3 year old chicken pox and newborn

[FebMama]

Yesterday my 3 year old woke up with a sudden runny nose/slight cough and was generally a little run down.

Fast forward to today and he's woken up with spots over his body which most definitely look like chicken pox.

I also have an almost 6 week old at home and worried about him being affected.

Can newborns get chicken pox? Does anybody have any tips or experience of this? It's difficult for me to keep them apart 100% of the time.

Baby is predominantly EBF too, although just recently started combi feeding. Don't know if the fact that he is BF will make a positive difference?

DS2 got CP (very mildly) at a week old when DS1 came home from nursery with it. We didn't do anything as the GP said he would be protected from it with my antibodies as I was bf, but he did develop about a dozen spots and wasn't unwell. With hindsight I think he should probably have been seen and antivirals considered.
He's now almost 18 and never had it again.

I’m sure your GP would talk you through it all if you called up for advice. The advice can sometimes be different for babies under 8 weeks.

My dd2 got it when she was about 16 weeks from dd1. She was really ill, despite being ebf, she was so miserable, she just didn't know what to do with herself. Far iller than dd1 for example. She also ended up with infected spots and the nappy area was the worst.

The advice was to keep her nappy off as much as possible, which I couldn't work out how to do, but was then forced to do it once her spots were infected.

The upside is she's now 14 and she's never had it again.

My DD4 got chickenpox when my was DD4months. I immediately stopped combi feeding and went full on EBF and the baby did not get chickenpox despite being in the same room all day for a week!
(She never went back to combi feeding though - never took a bottle again!)

My son caught it from his cousin at 15 weeks old (they didn't tell us she had CP and we all went on holiday together(!)) He wasn't too bad with it to be honest. The only thing to be mindful of is that if they do catch it really young they may still catch it again when they're a bit older. X

*my son was ebf btw x

My dd as a very small baby got it from her 2 year old older brother - it was pretty nasty especially in her nappy area but she was ok and couldn’t really scratch etc. In many ways easier than the 2 year old to manage!

I brought my newborn dd home to ds with chicken pox. her df caught it soon after. It was a tough time both her brother and father were really ill. In fact her father was in bed for a week. At a week old dd had six spots that GP said could be chicken pox although he expected her to still have my immunity. She wasn't ill at all. It almost certainly was chicken pox she has a scar from the first spot and now almost thirty has never had it since and was shown to have immunity when tested.

Thank you all for your responses! I managed to get a GP appointment for my eldest this morning. GP didn't seem overly concerned for the little one but did advise to try and prevent skin contact between the two of them. Pretty hard considering the eldest absolutely dotes on his younger brother and is always wanting to kiss and cuddle him! But will try to prevent as much as we can.