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Parenting

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Original poster

Do you take your babies/toddlers to groups when a bit ill?

18 replies

MillyStar · 20/03/2013 09:14

I've always kept my dd (11 months) at home away from baby groups when she's had a cold

I've noticed lots of kids still go though some of them have been quite bad coughing and stuff at groups we've been to, I used to think it was quite ignorant but I'm now wondering if its the norm?

We're due at a new group today for an hour at half ten, dd is snotty and has got a bit of a cough, not continuously I'd say she coughs once an hour, plus it's a music group so she will probably just be sat with me in a circle

Would you go? I don't want her to miss out and I've already paid but I don't want to be the hated lurgy mum!!

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JiltedJohnsJulie · 20/03/2013 09:16

I'd go. You can't keep them off school for a cold, or at least I don't think you should and Lo will probably enjoy it.

VerySmallSqueak · 20/03/2013 09:18

I think a low level cold is fine - or groups with young children involved would never happen.
Depends on how ill,and whether it's contagious.
In your case OP if she's absolutely streaming with snot I wouldn't go.
If it's snot too bad I would (see what I did there )

georgedawes · 20/03/2013 09:18

Crikey if I didn't take her out with a cold, we'd never get out!

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dinkystinky · 20/03/2013 09:20

Low level cold is fine - anything more ill than that (and anything involving a temperature or a racking persistent cough) then no, I dont take them out. Like georgedawes, DS2 seemed to have a permanant runny nose as a baby - if I didnt take him out due that we'd never have left the house!

Original poster

MillyStar · 20/03/2013 09:22

I think we'll go then, it's worse in the morning when she's been lay down all night but it clears up about now so hopefully no one will notice!

Someone sat next to me with a baby last week who'd just gone on antibiotics and her eyes were all guey and stuck together as well as a virus

I whipped my dd straight away from her I couldn't believe it

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5madthings · 20/03/2013 09:26

I take mine with a cold or you would never go out!

As long as baby seems fine in themselves etc I go out as normal. If they are obviously feeling under the weather then I will stay home and hope we can have a nap together!

georgedawes · 20/03/2013 09:30

It doesn't matter if anyone notices they have a cold, they all get hundreds in the first couple of years. Got to get them sometime!

If they're distressed or suffering stay in, but runny nose and cough is par for the course with a young child.

SirChenjin · 20/03/2013 09:33

A bit of a cold is fine - otherwise how do you ever leave the house?!

CoolaSchmoola · 20/03/2013 09:47

A cold, yes, I but I'm a bit pissed with the person who took their child to playgroup with croup last week.

DD has subsequently been very poorly, and the timing was horrendous.

DH had a nasty accident which damaged his back and he's needed full time care for ten days. As I was looking after him and my Mum, recently out of hospital following severe pneumonia) DD hadn't been anywhere for well over a week. I got my visiting brother to look after DH and DM and took DD to group.

Four days later - horrific croup, in a house with two ill people, one with recent severe chest problems. All because someone took a child with a nasty, easily spread illness to playgroup.

I have no problem with colds, but croup isn't a cold it's laryngeal bronchitis, and it's easily identifiable.

That's just selfish.

silverangel · 20/03/2013 11:19

I never took baby DTs when they had even a sniffle as didn't think it was fair on the other kids. Now though after spending a winter looking at kids with rivers of green snot that never seems to be wiped I have decided that we go if it's low level illness and no one else seems to bother trying to stop the germs...

georgedawes · 20/03/2013 11:27

But silverangel, we all have to get colds and the like to build up some immunity to them. Otherwise they'll just get them when they go to school! I'm not saying we should infect people for the sake of it, but colds in children are a part of life. You can't wrap them up in cotton wool!

As a side note, I find it very interesting how few colds we catch off of DD. I seem to get a few more but not not nearly as many as she does, and DH gets hardly any at all. That must be because we have immunity from having the various viruses as a child. DH was quite a sickly baby/toddler, but is very robust now and hardly ever ill.

It is a fact of life that children catch lots and lots of colds!

silverangel · 20/03/2013 15:47

I know George, I just find it aa bit grim at the putting everything in your mouth stage - sucking on other kids snot! but I'm a bit paranoid about germs and don't even like touching the tube handrails

georgedawes · 20/03/2013 15:49

Yeah me too, other children's snot is grim. Bad enough when it's your own!

helebear · 20/03/2013 15:58

With a bit of a cold I'd go. Have stayed away when dd has had something like conjunctivitis/ tummy bug/ temperature. In that instance I'd bundle her up in the buggy for an airing to stop us both going mad!

Original poster

MillyStar · 20/03/2013 15:58

Well silver and george you will feel sick at this then, because dd has been snotty with this cold and sometimes sounds blocked up with it, my dad told me to put my mouth over her nose and suck all the snot out for her because she's too little to blow it, apparently thats what he did when we were little

I told him NO WAY!!

OP posts:

georgedawes · 20/03/2013 16:02

Apparently lots of people do that milly, not me though! Boak.

MolotovCocktail · 20/03/2013 16:04

silverangel I'm exactly the same as you - hate the idea of germs and avoid touching public door handles and the like (pull my jumper sleeves over my hands to do it!)

I had flu, flowed by pneumonia a few years ago. DD1 had a Strep B infection as a baby which I'm fairly sure was caught from a baby music class, then caught croup as a toddler (from the child of very selfish friends of ours who needed us to babysit their infected toddler, without telling us). It was just awful.

Although comparatively speaking I am more relaxed, I've avoided taking DD2 to baby groups so far. Partly because she sleeps when DD1 is at nursery but if I'm honest, it's a convenient excuse. I'm going
to do it when the better weather comes and she's a bit more robust. She tends to get whatever DD1 has so my logic may be flawed, but I
can't stand to see her putting things into her mouth that other babies with who-knows-what viruses have.

A cold is a cold, yes, but I have experience of a few horrible viruses and bacterial infections and just can't go through it again, knowing I can limit contact.

MolotovCocktail · 20/03/2013 16:10

We're not hermits, btw! We regularly spend time with family and have play-days with a small group of friends. Im lucky in that I can socialise and stimulate her amongst existing friends who I know will keep their kid away if they have more than a sniffle :)

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