At what point would you send back to nursery?

[whatisupwiththis]

My DS has been off nursery all week with a stomach bug that started on Friday with fever and watery poo. The fever is long gone and the poos have been improving slowly. The nursery has the standard 48hrs since last loose stool rule. The thing is, his poos tend to be mushy by default, which the nursery is aware of. So when he's back to normal they'll still be mushy. Today he's done one poo within the last 24hrs and it's similar to his normal consistency i.e. pasty mush, but it's yellow rather than brown. If he did a poo like that normally the only thing that would concern me would be the colour. I'm wondering when to judge it suitable to send him back in - if he's doing one poo a day he can't still be sick and contagious surely? Just his bowels getting back to normal. What if they stay like this for days and days?

I'd send him back. My little one's poo stay pale for a while after being ill.

Oh I spoke too soon, he just did a follow-up that was watery 😔 this feels too long for a stomach bug! We're on day 6 and still getting water poos!

It's tricky because he's probably fine, but his stomach is still unsettled from being ill. But obviously even if he is fine, he'll get sent home again if he does a runny poo in nursery. You could try giving a probiotic like Optibac to boost his gut bacteria.

Could it be gastroenteritis? My little girl had that last year and the poo some lasted over a week. I had her at the doctors but they said as it was viral they couldn’t do anything and to be fair it did eventually just clear up on its own