Nursery illness

[elliej83]

My little boy started nursery at 6 months. He's coming up to one and has only been there for 2 of the past 5 weeks due to a variety of illnesses the latest being hand foot and mouth.
Nursery have reiterated their policy on collecting children who are ill to parents and states this is because of the high number of children with temperatures. This leads me to believe parents aren't collecting children when I'll and potentially there nursery seem to have a bit of an issue with stopping bugs. I'm the primary breadwinner in our household but ultimately we don't need to be in work. Husband doesn't get sick pay and is on an absence warning at work due to sons illness so I've had to take time off the last couple of times he's been ill. I also caught one of the bugs myself so couldn't go into work so i will have also had 3/5 of he last weeks off. My work are flexible but I can see this isn't going to continue.
My DH says we need to ride it out and it will get better. I feel like we should mention to the nursery about hygiene and that it feels like this is not acceptable and consider putting him with a childminder where I think this would happen less. DH says I'm overreacting. What would you do?

Sorry but this is normal. It always happens when they first start nursery. And if they don't go it starts when they start school.

I know it's a huge pita but it's good for building up the immune system.

I don't think this is normal. I think some DC may be more susceptible to illness than others, but my two didn't have lots of illness on starting nursery.

I'm not sure what it's down to. Our nursery isn't an overly hygienic environment - plenty of snotty kids.

Unfortunately its normal but does get better. The first 6 months my ds was at nursery I don't think he managed a full week and we kept getting everything too. I was getting comments at work, it was a tough time.

Then he turned the corner and things got much better. He's 6 now and hasn't had a day off school in 2 years.

We found taking berroca daily helped us not to catch things and we gave him vitamins in top of a good diet.

Hopefully his immune system will toughen up soon.

I'm not sure it's obvious from my original post he has been there 6 months already and had coughs colds etc it's just this past month or so it's get very bad

We've found this to be normal too. It takes about 6 months it to start calming down in my experience.

Normal for autumn/winter especially. Very annoying though!

September when the kids start back at school is the worst for bugs. Totally normal, this is the peak of the year and you're probably nearly halfway through the peak season.

If he's been there 6 months and it's just the last few weeks that have been bad then unfortunately I think it's just bad luck.

The problem is that most things that they pass about are in their contagious stage before the main symptoms are present, so by then they've already spread.

it's just this past month or so it's get very bad

It's just the time of year. All the toddlers I know have got bugs of some sort ATM. DS has been snotty nosed since September 1st!

I think it partly depends on whether they tend to get a fever with things like a cold. Some children do, but not all of them. You can send a child with a cold to nursery, but not one with a fever.

It's not normal if it happens all the time, but we have had a few month long stretches of bug after bug over the past 4 years with long illness free intervals between. It really is miserable when you're going through it so I can sympathise.

Agree with others, it's pretty normal unfortunately during autumn and winter and it gets a bit better each year. But we never took that much time off. Serious illness, yes (hand foot and mouth, chicken pox, etc) and anytime she had a fever or v & d. Our nursery's policy was no fever and 48 hours after tummy symptoms subsided, but I took her when she was sick otherwise. If not, I would have been off work about 9 months straight that first winter! Yes, it is normal for them to be sick almost constantly the first 2 winters but I wouldn't keep him home unless nursery makes you as per their policy or he is seriously ill. The reality is that kids are infectious before they show obvious symptoms so it's impossible to prevent it spreading in most cases.

if you need him to be in nursery then send him in unless
He has a high temperature
Or he has d and v in which case he will need to be clear for 48 hours

How much time do the children spend outside? Lots of fresh air and outside play will help keep them healthy

He spend a lot of time outside and there's open access to outside.

The reason he's being send home is temperature over 38. They are okay with sniffles but he keeps getting a high temperature and hen he has to come home or can't go in. They do offer to try and control it with calpol but if it goes over he has to come home.

IME it's normal. The first year my DS was at nursery he got 12 bugs in six months - yes, that's one every 2 weeks. I got some of them too and one was so bad we almost had to cancel a holiday because I was so ill up until the day before we left.

As others say, it's just about building up their immune system. It's horrible to start with, because they get every damn thing going - coughs, colds, viruses, tummy bugs, you name it - but it does get better. The first year is definitely the worst one.

It's good they try to control his temperature with calpol. Our nursery says that if they are ill enough to need calpol then they are too ill for nursery. I'm not sure that rule is as well observed as the 48 hour rule.

I was one big away from being hauled before HR after the first 6 months dc1 was at nursery - dc2 catches much less. We started ft in sept - agree time of year, sept-march are the worst. The sick bug has visited us this month.