Baby ill lots since starting nursery

[adelle f]

Anyone else find their baby kept getting ill when they started nursery? Any tips to help them battle the colds quicker? How long did you find it took for them to build their immune system?

I'm back at work now and husband working away so worried about him getting ill all the time and not being able to go to nursery. And of course feel really sorry for my ill baba :(

Thanks!

Adelle x

[Saffron]

How old is your baby? If he is at least 12 months old and has not already had the varicella virus (chicken pox), you can have him immunised for it. The NHS does not offer this service, but there are a number of private clinics in London that do so. After the initial jab your LO can have the booster 6-8wks later (this was the recommendation I originally received), or he can have the second jab before starting reception (this the imms schedule as currently recommended by the US CDC as part of standard childhood imms in the States http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccination.html) .

For vommitting and diarrhoea, probiotics can shorten the duration of illness. Check at the health shop on LL for recommendations for child-specific probiotics.

I don't know of anything proven to help with nose colds in children, but there are a lot of anecdotal remedies. I'd be cautious about spending loads of money on anything that doesn't have at least a bit of basic scientific reasoning behind it. Most of the stuff for colds seems to be aimed at symptomatic relief. I like Snuffle Babe and eucalyptus tissues. xx

[jennyh]

This was the bane of my life when my daughter started nusery. She started in September last year and unfortunately it did take a full Winter and Spring for much improvement (so about 8 months), endless coughs and colds, 5 tummy bugs, 2 lots of conjunctivitis. I really made me depressed to be honest as she was really upset with it and it just disrupted everything but after a Summer I feel ready to do battle with this Winter! I think sadly it is the reality of this sort of childcare. I do think that they still get the same number of illnesses but the thing that improves is how long it takes to get over them. In the long run she will be much stronger though so try and focus on that!

I did go and ask in Health Matters during one particularly bad bout of illness and they gave me some Sambucol which is elderberry juice, a very strong vitamin C. I have used that on occasion but not sure it actually does anything. Rest and time is probably the best thing for recovery, like us adults really!

Good luck.

[alibo]

My son started nursery at 6 months and I had to take 28 days off work in the first year for illnesses it really got me down too he is now 3 and he has not been sick for 18 months even when there is illness in the nursery I too had to take all the days off with him so try and keep positive cos there should be long term benefits for the littluns immune system and if you can get your employer to understand that it is temporary even better

[Smiler]

My eldest daughter was in nursery 3 days a week from age one to 2.5 and in the first 12 months time had 18 days off sick, and many more minor bugs etc. The worst was croup. It settled down after a year. One of the biggest drawbacks of nurseries!

My younger one has a childminder and at the same age/time has had 2 days off sick.

ofsted don't ask nurseries about sick absences, and nurseries don't make data available on this.

[Smiler]

It is worth warning work in advance about likely unplanned time off or arranging family help if that's possible.

We used up lots of annual leave.

[Yak]

We had about 4 months of this - it definitely calmed down after that but I remember it being a stressful time because of not wanting to take time off work when newly returned yet poorly sick child meant I had to. Luckily I had a relatively understanding boss and also caught every illness off my son so it was mostly sick leave for me rather than for him. I would definitely warn work though - I chatted things through with my boss after the first bout and we agreed a package of non-urgent work that I would keep at home and try and get done if I had to take time off.

Good luck - it does get better!

[Grotty]

Kids who go to nursery develop strong immune systems. In the short term it means lots of bugs for them and you, but there's a benefit in the long term.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1821991.stm

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/pressrelease/2002-05-07-nursery-attendance-may-reduce-the-risk-of-childhood-leukaemia

Look at the Conclusion in this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15298959

[oimissus]

Don't forget that it's not just you who should take time off if baby is sick - I have Mr Oi at home today with poorly Miss Oi - he isn't busy, I've got freelance work, so it's his turn - so ensure your husband's work are primed for this too.

If it's any consolation I met a woman at a party and on discovering I had a child she asked if she was at nursery, when I said yes she said, thank goodness for that, she hadn't been in any childcare prior to going to school and had, as a result in her view, and Grotty's links support this I think, spent huge chunks of her school-life being knocked asunder by bugs that the other kids weren't affected by.

The only thing we do for Miss Oi (who started nursery older than I think your child is, at 2) is give her vitamins. No idea if it makes a difference . . .

[Gidget]

Pets help with immunity as well.

[Mrs TP]

Mine started morning pre-school in last Jan and didn't do a full week in the first term, she had everything going except chicken pox and was on anti-b 3 times. Eventually, it passes and you forget about it. Good luck.

[adelle f]

Thanks for all your replies has definitely made me feel that it will all be worth it in the end! Back at nursery today so let's hope it's a few more weeks before my little baba gets poorly again! x

[cashewnut]

Woah! 20-30 days off sick in a year - is this quite normal or are these the horror stories?

[Saffron]

Hmm, re-reading this, I'm also a little curious! At first I thought Forumites were just talking about younger infants (eg 28 days off sick for a 6 mo old), but looking again it's older toddlers too (eg, 18 days for a 2.5 year old).

What were LOs off sick with mostly, I wonder? I thought nurseries didn't send them home for just nose colds/upper respiratory if no fever?

While the statements about immunity are interesting, they are also very highly generalised. I wouldn't read too much into applying them to individuals. I think it's somewhat inaccurate to say that children who attend nursery early develop "strong" immunity. However, it does seem to be the case from the links presented that children who attend nursery early may develop broad immunity to a number of minor viruses, which may benefit overall immune development.

Anecdotally, has anyone found that b/fing was protective against nursery illnesses?

This is an interesting article: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ocp/9/4/306/ . If you cannot access fulltext, please PM me. I have a copy of the article for personal use. This is from the States 2004, so not that recent. Would be curious to read anything more recent, and also particular to London/SE.

Here are a few interesting quotes from the article:

A substantial proportion of employees? lost time can be attributed to child health. In a 1990 National Child Care Survey, 51% of working mothers with children under the age of 13 reported taking an average of 2.2 days off work in the month prior to the survey to care for their sick children (Hofferth, Brayfield, Deich, & Holcomb, 1991). More recent data show that unscheduled absences from work in the United States increased by 25% in 1998, reaching the highest rate in 7 years (LoJacono, 1999).

American Academy of Pediatrics (1997) explicitly acknowledged the benefits of breastfeeding to the employer by way of reduced health care costs and decreased employee absenteeism for care attributable to child illness. Health care expenses. A recent rigorous, largescale, scientific study demonstrated the links between breastfeeding, childhealth, andassociated healthcare costs. Using a two-nation sample, Ball and Wright (1999) assessed the relationship between breastfeeding and healthcare expenses for three common infant illnesses: lower respiratory tract illnesses, otitis media

(i.e., ear infections), and gastrointestinal illness. Compared with exclusively breastfed infants in the first year of life, never-breastfed infants experienced 2,033 excessdoctor?s office visits, 212 excess days of hospitalization, and 609 excess prescriptions for the three illnesses per 1,000 infants.

So, keep b/fing if you can. This seems to be one major determinant of days off sick. It's in your employer's interest to provide you with lactation support.

But what to do when the child is already sick?

Research shows that the nature, quality, and amount of parental time have positive links to recovery speed, as well as to overall mental and physical health in sick children (Crowley,1994;Heymann & Earle, 1999).

OK, I'm interpreting that to mean that the days off a parent takes to look after a child are actually an investment, as (a)sending the child in to nursery sick or (b) having a non-parent look after the child are not as effective as the parent actually being there to care for the child. So it's in your employer's interest to give you adequate time off to care for sick child/ren.

Small consolation if you've 20+ days off/yr?!

[oimissus]

number of days - doesn't that depend on how many days a child is in nursery, and also, how much the parents want to keep their children off? A child who's at a private (ie non-term time only) nursery 4 days a week, and parents keep child off still totally well could result in that number of days off. Personally, unless Miss Oi has a temp or looks really unwell, I pack her off - having a cold isn't enough to keep her at home for me. But I'm mean (take after my mum - we would have to be virtually dead before we were allowed a day off school), and also freelance and don't get paid holiday or sick days.

[Saffron]

oimissus Wrote:

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> number of days - doesn't that depend on how many

> days a child is in nursery, and also, how much the

> parents want to keep their children off?

Are you referring to the 2.2 days statistic from the psychnet link? Yes, I think it could be quite variable, which is why it's given in context. You'd have to read the original article from which it's taken to know more. The stat was originally derived from Hofferth, Brayfield, Deich, & Holcomb, 1991, within the context of the psychnet article's quote.

> A child

> who's at a private (ie non-term time only) nursery

> 4 days a week, and parents keep child off still

> totally well could result in that number of days

> off.

No, I think the statistic is for sick children only, not well children kept off for other reasons. (Or did I misunderstand what you were saying? A bit confused, sorry.) Do you want a copy of the psychnet article? PM me for a pdf for personal use. It thought it was a very interesting read.

> Personally, unless Miss Oi has a temp or

> looks really unwell, I pack her off - having a

> cold isn't enough to keep her at home for me.

Yes, that's what I would do also. (And most nurseries or schools don't send them home unless there is a fever or D&V, I think). At least, that's what I would have done. Now, having read this article, I might have to have a rethink. The suggestion from the psychnet article was that additional parental care when ill has linked health benefits. (At least that's how I was interpreting it, in the overall context of the article.) So maybe I'll be a bit more cautious about keeping Little Saff home. Not sure yet. I guess I'll know when we get there!

[Yak]

Cashewnut, I would say over the 4 month period of constant illness I think I took about 8 days off in total, but at least half of those were for time that I was sick myself as a result of looking after a poorly baby. And I worked from home a few times too. We have endless ear infections which generally mean one horrible day, couple of hideous nights, then 5 days of antibios (for which, if he's perky enough, he is packed back off to nursery, and now I'm getting better at spotting the ear infection signs he doesn't go downhill too far). Ditto approach to colds and coughs as oimissus - I tend to pack him off like the heartless working mother that I am!

Saffron, I stopped bf just before nursery so can't help with that I'm afraid. On immunity, is it one of those possible benefits that those of us who use nurseries tell ourselves to validate the choices we have already made? I suspect it might be! Interesting though that recovery is linked to parental time off.

[Saffron]

Yak Wrote:

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> Saffron, I stopped bf just before nursery so can't

> help with that I'm afraid. On immunity, is it one

> of those possible benefits that those of us who

> use nurseries tell ourselves to validate the

> choices we have already made? I suspect it might

> be!

I honestly don't know (but I try to validate myself anywhere I can ;-) )!

The info from the psychnet article is pointing to the importance of ongoing b/fing in early nursery environment, but I suspect that there is also a residual effect of having been b/f. I'd love to read some more info on this. If I find anything interesting, I'll post it.

> Interesting though that recovery is linked to parental time off.

Well, one thing that bothers me about a lot of b/f data (don't get me wrong, I'm GREATLY pro b/fing), is that it doesn't tell anyone what to do for children who weren't b/f or who were weaned early to formula. I think the link between recovery/parent time off is interesting b/c it is divorced from the BF-FF controversy, and merely seeks a way to aid children of working parents who are already sick.