Nursery illness anxiety

[coffeemakergirl]

Hey everyone! My little one is due to start nursery in the summer when she’s 12 months old, and all anyone is saying is “prepare to be ill all the time”. I do remember this when my step children were younger but it was mainly colds. The truth is I am becoming extremely anxious about the nursery bugs and the impact it will have on my little one and everything at home. We all had norovirus recently and it caused complete chaos! One of our older kids in particular is a hypochondriac and I’m so worried about everyone being ill. I’m also starting back at work in the summer and I can’t imagine how hard it’s going to be looking after poorly kids, working full time whilst being ill myself. I’m also worried as my mum will be looking after my little one the second half of the week after she’s been at nursery and I really don’t want her to get all these illnesses too.
Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on how we can prevent everyone being poorly, or any advice on managing these nursery bugs in general. Thank you so much!

It’s not guaranteed to be a hideous stretch of constant illness. It wasn’t for us.

But I do think there’s not much you can do. Some people are selfish arseholes and send their children in to nursery despite them vomiting the day before. You can’t really prevent it. Wash hands after pick up, and make sure you’re ready if they do get sick (mattress protectors, cleaning stuff, calpol etc)

My guess is that a baby who has older siblings will already have been exposed to some bugs and built up some antibodies so it won't be as rough as it is for only children.

My DD was ill 50% of the time for her first 4 months at nursery then things improved loads after that. She had hardly been exposed to any bugs prior to attending nursery though as we hadn't done baby groups and I loathe softplay so I just reckon she encountered all these bugs for the first time at nursery and caught them all.

I wrote a long reply and lost it. The short point was that I’ve just been through this - a year further on from you - and the January to March period especially was really really hard BUT my son was very premature and other friends haven’t suffered half as badly. It’s definitely not guaranteed and you’ll get used to it. My experience was it gained momentum and from late October onwards, he had a lot of sickness but really clustered from January onwards. Have thermometers to hand, calpol, nurofen, cough syrup and vitamins for everyone. Trust your instincts about when to go to the Dr, you will know best when your child is distressed and I’ve rarely been wrong (the most distressed has been tonsillitis and a bad ear infection). Good luck, winter 2 is much better I hear…

I never noticed any increase in bugs / sickness when my 2 started TBH

Try not to overthink it. I’m emetophobic and panicked when my 9 year old started nursery, but he started in 2020 so COVID kind of made sure extra measures were in place and he missed a lot of nursery. I would say my youngest is more of a sicky baby in general (she starts reception in September) she has been more the type to vomit if she has a temperature or is coming down with a cold. The worst norovirus we’ve had up to now though has been from a weekend away in Blackpool, not nursery! The most unwell she was last year I think was caught from flying. We did have a phase of what felt like constant back to back colds and it was absolutely bloody miserable but I do wonder if that’s cos we were off the back of COVID at that point (2022 ish)

It’ll be better in summer with the windows open. It’s just annoying but you’ll handle it, get the chicken pox vaccine

children catch everything going when they’re exposed to lots of new people so if it’s not nursery it’s starting school. It’s a stage. It’ll be fine but irritating