How many holidays do I need for nursery bugs?

[ZaHaK]

My DD starts nursery next month at 11 months old. I don’t go back until November, a month after she’s started. I’ve accrued all of this years holidays plus carried over some from last year and will have next years holiday too.
How many do you think I need for my nursery bugs?

I will be working 3 days a week.

A lot of days. It’s brutal. I’m also scarred by the post covid lockdown illnesses. At least we’re not doing that again…

It really depends if they’ve had chicken pox yet because that can significantly increase the problem!

My experience with DC2 who started nursery at a similar time of year was almost all of your AL. Sorry! DC3 is starting imminently and I'm bracing myself for the same however they have had more illnesses so far than DC1 and 2 at this age and is also the only one to still be breastfed so I'm hoping those things might mean less illnesses or less severity. But we will see.

Be absolutely rigorous about things like handwashing - we were and nursery was too. Nursery was very good at excluding children who were ill, which reduced things like stomach bugs going round. But having small children who know they must wash their hands before meals, when coming in from outside etc sets the expectation. Mine has never had a stomach bug.

The obvious stuff - be up to date with jabs, pay for things like a chickenpox jab, have a healthy diet, be rigorous about food hygiene and the recommended vitamin D.

Nursery with outside space and where they encourage the kids to be outside for a lot of the day. Again, reduces risk of bugs being passed on.

Which days they are in makes a difference. Three days in a block works better than, say, Mon, Wed, Fri. If they pick something up at nursery they might be a bit poorly by the end of Wed. If you work Mon- Wed you’re then not at work on the days when they’re ill (Thursday and Friday) and they’re well again by the time you’re back at work on the Monday. So no time off work required.

My DD did 3 days per week at nursery, she was rarely unwell. Think I only needed a couple of days off the whole time she was there. Definitely wasn’t a massive issue.

On the other hand I have a friend who gave up work completely when her kids were small as one of them was so frequently unwell. Turns out she had some allergies etc.

So it completely varies.

Good luck.

Sheer luck? Perhaps the nurseries we have used had good ventilation and cleaning practices. We do take care at home as well (I’m immunocompromised) and regularly wash hands, antibac door handles etc. My DC do get ill of course but tend to get better quite quickly. They do get colds quite regularly still, but it’s not to the extent they need to stay home and we also haven’t caught it.

We also got the chickenpox vaccine, although there hasn’t been an outbreak of this at nursery (yet).

Potentially most of them.
You can also take unpaid emergency leave for a day or two.
And see if you can book weeks of parental leave to use as actual holiday. Keep the odd days of annual leave for illness.

I don't think there's any way of knowing. I've hardly ever been ill, DC were hardly ill at nursery and when they were it was 1 day rather than 5.

Heavily child dependent. Neither of mine have missed many nursery days at all. They don’t really get ill much. In fact DD2 didn’t get any of the usual gamut of ailments (guessing she got through them in the year before she started thanks to DD1!) However DH and I had a really miserable three months where we got bug after bug. DD1 would get them for a day or so and be fine, then we would catch it and be horribly ill for like 19 days.

I think kids just respond differently to illnesses sometimes. Mine got a fever with every virus whereas others just get a snotty nose. A string of illnesses can also make them a bit rundown and more susceptible to other illnesses. Time of year starting nursery makes a big difference too. Hygiene helps of course but if it’s the baby room they are mouthing everything and coughing everywhere.

Neither of mine had many days off. First one caught the brunt of the post Covid onslaught of colds and was off probably 5-10 the first winter. Second one hardly ever missed a day.

Eldest has never had a day off school sick and she’s in year 2 now. Youngest is in pre school year and I can’t remember the last time I had a call to come and collect her or didn’t send her in.

My friends with similar aged kids seem to be regularly having to have them off school still. To your question about why this might be, I’ve come to the conclusion that some kids are just naturally more sickly than others. So it’s the luck of the draw what you get.

For example, I’m the only one of my Mum friends who didn’t breastfeed either child, I’m not particularly focused on healthy eating and I’m pretty relaxed about them getting grubby. So it’s not like I’m doing anything to improve my chances!

Mine consistently managed 80-90 % attendance from starting nursery at 12 months until Reception when it suddenly improved. Virtually every cold was accompanied by a high temp lasting 3+ days. Between us, DH and I had to take an average of a day off every single week.

I worked 2 days a week when my 11m old started and for the first 3-4 months I was only able to work 50% of the time due to nursery bugs! Little one would go in Tuesday, pickup a bug and be off for their next nursery day at the end of the week. 😭

When baby2 started nursery, they didn't have a single day off for nursery bugs because they had it all from the eldest already! 👌

Completely depends on your child and your nursery.
Mine never had a single day off, while a friend of mine gave up work completely because she decided it was pointless paying for childcare she was not using half the time.

Yeah, quite a lot. But mine was at nursery during Covid, so lots of days off to go get tested for a cough/fever, and then not allowed back until clear.

In the first two winters, mine was off pretty much every two weeks. We'd take it in turns to be off with him unless one of us had something really urgent on.

I did some looking into what can make a difference for a project at work.

Nursery - if they follow the UKHSA guidelines on cleaning and hand hygiene, extra cleaning makes no difference
More outside space and air flow is better

Kids - fewer bugs with age after first year, less likely to have symptoms if they do catch something the older they get
Getting all available NHS vaccines helps (you don't want to be excluded for days and days for chickenpox or measles!)

Winter is always worse

Supplements beyond the NHS recommended vitamins make no difference in big trials and in fact even vitamin D doesn't seem to do much for bugs, but kids need it for bone growth so should be taking it anyway.

Things that can make a difference are if it’s freeflow to outside (so lots of ventilation), use of hepa filters (lower staff and child illness absence in nurseries with these), policy - being quick to send ill children home helps fewer become ill (not sending home might save one kid an afternoon off, but cost another two a couple of days). How many children there are there - it sounds quite small, which could work in your favour.

I was super focussed with my first - lots of handwashing and being careful and staying away from poorly people. She was sick all the time and ended up having asthma and eczema and allergies and is still unwell somewhat often (though drags herself into school with almost anything)

i was super unwell when pregnant with my son and let everything slide. He is (knock on wood) super healthy and has almost never been home. So personally I think it’s totally random.

I think if work has you use holiday allowance for poorly children that’s a problem and you should ask for it to be reconsidered. But if that’s still the case I’d make sure you had 10 days set aside for this.

My DD started in Jan and has had maybe 3 or 4 days off? (Some of those were half days). If it’s just a runny nose /
cough she goes in though, as she’s generally fine in herself and no temp

It’s helped a lot having the ‘recovery’ stretch of Friday - Monday at home.

It’s been easier over the summer but dreading winter.

My child was in nursery on a Tuesday and Friday and got ill most times, it was a bloody circle of colds and viruses every week 😭 would recover the Thursday then pick something else up on the Friday. Nursery was the worst, school is slightly better

A lot

dd started nursery at 7/8 months in the November. By February she’d had HFM (this actually delayed my return to work as she was so poorly), covid, flu, stomach bug and conjunctivitis, as well as the endless cold. So she had a lot of time off nursery (fortunately at the time I had a wonderful boss who was a grandmother and understood how it is. My boss after her would have probably sent me packing)

However, she didn’t have a single sick day for about 14 months after that, so it’s not all bad

Unless you’re a single parent your partner should cover most of the sick days as your career has taken the maternity and part time hit. So he should do 90 percent

he doesn’t get paid though as he’s a contractor… his job and pay allows me the opportunity to work part time. He covers all the bills and expenditures. My earning money is just for me.

I have a 17 month old who has barely needed any time off nursery in her 5 months there so far. Total of 2 days, and of those, one day was actually due to a CMPA reaction (therefore could have technically been avoided had she not been accidentally exposed to milk at home) and the other day was due to an actual bug.

I think that being my third child potentially makes a difference... she was exposed by default to the same bugs as her brothers (who go to school and nursery) from day 1, which may have helped to develop her immune system. She's also pretty hardy/robust and doesn't seem to suffer that much when she does get illnesses. I will also add that nursery are happy for the children to attend if they have illnesses such as colds or HFM as long as they are otherwise OK in themselves, so I've never kept her off for minor colds etc. Nursery will also allow children in and administer drops for conjunctivitis etc. which has been handy.

My first child was in and out of the GP with (diagnosed/confirmed) chest infections all the time and seemed to catch every bug going, so was off nursery quite a lot at first (plus it was during covid, so every cold/cough = isolating and testing). Second child had to be kept off a few times when he started, but the frequency definitely wasn't as high.

I think I'd advise to plan for the worst and hope for the best... it's not always the case that children catch everything going (but it can happen)!

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Don’t be one of those women. Make him do his share and protect your earning capacity