How often are your toddlers ill?

[bottomsizeofbrazil]

My daughter has been at nursery for 5 months now and she is having fevers (raised temp of 39+) about 3 times a month. There is not usually any other accompanying symptoms. It's really ramped up since November / December and it feels absolutely never ending.
We have seen the GP who is pretty satisfied that it's just normal toddler illnesses. She has no other concerns and usually eats / drinks fine throughout the episodes. There are also no cold / cough symptoms or rashes at all so I can never actually tell what's wrong other than the temperature.
Most recently she had 3 days of high fevers and it's been less than 6 days of health and tonight she has woken with another one.
Has anyone else had this level of frequency for fevers? Did it ever end?

Kids under 5 have a virus 50% of the time. Some scientists in the US did a study. Some of those bugs will be symptomless, but it sounds like your LO runs hot and is prone to fevers. Does she feel grotty/seem off? You only need to give Calpol if she feels unwell ("treat the child, not the fever"), unless your GP has told you differently.

Mine are rarely ill with a significant temperature, mostly they get mild coughs/colds/runny noses but carry on as normal. DS1 had 1 tummy bug in his 3 years at daycare nursery and DS2 has only been at nursery for just over a year but has never had to be kept off ill.

Some kids are definitely more robust though for no real obvious reason! It's tough but hopefully as your DDs immunity builds these illnesses will lessen. I think the NHS says small kids can get 10-12 viral infections a year.

And if it helps, since starting nursery in October, my LO has had RSV, COVID, noro, hand foot and mouth AND several colds/coughs. It's something every week.

Thanks for the reply!
Yeah she gets really sad and sometimes shaky. Her fevers can reach 40 sometimes and it can be quite scary in the moment. We always try Calpol first but most of the time after an hour we have to give ibuprofen which is the only thing that brings it down. Once the fever is down she behaves like normal happy and playing or sleeping.
GP thought it was normal too but none of her baby friends seem to get poorly anywhere near as much as she does so it does feel excessive but I guess they are all different.

Bizzarely she has only ever had a cold once that I can think of!
She is 14 months old and in the last 5 months I could count on one hand the full weeks she's managed to do at nursery! The waste of money is painful.
The fevers are so strange as no other notable symptoms.
Maybe she just fights all of the cold viruses via fever rather than getting the full illness. Very odd indeed!

Honestly? Fucking all of the fucking time. Since DS1 has been in childcare (7 months I worked out 3 months of that he's been off. And he's yet to get all the biggies - chickenpox, slapped cheek. It's exhausting.

Nowhere near that often (touch wood), the first couple of months at nursery she had a few fevers and the occasional thing since but definitely not super regularly. She's 2 and started nursery just before her 1st birthday.

You know your own child best though. If you're concerned, push for a second opinion, is it possible she has an undiagnosed water infection?

I’ve got one prone to 40 degree fevers. She was constantly ill when she started nursery. I was on the verge of asking the dr to investigate. Unfortunately some kids do pick up everything going. It does usually improve when they start school

My eldest was like this, constantly running crazy fevers. I hated it, it really freaked me out. I had so much time off work with her going back and forth to the doctors. I'm pleased to tell you that it does get much easier as they get older.

My youngest gets sick too but illnesses just seem to glance off her. I don't think she's had more than 4 days off nursery in 3.5 years. She gets fevers so mildly half the time I don't even notice until she goes off her food. She recovers more quickly too.

"Fucking all of the fucking time" is cathartic and correct 🤣

I've got a picture somewhere of my eldest off school with chicken pox while the youngest was off nursery with HFM, while incubating the chicken pox that broke out 7 days later.

A month after that we all got Covid. FUN.

Have they ever tested her urine? Just in case she has an underlying UTI?

Otherwise one of my kids was unwell non bloody stop when they were toddlers. It was awful and never ending.

The other one was much less frequently ill. No reason why especially as the younger and more robust one was definitely exposed to more people / germs / situations.

My now 4yo started daycare before he turned 3y and spent about 7m getting sick at least twice a month. It then eased off to much less often.

He does seem to get fevers a lot more often than his younger sister. He just had an ear infection and the only real sign was a very high temperature. He also gets hot and sweaty and night unlike her (not sure if that's related at all).

Aw my DC2 was like this as a baby. Started nursery part time in the September at just under 1, and was ill roughly every other week then until about April. Sooo many fevers. It was awful, so stressful. He was so poorly so often poor little lamb. It was also really stressful for DH and I with all the time off work as we have no back up childcare support for when our kids are ill.

I can tell you the following winter there were still quite a lot of bugs at 2 but absolutely nothing like the previous one.

This winter at 3 I think he's had one mild cold in October and nothing since then so far. OTOH my 6 year old has been ill roughly once a month since she went back to school in September!

Honestly all the bloody time, it's draining and taking over our lives. It's really miserable. My son has just turned 3 and has been constantly unwell in November and January. In December not as much as I decided to take him out of nursery so we could actually enjoy Christmas and it was his birthday. I have a newborn now too which makes it even harder.
He's recently had what I think is the flu and I've caught it and feel absolutely horrendous. This year just seems particularly bad for some reason.

I was meant to add my son is prone to fevers too! I always know he's coming down with something when his neck feels hot. In November he had a virus where the fever lasted a good 7 days. Utterly miserable.

Pretty much all the time.

Mine was ill roughly every 2 weeks from Oct-Mar during the first winter at nursery and about 5 of those bugs caused fever and general misery.

This year is the 2nd winter and we have only had one stomach bug and one fever (which wasn’t as miserable as the ones she had last year) plus the usual colds.

Yes we've had swabs about 3 times for the main viruses which all come back negative. Urine has been done multiple times as well. I think if I push they will do a blood test to see if there is any indicators of anything underlying but it's so hard to know if it's just normal behaviour or not. They said the blood tests can be quite traumatic for little ones so we should just see if it keeps happening for now.
Bizzarely she's up this morning now like nothing happened - it's so up and down!

Having been up again most of the night with my 3.5yr old, I’d say it’s also been constant here since Sept time last year and was / has been worse since Nov with some sort of virus / fever every couple of weeks. Completely and utterly exhausting. Calpol also doesn’t bring it down (over 39 at 1am this morning) so we also alternate with nurofen too which seems to work. Hoping that after another quiet day today we’ll be back at nursery tomorrow.

It is honestly so exhausting isn't it 😭 I have had to take so much time off work either keeping her home or having to leave half way through the day to go and collect her from nursery!
We've had 2 more isolated fevers since I wrote this post so I saw the GP again who referred us to paediatrics at the hospital and we went in today and got a chest xray and blood taken. They have been amazing and were happy to cover all basis to see if there is anything underlying!
I am now FULL of anxiety waiting for the call later to find out the results!

@bottomsizeofbrazildid you ever find out if anything else was going on from the tests? We’re going through a similar thing with our 2 year old. Thanks!