How often are your daycare babies getting sick?

ashleysbf · February 2014

Hi Everyone!

I am new to the bump, not sure what took me so long to find all the discussion boards! I have an almost 5 month old daughter and I went back to work when she was 8 weeks old. She is at a family daycare with approximately 6-8 other kids a day. I really like the daycare and feel like she is well taken care of. We are still ebf. I fell like she is ALWAYS sick! She has a constant runny nose and a cough. I have talked with her pediatrician about it, and she just says thats what happens when your kids are in daycare. From your experiences, should she really be sick this often? Is this reason enough to change daycares? Do you think it might get better after the cold and flu season passes?

vvvvvfee · February 2014

yeah, i have to agree it's pretty normal. my DS didn't get sick too much his first winter, but he was the only baby in an in-home daycare with 5 toddlers, and the DCP did a good job keeping the other kids from touching him so they didn't spread germs. this fall, DS started in a larger daycare that has about 20 kids, and he has been sick A LOT. he's had the stomach flu, RSV (which was absolutely horrible), and several colds (a couple of which led to ear infections).

if your LO doesn't get sick now, they will just get sick with everything once they start preschool or kindergarten, so it's not a matter of if, but when they get all this stuff.

that said, i'm sure it will be better once the winter is over. the fact that you're BFing is great, that should help at least a little bit with your LO's immunity. if you aren't already, make sure you wipe off or wash her hands when you pick her up.

vvvvvfee · February 2014

p.s. i also like to quote this paragraph from the book toddler 411 to make myself feel better:

Here are some startling stats. Are you sitting down? The average number of viral infections that a young child gets per year is EIGHT. Each of these illnesses lasts seven to ten days, on average. And most of those illnesses occur between October and April. That gives toddlers a grand total of 80 days of illness in a six-month period. Yep, that's an illness about every other week.

ashleysbf · February 2014

This is making me feel so much better. I thought maybe something was wrong with her and I just had a sickly kid! haha

I am a teacher so maybe the time off in the summer will giver her a little break.

ashleysbf · February 2014

vvvvvfee said:

p.s. i also like to quote this paragraph from the book toddler 411 to make myself feel better:

Here are some startling stats. Are you sitting down? The average number of viral infections that a young child gets per year is EIGHT. Each of these illnesses lasts seven to ten days, on average. And most of those illnesses occur between October and April. That gives toddlers a grand total of 80 days of illness in a six-month period. Yep, that's an illness about every other week.

That sounds about right!! She gets sick for 10 days, has about three good days, and then it starts all over again.

82Sonia · February 2014

DD is sick often. She has a runny nose more often than not it seems. The first week of daycare she got a URI and pink eye.

traveltheworld · February 2014

DS started DC at a large center at 10 months and was very sick (diarhea, cold/flu etc.) for the first 3 months, but since then he hasn't been sick much. He is 20 months now. However, my friend's child, who is in the same DC and the same age, has had a runny nose all winter; and must have had at least 6+ fever and vomiting episodes.

jf198400 · February 2014

My kids were sick constantly last winter, then it got better for the spring summer months and now they are sick again. There's no avoiding it.

laurakaz13 · February 2014

The first year in daycare she must have had 7 or 8 colds, one stomach bug and a few fevers. It wasn't fun.

She is now 2 yrs and 10 months old and hasn't been sick since Christmas 2012. Not joking! I may just be lucky and have a child with a great immune system, but I can assure you it will get better. I cannot even remember the last time DH or I took a sick day with her.

She does get the sniffles occasionally, but hasn't actually been congested at all.

MamaAllison · February 2014

I think the general rule is once they surpass one winter in DC AND 18 months they are good to go - that was true for DD1!

ccam · February 2014

DS started DC at 6 months and the first year was tough - constant runny nose, frequent coughs, croup, roseola, pink eye, HFM and 11 ear infections. But he's doing much better now, especially after tubes. If he didn't have such a hard time with his ears, it wouldn't have been as bad. I think it's par for the course with DC though. And I'd rather it now then when he is in school.

jennyelf · February 2014

First year sucked. We celebrated any week where LO actually was in DC all 5 days. It was rare that winter.
This winter, LO is 18-24m old and while he's been sick, it's just been a runny nose or cough, nothing too major. No pink eye yet, only one fever. So most of the time he's been able to go to daycare. It's been much better for everyone.

ASmallWonder · February 2014

I'm not kidding you, we've can count on one hand the number of weeks, since June that someone in our house hasn't been sick to some degree. Coughs, colds, bronchitis, ear infections, stomach bugs. It's par for the course but it sucks.

jnewvil · February 2014

Thanks everyone for responding! I guess we will have to get use to it.

Curls218 · February 2014

Here's my experience with my infant:

DS started daycare part-time in December at 3 months and was fine the whole time. He started full-time in Jan and came down with RSV which landed him in the hospital for 8 days, then the virus hung around for another 2 weeks after that. He then went back part-time to daycare and 3 weeks later had another cold, which is finally going away after a week and a half, and he went back to daycare at the one week point. So essentially out of the 3 months he has been in daycare so far he's been sick for over 4 weeks of it.

But they do say that the daycare kids usually end up with amazing immune systems and rarely get sick once they are older. I am holding out hope that this is the case!

Stormytucker · February 2014

OP I'm so glad you posted this question ! I was getting ready to ask the exact same thing. My son has been in daycare since beginning of January and has been sick almost all of that time, never before. All other posters you sure make me feel better about my little one and daycare now

SLGILL1978 · March 2014

My daughter has been to 3 daycares and at each one she has gotten really sick once:

1st daycare - was a center. None of the in home had room for an infant. She stated attending at 10 weeks. She was 1 week shy of turning 3 months and she came down with RSV. Also hospitalized for 3 days. I think for two weeks prior everyday all the kids in her infant room had runny noses. I would come in and all the nose suckers were liked up in all the kids' cubbies

2nd daycare - an in home that she stated when I returned to work in August after summer break. There was a little brother and sister who were always sick with fevers, runny noses and coughs. She got sick I think maybe a month after she started? Just really bad cough and congestion. I kept her home a couple days to watch the cough since we had been through RSV

3rd daycare - she started just this past January. My other babysitter moved. This is also an in home daycare. She ended up getting sick with a virus a couple weeks ago. She had a high fever for 3 days, she didn't eat for 2 days A little bit of diarrhea. Her pedi determined it was viral. And another little boy had a virus a few weeks prior to that.

I agree with an above poster. My pedi said those exact words: daycare will give her a good immune system.

ashleysbf · March 2014

I am so sorry to hear that some of you have had an even tougher time than us. It's so sad to see our babies sick. I feel kind of bad for complaining about a little cold now and almost feel lucky it hasn't been worse. Sending positives vibes to all those sick little ones!

bcnoelle · March 2014

I had my son in a full time daycare from 7 weeks to 14 months. He seemed to be always sick. We paid so much in back-up nannies that it didn't even make financial sense for it to continue. So we got a nanny from when he was 14-19 months (was never sick) and put his in part-time 1/2 day pre-school 2 days a week from 18-20 months (healthy) and since then he has been in full day pre-school 4 days a week (still healthy). I think the problem with some day cares is that many working parents are in a bind if they don't bring their kid to daycare with the sniffles. Then it spreads and snowballs. The pre-school he's in now have a lot of 'moms day out' kids there. I don't think many kids are coming in sick cause their moms/dads can watch them easier with only one working parent.

Mustardseed2007 · March 2014

So when DS started DC at 20 months old in September, he was sick from the 2nd day of daycare until about a month ago, basically non stop. I think we literally had 2 weeks cumulatively when he wasn't sick with at least a runny nose. Occasionally it would be more serious with throwing up or diarrhea and he had a few ear infections.

Marley629 · March 2014

I'm new to this board. Have a 5 month old son. Went back to work January 6th when LO was 3.5 months old. LO has been sick since day 3 of daycare. He's had croup, stomach virus, ear infections, a cold and bronchiolitis. It breaks my heart that's he's been sick so much. Luckily SO's mom is our backup for babysitting and has been so helpful in days he was not able to go since I'm still building up my sick and vacation days from maternity leave and SO does not get a lot of time off. I'm just hoping that he's at least building some immunities so he's sick less in the future but it sucks all around.

DTNZ4Ever · March 2014

The first year DS was always sick. 3 weeks of being sick one week healthy. It totally paid off though he will be 5 in a couple of weeks and he has only had 2 very short lived colds since October.

Unknown · March 2014

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jesuisfatiguee · March 2014

The days that he has neither a runny nose nor a cough are more notable than the days he does. He pretty much always has some kind of somethig going on. From what I understand, that's just the way it goes with young kids in daycare. The best you can do is make sure he has a healthy diet (I'm guessing just BM/formula for yours right now), and maybe some homeopathic cough syrup or something.

I know, it makes me sad.

SoMoNY · March 2014

I was prepared for him to be sick all the time and am glad to report it never happened.

His school is very on top of them all washing and cleaning hands multiple times a day so that helps. They are also very very clean and neat thanks to the director being a germaphobe.

He has a runny nose now and then but I think that is allergies and not a real illness because he never has a fever.

roo1oo · March 2014

Within the first 2 weeks of DS starting daycare when he was 11 weeks old he got croup that transitioned to a nasty cold and ear infection. That lasted 2 weeks, then a week after that he got croup again but was pretty much fine after that other than a lingering cough. So, knock on wood, out of 9 weeks of daycare he's been sick for about 2.5 weeks of it.

However, I think he's only had 2 full 5 day weeks because of all the damn snow...

gibbonlove · March 2014

I would hate to make you feel worse, but a runny nose is just the beginning. In the last two years, we've had hand/foot/mouth four times, stomach virus (diarrhea) twice, constant diaper rash as a result of being on antibiotics for sinus infections (about four), roseola once, and about eight ear infections (we had tubes put in after the fifth one, and it's helped a bit), three pink eye outbreaks, and yep, a constant runny nose.

We've started using elderberry/sambucus and it seems to help the winter months, but unfortunately, it's a part of the territory. Hope she feels better!

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