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Nurseries

Find nursery advice from other Mumsnetters on our Nursery forum. For more guidance on early years development, sign up for Mumsnet Ages & Stages emails.

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Original poster

Nursey illness - is it enough to put you off?

44 replies

McGuck · 06/02/2009 13:02

I'm due to send my 7 month old off to nursey in April but everyone has been warning me that she will be constantly ill for the first few months. We haven't any family in London so it will be really difficult to manage time off work if this is the case, odd day is okay but could this go on for weeks? and now am thinking maybe I should go down the childminder route. Is nursery a total germ nightmare or are people exaggerating?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

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Fennel · 09/02/2009 15:07

I don't think my nursery babies were ill any more than their non-nursery peers. The older two did get bugs in their first couple of years but not more than the SAH or childminded children. And my youngest had, I think, one day off nursery ever, and she started at 3 months old - she has the constitution of an ox.

FiveGoMadInDorset · 09/02/2009 15:07

DD has been in nursery for 2 years, she has had 2 days of because of diarohhea and a week off for chicken pox.
DS started last month and is fine.

stealthsquiggle · 09/02/2009 15:12

It depends on the child. I have a friend whose DC caught every bug (especially chest infections) going, to the extent that she ended up gritting her teeth and paying for a nanny when she went back to work after DC2, even though that meant she was pretty much working for the sake of her career and her salary was only covering the Nanny.

My DC OTOH have had time off for D&V a couple of times, high temps a couple of times, and chicken pox - no more than I would have expected with childminder or from toddler groups etc if I had been a SAHM.

It can seem like it is 'constant' for the first few months, but it really isn't in 90+% of cases.

pinkkoala · 10/02/2009 12:15

my dd went to nursery for 9 months only as we made the decision to take her out and me pack up work to look after her. This was down to different factors the main one being her eczema and them constantly getting her diet wrong, we asked for no dairy like custard, cream, yoghurts etc but they kept getting it wrong to the point where every child had jelly and ours had a yoghurt.

also one day i went and picker her up early to find they had just had dinner and the children were being called up to the sink in pairs and had their face washed with a flannel, it was then rinsed in cold water and passed on to all the other children.

also due to illness, she was constantly ill, now i don't mind coughs, colds etc but she had nits, impetigo due to face washing i reckon. chest infections, tummy bugs, also the one thing i really hated was when in her room there was threadworms going about for approx 4 months.

i now look after her at home but she still gets colds, coughs etc just not the nasty things she had before.

HensMum · 10/02/2009 12:25

DS has been in nursery since 12 months and he's 16 months now. He's had a runny nose pretty much constantly since he started (but don't all toddlers?!), one really nasty cold that needed a day off nursery (and day off work for me), a minor tummy upset that would have needed a day off but was at the weekend, and that's it. He probably has been more ill since being at nursery but really minor stuff and it's starting to get better now.
FWIW, my sister's a primary teacher and she said when she first started she got every cold going for a few months and now gets nothing at all once her immune system got up to speed!

blueshoes · 10/02/2009 12:37

McGuck, it was true for my dcs. But I am only comparing them with when they first started nursery to what they are like now after 6 months (very robust).

Your dd might be the sort of child to have recurrent colds, fevers, D&V, at the outset. But there are alot of studies (eg on childhood leukemia) which say that it is beneficial for an immune system to have a good workout in the early years. And child who grow up in houses with pets and older siblings somehow end up with stronger immune systems than those that don't.

It does cause problems with your employer, yes. The point is it is not forever. And if your dd does not attend nursery, you might very well face the same problem once your dd starts school - as a lot of my dd's classmates found.

nickytwotimes · 10/02/2009 12:40

My ds is 2.5 and doesn't go to nursery, yet he has spent this whole winter coughing and sniffing.
GO figure.

PortAndLemon · 10/02/2009 12:44

The first year DS got several eye and ear infections off the back of colds that he picked up at nursery -- between us DH and I probably had to take ten days or so off work or working from home that year. But now he is virtually never (I would have said never, but he was sick a couple of months ago) ill. And as pp have said, this makes it more likely that he won't need time off when he starts school.

I do still worry a bit about time off for chicken pox. It's been round the nursery several times but DS has never caught it; now that DD is starting nursery as well I can foresee a situation where they go down with it one after the other and I have to take two weeks off work, but I suppose there's no particular reason to think that will happen.

francagoestohollywood · 10/02/2009 12:52

All the children I know have been to nursery, so I'm not sure how much healthier the non nursery children are. Among those who went to nursery some have been healthier than others. Sorry, this isn't very helpful

blueshoes · 10/02/2009 13:00

portlemon, I have the same situation. Dd, strengthened by the immune 'boost' from nursery attendance from a young age, never got round to catching chicken pox until schoolage, when she was 5.

Once she caught it, ds 2, who was in nursery from more than a year, got it too. The GP said it is almost certain a sibling will catch chicken pox. Both their infections were mild and they were off school/nursery for 5 days each, happy as larry at home. I wonder whether it is a function of their strong immune systems.

They did not however get it together, rather consecutively. Ds' incubation period was 23 days, rather than the standard 10-21 days, I suspect because of his good defences. So when I thought ds was home free, he started spotting.

justbfree · 11/02/2009 13:53

ok on the subject of picking things up Has anyone any immune boosting ideas, apart from the obvious eat plenty of fruit and veg. My 17month old has been snotty from day 5 of her nursery. She did start in Jab=n in the middle of a flu/cold epidemic though

stealthsquiggle · 11/02/2009 14:20

pinkkoala - I am at your experience. Clearly you have chosen to be a SAHM for a while, which is fine, but I would say that that does not sound like a good nursery to me and does not match my experience with either DS's nursery or DD's.

pinkkoala · 11/02/2009 14:30

the nursey she went to was part of a well known chain of nurseries and like everyone we paid good money for it, but i didn't feel she was getting looked after properly and i am sure they could of been a bit more hygenic and zapped all the little nasties.

perhaps sometimes a smaller family run nursery is better.

i've told people about the face washing that goes on and people have said no wonder so much goes about, i don't know if other nurseries do the same though.

HensMum · 11/02/2009 16:58

justbefree, I give DS multivitamin drops to try and stop the constant sniffles. He does seem to be better since starting them though it could just be down to his immune system catching up!
Still, they are fairly cheap and he doesn't mind taking them so I'll carry on.

StealthPolarBear · 11/02/2009 17:03

My DS had a D&V bug for 6 weeks once he started nursery, he'd go on Wednesday, be sick on the night, off on Thursday, all all weekend, be just getting better at the beginning of the week then the cycle would start again. Ended up getting an infection and we took him out and started him at another where he has had the usual stream of colds and the odd bug but nothing too serious. We wonder whether their hygiene was up to scratch.
A CM though - you'd have issues if she was ill, wouldn't you?

pocketmonster · 12/02/2009 20:22

DD1 had 4 months of ear infections, colds and finally a really long and severe bout of S & D when she first started nursery at 6 months old.

DD2 on the other hand was right as rain.

Academicmum · 14/02/2009 18:24

My ds2 is due to start nursery soon too and I've been worrying about all the illness because he has slow weight gain. On the other hand when ds1 started (at 6 months - he is now 4 years), he was ill constantly for the first month and after catching every available bug he now has an iron immune system and literally never gets ill. Even when the rest of the family are poorly, he seems to just shrug off everything! I attribute this to him going to nursery and am hoping ds2 will develop the same strong constitution!

AlexanderPandasmum · 14/02/2009 18:35

DS has been going since ten months (he's nearly 2) and of all the illnesses he has had over the last year I would say most of them seem to happen while we are at home and so are probably caught at the soft play centre etc. I actually had a really bad run with him in the few months before he started at nursery - started with his first cold at 7 months, then straight after his first tummy bug, then a fever and after that a terrible cough at night. I was worried about him starting at nursery but he wasn't ill at all and we didn't need to be off with him until he was about 17 months and that was something he seemed to have caught over our holiday!

negrilbaby · 15/03/2009 22:18

I know this thread is a bit old now but I have to answer. My son has been at nursery for just over two months now and has been sick for the majority. He is 13 months old and prior to starting nursery we mixed with other children well - lots of mums and baby groups.
I'm very concerned that the temperature of the baby room has a big part to play. The room is sooooooo hot. Many evenings I arrive and he is sitting in his vest. The staff are all wearing jumpers so obviously don't feel the heat. I'm not the only one to find it oppresively hot - other parents do moan.
Is it normal to have baby rooms heated like a tropical greenhouse?

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