick bugs going around his nursery room, two lots of chicken pox, and several viruses. Which is also good, because we were catching illnesses from him. I didn't realise we would catch everything too, as we aren't sickly people usually!

i wouldn’t worry. It’s natural and unavoidable. If you were to not send them to nursery due to fear of this you would just be putting off the issue until they start school.

Monthly sickness for the first 6 months.

My son started nursery (school type nursery) at 3 and escaped the continual illnesses.
My daughter started (day care type) nursery at 11 months and was ill monthly especially in the winter for the first year.
Maybe age is relevant, maybe we were lucky first time round

Both mine are ill with something different every week, then me and dh get it and before we've even had a chance to get over whatever illness we had, the kids come down with something new. Honestly it's exhausting.

I recommend making sure you're all taking a vitamin D supplement, especially in the winter, really helped us the last few months and I've definitely noticed less colds/quicker recovery. Get the kids to wash their hands as soon as they get home from nursery, try to teach them good hand washing as well as covering their mouth when coughing/sneezing. I also spray their bags & coats with an antibacterial fabric spray although I admit I doubt it really does anything.

Also ensure you always have a good supply of Calpol, tissues, wipes, sinus spray, vapour rub, rehydration sachets plus standard adult paracetamol for you.

Not an experience I had. My DS had the usual coughs and stuffy nose during winter but I don't recall him ever having a temperature or diarrhoea/vomiting bugs in the 3 years he attended. He got chicken pox at 3.5 years but that was pretty much it and he wasn't ill as such

It's really common, they will have a permanently snotty nose. DD's nursery was great, if she was a little bit under the weathe you could send her in dosed up with Calpol and they never sent her home she just got extra cuddles. My friend's nursery down the road used to send her DD home at every little sniffle, their sickness policy was so much stricter and it really impacted on her parents' work.

DD was only properly ill and off nursery for a week or so twice in four years, once with hand foot and mouth and the other time with tonsillitis.

Mine was ill all the time for the first year or so (and it was right when COVID rules about testing every fever were still in place so he had nine PCRs, bless him). Since then he's very rarely ill. I'm hoping that will continue to be the case when he starts school in September!

Really really normal. We got away lightly enough, usually just viral in some form or other, not too many doctor trips and only one dose of antibiotics between the two of them. The first winter is the worst and then it eases a bit.

Bloody PCRs. I once counted the texts in my phone - think it was 35 between me and the two kids in nursery. Thank god those days are over!

My LO got conjunctivitis at her settling in session in Nov. Since then she has had a cold, fever or ear infection every week. Even this morning she was snotty and grotty.

What I wasn't prepared for is how ill DH and I got alongside her.

Maybe it'll stop eventually! :)

I had a whole routine. Get the call from nursery about a teeny temperature, book walk-in PCR at a site we could drop by on the way home, collect him, get him in a headlock and swab his nose, go home, get the all clear text first thing in the morning, and straight back to nursery!

Yep, expect a tummy bug within the first fortnight, and regular runny noses and colds thereafter. There's also the joy of "child cannot attend within 24 hours of starting antibiotics" too, so you see the GP and still have to stay off with them (have put 2 DC through nursery)

Our test centre was a drive through at the local shopping centre (which DD called the test centre for at least a year after PCR testing stopped), so we used to get drive through Starbucks as a reward after. She was doing the test herself by the time she was 3.

The worst was a test on Christmas Eve with results coming through on Christmas morning. My mum had a hospital appointment between Christmas and New Years that she wouldn't have been able to attend if she'd been exposed, so she couldn't travel to us until the negative came through.

Fun times, fun times.

I think its just luck really. My ds started nursery at 6 months. It the 4 years he was there he had 4 illnesses/viruses 1 being chicken pox. He hasn't had a day off school yet unwell (touch wood) and he's 11 yrs old.

The first few months over summer were not too bad for us (just a few mild colds) but winter has been absolutely brutal and we have been constantly I’ll since October. I’m hoping it will ease off as spring arrives. It’s not just the time off work which is difficult to deal with but trying to work through the sleep deprivation has been awful.

Thanks very much for sharing everyone.
Oh god, guys. Bloody dreading it 😂

But I guess immunity is earned, and that’s how it goes.

Seriously, how do we manage it all. 💐💐
The mind boggles because the maths just does work 😅

My LO only ever gets sick at the weekend/ family events :/
my work actually has good extra emergency leave for family care etc on top of annual leave, but I haven’t gotten to use it even once yet!
so for us it’s work and no social life 😂

My son started a month ago and hasn't been ill apart from he caught conjunctivitis once but still going to nursery as per the policy as I got him on drops ASAP. However he was previously doing two half days at a playgroup, been to a lot of toddler groups softplay etc since he was born so reckon he has already somewhat built up his immunity. I second a multivitamin and lots of fruit and veg for vitamin c for this time of year which has helped us. Good luck!

Awful for the first year

If you don't mind me asking which multivitamin and probiotic do you use?

Agree with PP. He had a cough for months, took him to the GP and was told it was recurrent. I didn’t even notice the breaks! He doesn’t get everything thank goodness but did come home with scarlet fever in time for Christmas (complete with a little trip to MIU on Christmas Eve). I would say our nursery is really good and will still take them for a sniffle.

ETA my mum insisted that she would only see us if the children were well, but when she wanted to see all the grandchildren (3 families) we had to tell her that we would literally never see her if we waited until they were all well at the same time.