Sent home

[ThisRubyReader]

My daughter (3 year old) started nursery this week. The first day she was perfectly fine and happy. Second day we got a call from the nursery to say to come and collect her as she had been sick. I got soo worried and rushed there. The teacher came out gave her to me and hurried back in without any explanation as to what happened. When I asked my daughter she said another kid had been mean to her and she got upset and cried. Now when my daughter cries uncontrollably she vomits. I don't know how to stop this but once she calms down she is fine.
So at nursery she didn't vomit on the floor or her clothes or anything, she ran to the toilet they have and vomited there.
We went home and I calmed her down and by now she hated her nursery and didn't want to go back. The next day we woke up and I consoled her and said everything will be fine and she said she will forgive the other kid who was being mean to her etc. We went to class and the teacher said my daughter can't come in as she was sick yesterday! Why didn't they tell me this yesterday!!! And it's not like she was sick because she was ill... she was crying and caused herself to be sick...
What do I do now? Will I have to keep collecting her from nursery, leaving my work just because she makes herself sick from crying? How do I explain this to her teachers?
Sorry about the long post, everything is new to me and I'm not sure how to handle this.

Have a chat with her keyworker (if she has one yet) or the nursery manager. Some nurseries will flex the rules for this, others won’t sadly. If it happens at home don’t mention it.

I used to teach a girl that got terrible migraines, with sickness. School made her stay off two days every time. I may have suggested that the parents stop mentioning the vomit when she missed a day 😬

Definetly worth you reading up on the the nursery’s sickness policy. There’s all sorts of rules you need to know - different illnesses will have different requirements.

Generally speaking it’s 48 hours off after sickness …,.so 2 days ….ask for a meeting to explain the circumstances

This is tricky as they will have a sickness policy likely close to the local authority, and it usually states 48 hours. This is intended to prevent spreading bugs. If you're convinced this isn't due to any illness you'll need to discuss it with them, they must have come across it before? I do think it's really difficult, I've known kids be sick after eating from jumping around too much etc. If she's only been sick that one time then maybe they can bend the rules? But of course it's open to being abused, and it's surprising how many parents do abuse this... Ultimately it's up to them whether they accept the child, but most childcare settings will have the same policy. Perhaps they could give her more support in not getting so upset, and perhaps they need to know about the child who upset her to decide whether they need to address other issues? Like i said, tricky...

Had you previously let them know this was a common occurrence? If not how did you expect them to know it wasnt sickness?
For vomiting it's normal process to be sent home as a blanket vomiting ban to prevent stomach bugs spreading, if the child isn't on medication or have another reason for vomiting.

I agree you should have told them about the sickness. But this doesn't sound like a very happy child Maybe a childminder would be worth thinking about.

48 hours for sickness, standard procedure everywhere.

I have known one child who had a medical certificate for vomiting caused by stress or upset. Staff would still monitor and send home if sick twice.

I would suspect at the very least you would need some kind of medical confirmation.

You need to talk to them about this.

Before she started you could have told them about how she vomits when crying.

Instead explain it to them now. And going forward if they try to drop her off with you without a chat about what's being going on, ask about it straight away, just a simple "so what's happened?" will do it.

I'm surprised you didn't already know the policy - 48 hours is standard in any school or nursery setting.

I can empathise. One of my DC has a rare gastrointestinal problem and when he was young he used to vomit quite frequently, leading to lots of 48 hour exclusions which were unnecessary as it definitely wasn't anything infectiousand he wasn't unwell- 5 mins later he would be back to normal . In the end we had to get one of the specialist nurses to come into nursery to explain everything. We had the same issue again when he started school but they accepted a letter from his Consultant. Once we got his treatment right it was OK, but we had a couple of years where if he'd had to have 48 hours off every time he vomited I'd have lost my job and the LEA would have been chasing me over his low attendance.
If it's a one off you probably just have to put up with it but if it is a recurrent problem you might need to get some support from your HV or GP.

Agree you'll need to talk to them and possibly get a note - dc2 has migraine that causes vomit and actually one day off as usually the stress has caused migraine is not terrible but obviously two days leads to a lot of not needed absence.

Hope it settles down and gets less stressful.

My 11 year old has rumination syndrome and he vomits at odd times when he isn't ill. He was being sent home from school for 48 hours every time so was spending more time out of School than in. His consultant wrote a letter to the school in the end. Could you get a note from the gp?

You are likely going to need a letter from the doctor explaining this and it will still need to be handled carefully. Nursery staff aren’t doctors so can’t diagnose what is causing the vomiting. They have a duty of care to protect all the children which is why a 48 hour rule is in place. Even after a doctors note, you may still be asked to collect early as there are times they may not be sure, all kids get sickness bugs whether they’re regular vomiters or not and this will be kept in mind.

The nursery may not have expressed this verbally however it will be in their policies which are the parents responsibility to read.