Need some perspective on nursery illnesses

[mylittleitalianhome]

My dc is 18 months old, and we’ve just viewed a gorgeous farm nursery where the kids play outside everyday on the grounds of a farmhouse and generally looked very happy. We’re going to send our dc there from May as I really need to/want to get back to work. As an emetophobe, I’m absolutely terrified of her picking up sickness bugs. She’s never been sick and I think the fear of the unknown is just huge. Part of me is hoping that if she starts in the warmer months there’ll be fewer chance of her picking up a sv straight away, but I know it’s inevitable and I need to get a grip. The thought of a contagious bug in the house just drives me crazy. So I have three questions:

1. in general, from people’s experience, how many times a year can we expect a sickness bug in the house?
2. is it possible to avoid it myself and what are people’s protocols for dealing with it?
3. 3. If anyone has successfully beaten their emetophobia, please share how!

I had terrible emetophobia until I threw up for 9months during pregnancy.

Both my DDs went to nursery from 6 months. We have never had a sickness or poo bugs (now 9 and 11). DD11 has been sick 2 times in her life, both with fever. DD8 once after a food allergy and once car sickness, which I caught in my bare hands 🤢.

Don't worry, encourage hand washing.

1. Hard to say, we’ve averaged about 1-2 per year but I have friends who’s children have had more frequent bouts (different nursery).
2. I’ve avoided all but 1 with good hand hygiene and wiping things down.
3. Severe morning sickness (so enforced exposure therapy!) significantly reduced my issues around sickness. Not completely gone but I can deal with my own children when they’re ill.

@Mumaway Thank you so much! Poor you, I can imagine you got enough exposure therapy to last a lifetime. I only caught a stomach bug twice in my childhood and according to mil, DH never caught one, so fingers crossed dc has good genes (but still know I need to work on getting over this phobia rather than banking on luck!)

You might worry about it in a fear of the unknown way, but I've heard of plenty of cases where people can't cope with vomit, or blood or whatever, but when it's their own child the drive to look after your child overpowers the phobia/fear and you cope in the moment.

If you've got say a 2yo, they've just been sick and are crying, and you're the only adult there - you have to step up and deal with the immediate aftermath, change of clothes, wash up, comfort them. You don't think about it you just do it. Your child needs you to. Doesn't mean the phobia is cured, but in those particular circumstances, you make it work.

If they’re outside a lot they’ll be less likely to catch bugs.

1-2 per year in the early years. You just get on with it I'm afraid, it's your child so the urge to help them and make them safe and well overrides everything else.

If I suspect sickness at night I lay towels around the bed - saves the carpet. Also button up pjs so they don't have to go over the head covered in vom.

We didn't get any from 3 years of nursery, had one horrible bout but that was before she started. Maybe just lucky!
Coughs and colds/ hand foot and mouth etc on the other hand... plenty of that.

Constant coughs and colds but my two are 6 and 3 and they’ve never had a vomiting bug. They have been sick from strep throat, whooping cough (despite being vaccinated) and one time when DD binged a whole punnet strawberries while I was distracted. But v v rare for us.

Thank you everyone! It really helps to hear that even when it does happen (and hopefully that will be less frequently than I fear), people just get on with it. It’s really helpful to hear how rational people deal with something that feels so so scary to me.

You tend to hear from the people whose kids are off a lot and constantly ill. We had the opposite - DD has thrown up precisely twice in her life and never had diarrhoea. She's now eight. She's never been off school or nursery with a stomach bug. To be honest my concern with this is that she wouldn't even recognise the feeling of nausea and head to the loo!

She's had 3.5 days in total off nursery - one high temperature that kept her off, one accident. She's never had a day off sick from school.

The nursery we used was very good at hygiene, lots of hand washing, good facilities with easy access to basins for staff too. They were also rigorous at turning away or isolating then sending home any kid that was ill so bugs had much less chance to spread. That was before Covid.

We have always insisted on washing hands as soon as we come into the house from a trip out somewhere,
before eating (anything!) and after the loo which has probably helped too.

DS is 4.5. He's had two sick bugs at school (very quickly over with; not more than 30 mins until he's right as rain). Never got one from nursery.

@RidingMyBike Wow, she must be blessed with an incredible immune system - long may it last!

My kids got them every 1-2 months the first year they started nursery - both started the same time after COVID. This second year DD1 is in school and DD2 is at nursery and we haven't had any in about 8 months. Still lots of colds but no fevers/sickness.

I usually come down with them too but one really vile illness was only caught by me and my MIL and not DH, DD1 or FIL and we put it down to myself and MIL the only ones who changed the horrific nappies. So in future I'll be wearing gloves when changing horrible diarrhoea nappies. And possibly wearing masks to try and keep it off myself. I think a lot is down to viral load as my DH does often escape the sickness bugs whilst I always catch them. And I'm the one who is around the kids a lot more, cleaning up and giving cuddles. I don't think I had any sickness bugs for over 10-15 years before kids so I'm not usually prone to them.

She still gets ill with the usual coughs and colds but nothing serious, and I'd only keep off if she had a high temp, D and V or wasn't "right" in herself, if that makes sense. A bit snotty but otherwise bounding around full of energy then she goes in.

I had/have serious anxiety about sickness bugs and was honestly a bit terrified to have children for this exact reason! As others have said, when my daughter actually got a sickness bug I cared more about her comfort and protection than the germs. I won’t say I completely forgot about it as I did try to bathe her and clean probably more than was rationale but my anxiety about it was actually really manageable. I think the next one will be easier as I feel a massive relief that it’s done now and we’ve gotten through something I’ve been dreading for years (even before I actually had a child!).

In my experience sick bugs are less common that respiratory illnesses, colds and temperatures.

My experience of having children in nursery is that when they first start, they regularly get ill. What really pisses me off is the parents who send their children to nursery, knowing full well they are ill. We have had frequent emails from our nursery, reminding people that their child cannot come to nursery if they are ill and that giving a child calpol will disguise the illness, only until the child has managed to pass it on to everyone else.

I rarely get sickness bugs but my daughter brought home norovirus in February, which I caught and it was truly awful. Luckily my other DC didn't catch it.

Ds is 14 and never been sick. He has other illnesses but somehow has always dodged the stomach ones.

My DD didn't catch much of anything, definitely no sickness bugs. She didn't catch a sickness bug until she was a teen! Unusual I know... but it goes to show it is possible to go through nursery without picking up much.

Yeah I agree with everyone else, at nursery it was mainly just colds, a few fevers, cough, there was rarely any sickness bugs . There was one occasion at nursery that a D &V bug was doing the rounds in the toddler room, but not every child picked it up.