Health of second child born in Autumn

[YanaBanana]

Hello,

our second child in due end of September.
my son is turning 4 in August and will start school in September. Currently, he is going full time to a childminder setting with about 7-8 up to 10 kids every day.

He is asthmatic, used to be ill every other week last year, this year is much better. I am worried that he will start school, will mix with many more kids and will start bringing home some viruses. He has already built some immunity, I am worried about him but he is stronger.

How can I prevent my little one to get such colds and viruses as a new born?

Anyone with experience from a similar situation? I’d be grateful for any advice.

Maybe this topic was discussed previously, I wasn’t able to find any threads.

Thanks,
Yana

Hi! My LO was born in September and I was really worried about this as my eldest started school at the same time.

Dc2 had bronchiolitis, covid and chicken pox during the first 6 months which I know sounds bad but actually it wasn't.

Dc2 was perfectly fine and bounced back easily every time, and three bugs isn't actually that many in 8 months, especially over winter. A lot of my friends DC had constant colds, tonsillitis,sickness bugs so I think we have been lucky and that DC1 having been in nursery before helped, just like it will with your LO at childminders.

When it comes to preventing the baby catching things, I thought I'd try but quickly gave up. When I found myself constantly hassling my eldest not to touch the baby, I thought it'd be more damaging in the long term. I didn't want to discourage my eldest being affectionate towards the baby, its so lovely to see them both adoring each other!

Also hoping it means DC2 will be less sick tgan DC1 when starting nursery as their immune system has already had to do some work.

Things will work out I think, good luck!

Hey @Vidaloca2 ,

many thanks for your reply.
It sounds like you had a ‘fun’ winter.
I think you are right about building the bond between the siblings they need to be allowed ‘to stay in touch’ all the time.

I will try to stay positive!

You don’t. You want your newborn to catch as many germs as possible to build up their immune system. It’s healthy for them - less incidence of asthma, eczema and allergies.
Newborns have great immune systems, if you can breast feed they will be even better.

I had three kids and while the older ones may have brought viruses home for as long as I breasted my babies didn’t catch things or if they did it was milder. Your body when bf recognises viruses and adjust the milk which is full of antibodies against each virus you come into contact with . So breastfeed loads would be my advice !

*breastfed

I think generally second-borns are supposed to be a bit more robust. It was the case with my two. I don't remember the baby being particularly poorly in her first six months or so. When she went to school she didn't have a single day off sick until she was nine.

With the best will in the world, you can’t
I’ve got an asthmatic 4th born he was really surprisingly well as a newborn/young baby -my 3rd son was in nicu and then had bronchiolitis but no4 was fine until he was 3, he caught everything was v poorly a few times with his asthma.
it’s hard you do want to wrap them in cotton wool, obviously you’d be practising good hand hygiene etc anyway. Hope you have a healthy autumn with your newborn op

If this year has been better for your DC1 than last year in terms of bugs, then you are doing better than anyone I know with kids that age (I have DC2 aged 5 and DC3 aged almost 3). It's been a horrific year for bugs, with them catching up for 2 years of not catching much over lockdown!

As PP have said, breastfeeding helps. They also have some protection for the first few months leftover from you. I was told by a doctor it's actually their second winter, when they have a lot less protection from you,.that's normally their worst.

What I did find DC2, who is autumn born,.had a lot of is a stuffed up nose - which means they don't sleep well... Saline nose drops help a bit.

During a hospital stay with 11 day old DS, a nurse did say to me that she would aim not to have a baby in autumn. All the babies on our ward had older siblings. I knew DS would be ill before he was born - I caught a nasty virus a week before his birth from DD, and midwives just shrugged and said DS would catch it from me as I such a horrific cough and was breastfeeding. To top if off, DS caught Covid in hospital (but no symptoms), and then we both caught Hand, Foot & Mouth (mildly) immediately after isolation for Covid.We thankfully missed catching DD's vomiting bug by reason of being in hospital. Left DH to deal with that gem!

Whilst it is scary at the time, DS seems pretty robust now!

You simply cannot avoid some of these viruses unfortunately. My newborn had a cold within the first month that my eldest bought home from nursery. Not ideal but you all get through it.

I have a 7 mo and an almost 4 yr old. DC2 has been ill soo many times already. He's had a few colds, covid, and now bronchiolitis. I am breastfeeding and so far he's not had anything severely enough to warrant medical attention, although my DH is medical so he can monitor him well at home. He's mostly breastfed, hopefully that has been helping him, particularly as there's been a few D and V bugs in the household too and he's not caught any of them thankfully! I don't thinkyou can do much about it, curse of being the second child! DC1 got her first illness at 5 months old, but she was a summer baby too. DC2 got his first cold at about 2 weeks old!

To be honest, I'd focus more on making sure you know what to do when your baby becomes unwell rather than trying to prevent it (which will be impossible!).

My September born 8 month old caught his first cold off his older brother at around 8 weeks old. He's since gone on to catch further colds, norovirus, chicken pox and covid. This all sounds awful, however the illnesses ran their course without requiring medical treatment (just treated with over the counter medicine such as Calpol) and I'd call my baby healthy. I think breastfeeding helped with both immunity and recovery. The chickenpox was a remarkably mild case!

@Poppins2016 I completely agree!

Can I also say if your baby get sick and you take
Them to a&e, PLEASE GIVE PARACETAMOL OR IBUPROFEN TO TAKE DOWN FEVER BEFORE YOU COME TO A&e!!!!

The amount of children I saw very sick and their parents hadn't given them anything because they 'wanted us to see them unwell' was disgusting

Thank you, everyone, for all the comments!

I find the health care system in England just doesn’t work at all with access to paediatricians only if the child is unwell (where in all developed countries child’s development is monitored by paediatricians with routine appointments several time a year), long a&e waiting times where you get to hear the standard words ‘it’s a virus’ and likely no further tests are done, GPs examine your child (most of them are unskilled), etc. This is what makes me worry - there is no really a good medical attention when it is needed.
Of course, we are visiting a privat paediatrician, but they are not available for emergencies, unfortunately.

So I suppose, if you can rely on the health case, then it wouldn’t have been a problem. But sadly, not the case in the UK.

But I will try to stay positive 😊

Being unwell is part of life and required to train our immune systems. I really wouldn't try and prevent it.

At least you have got the timing right with this one. Always aim for an autumn birth, your child will be the oldest in the class, so more mature by nearly a year than the little late summer babies. In theory they will have physical advantages, linguistic advantages , emotional maturity advantages, be better able to deal with a long school day, have better hand control etc etc.

Now excuse me while I await the barrage of “ My August born child won scholarships to Eton, Oxford and Harvard before they were ten” posts. Is it too early for popcorn?