Nursery illness

[JosieB68]

My daughter started nursery in August and wow I was not prepared for the level of illness she’d experience.
So far we’ve had
colds, cough, pneumonia, sickness bug x2, viral infections causing rash and fevers and hand foot and mouth.

pretty much a new virus/ sickness every 1-2 weeks.
Please tell me it gets better!!
Every nice Christmas event so far has been cancelled or rescheduled.
Ive introduced a different multi vitamin but is there anything else I can do to help stop the spread of illness as it’s getting us all down being constantly unwell or off work.

It does get better in most cases. When my son started, we got covid from nursery once and basically the whole winter we were sick with colds and various general ill feeling. And we got off lightly compared to friends who got HFM, chicken pox, slapped cheek etc.

We're on our third winter with him in nursery and the colds are still fairly constant but milder and we don't seem to be getting actual "big name" diseases anymore. I think the colds are still pretty bad because there's constant new children joining the group, I imagine it will be a bit better at school when the classes are more stable and he's had another two years of training his immune system.

@LoquaciousPineapple thank you it’s good to know it does eventually get better. We seem to be getting one big thing after another and wow hand foot and mouth was probably the worst of them all, never seen my little one so unwell 😢

It definitely gets better. DD started in a September and had pretty much back to back illnesses until February and then we turned a corner and became ill much much less often. You're probably due to turn that corner but as we're at peak winter viruses stage you might have a few more weeks of it.

My LO doesn’t get sick very often, actually made the whole first year of nursery with no bugs lol. But when she does get sick it’s every bug going for a month straight before a big break again lol.

Within 3 weeks mine had colds, coughs, ear infection, viruses and also the dreaded hfm. I'm desperately hoping it gets better quickly 🙏

My eldest got conjunctivitis from a 2 hour settling session at nursery before even starting properly!

It does get better, as pp have said a lot of the 'big name' illnesses only happen once, then it's basically just colds and the odd sick bug. We found we stopped catching so much off DC after the first winter which made things easier.

Between my 2 I'm not sure they've even had 2 days off due to illness. A few coughs and colds but no big things.

What's her diet like? Are you outdoorsy and active? I'd look to be boosting her immune system as that much doesn't seem normal to me.

Same here. We’ve had chickenpox, croup x 2 plus so many coughs and colds. I thought I had a great immune system until nursery started!!

It does get better. When all 3 of mine were new to nursery they definitely picked up alot of things at first.

I’d say this year there is an awful lot going around compared to other years, my sons nursery is practically empty at the minute, multiple members of staff have been off sick, I’ve had one of my children off school for 3 weeks with a terrible cough, my eldest had Friday off & he is never unwell & I feel like death warmed up today! Safe to say I can’t wait for summer.

@RabbitsEatPancakes could you possibly advise what I can do to boost her immune system? What do you do to boost your child’s immune system? Going by this thread you seem to be in the minority with illness being few and far between which is fantastic for you so I would genuinely love to hear what you do to that we all seem to be missing.

@ZippyLimeSnake our nursery is also like a ghost town, lots of staff off sick as well as kids.

What's her diet like? Are you outdoorsy and active? I'd look to be boosting her immune system as that much doesn't seem normal to me

My youngest went to outdoor nursery 5 days a week, his cohort there were about as 'outdoorsy and active' as it gets at that age and they still all got loads of illnesses.

No idea to be honest. But that is a big list of illness.

There must be some immune system supplements? Good varied healthy diet to make sure they're getting all their vitamins? Nice and active, strong bodies to fight the bugs when they do get them? Exposure to animals is supposed to be good for them isn't it? Exposure to some germs rather than a sterile clean environment?

I'm sure a bunch of it is just what antibodies they already have, I caught everything during my pregnancies and seemed to be constantly ill so maybe mine just got all the antibodies from pregnancy/ breastfeeding.

Being outdoorsy and active and eating a very good diet didn't stop my DD getting everything going.

I think if a child hasn't encountered a particular germ before and is then couped up in a room with multiple grotty children who can't keep their germs to themselves, they're likely to catch the bug.

There is a lot about right now. Parents bring poorly children in because they are finding it tricky to get time out of work and then everyone gets it and the cycle continues until it runs it’s course.

There isn’t much you can do except make sure they are eating well and give them a bath at the end of the day. Don’t send them in if they are poorly so that the others have a chance of not catching it.

I think a lot of it is luck, mine were both in full time nursery from 6 months and have rarely been ill, they have had a handful of days off between them and are now 5 and 8. We have always been pretty lax with hygiene, they play in mud, eat food that's been dropped on the floor, we don't use antibacterial wipes/sprays etc. They take multivitamins and were both vaccinated against chickenpox at 9 months. We spend a lot of time outdoors and their nursery was free flow to outside, did regular forest school etc.

But I do think some kids are just more prone to illness than others, and I've also never kept mine off for colds etc.