Have you ever been truly ill when you have had kids?

[Anonymous]

I have been a parent for 8 years and have never been truly ill since I had kids. It is one of my biggest fears is being super sick and stuck in bed and having to take care of young kids. I probably haven't been super sick in over 15 years and that was when I was living abroad.

If you are truly sick what do you do? Does your spouse handle everything? What if they have to work?

[Anonymous]

Yes. I have lupus and have had bad flares. I also had horrendous hyperemesis gravidarum in my last pregnancy that left me on bedrest. Both times my husband had to do everything when he wasn't working. My parents flew in to help and our kids watched a lot of tv and ate a lot of pizza.

[Anonymous]

I had a stomach virus a few weeks ago. I took off work and my spouse handled everything for the two days I was out of commission.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I have 3 young kids (8 years old and younger) and DH works SUPER long hours. I know he could probably take off if I was like in the hospital sick but I worry about what would happen if I am just a stomach virus sick.

[Anonymous]

Your spouse needs to get his priorities in order or you hire help.

My spouse has taken off work to take care of me and our family.

[Anonymous]

Ha yes.

Three options (or a combo of the three):

1. Just basically don’t take care of them. Screens, cereal, no baths, they miss activities, etc.

2. Get help. Spouse takes time off and coordinates getting help, neighbors take them to school, babysitters, hire someone to clean, etc. the trick here is you have to ask.

3. Ship them off to grandparent’s house.

I am not quite sure why you have this anxiety; it seems like an odd thing for a healthy person to be so concerned about. But take heart: your kids will survive!

[Anonymous]

Yes. I’m a single mom. No dad at all. I’m glad DD is almost 6. Every year it gets easier.

[Anonymous]

I broke my legs so I was pretty much incapacitated for a while. DH did most things. My little three-year-old son grew up pretty quick that year. It was heartbreaking and yet awesome when he had to put himself down for a nap. Coincidentally he also potty trained himself during that period

[Anonymous]

Yes and when they're little it's tough.

Hopefully you have a spouse or someone in your community that can step in and help when they're little.

When they're older, it's so much easier.

You'll figure it out when it happens OP. Trust yourself that you can handle it.

[Anonymous]

DH and I had norovirus at the same time while caring for a 3yo. Didn't want to call babysitter for fear of getting her sick. DC already had the symptoms before we did.

Lots of TV. If it had lasted longer than 24h or so, would have called sitter and stayed in our bedroom isolated with the house as Clorox-ed as possible.

[Anonymous]

Wow I'm impressed this has never happened to you. It's happened to me a handful of times. Once when I had food poisoning, once when I had a bad reaction to medication that made me violently ill, and a couple times when I've had debilitating migraines (I have chronic migraines that are medicated but they have worsened over the years and I've had a couple that were so bad that I became disoriented and lost vision).

My spouse has taken over each of those times, including taking sick leave from work if necessary. Luckily his work is pretty amenable to this as long as it's just occasional. And it definitely evens out between the two of us because I'm the WFH parent with the flex schedule who handles the vast majority of our kid's sick days or random days off from school, plus does heavy lifting to fill in the gaps in the summer.

If I were a single parent I'd have to live near family who could help or employ a PT nanny or something because with my migraine issues and some bad luck, it seems inevitable that there are days when I just can't function. At least until kids are old enough that you could just ask a neighbor or fellow parent to help get them to and from school or maybe send them to a friend's house for a Saturday while you recovered. Maybe like 7 or 8? My kid is 5 and these illnesses all happened when she was 2-4, so she needed more care than that and I would not have felt safe just having her home with me while I was that unwell.

[Anonymous]

I’ve currently thrown out my back. I’m nearly completely bedridden and have been for about 2.5 weeks. For the first two weeks, I could only sit or stand for about 10 mins at a time and that was very painful. Now I can stand and walk around with minimal pain for about 45 mins (sitting is still painful).bI can’t lift anything. It’s getting better with intensive physical therapy, but I’ve got probably 1 more week until I’m at my usual mobility, and I won’t be able to lift heavy things for probably another 2-4 weeks after that.

It’s terrible.

My kids are 1 and 2.5. I cannot hold them, get them in or out of their cribs or high chair/boosters, change them, give the baby a bottle, even really watch them (they move too fast and I can’t turn my neck quickly). My husband is doing EVERYTHING. All childcare, laundry, cooking, pet care, cleaning, etc, etc. plus some caretaking of me (though I can mostly take care of myself, at least). We have asked the nanny to come early/stay late once or twice, but we don’t have the money to pay for any significant overtime.

I can at least snuggle with my older kid, and read to him, because he understands he needs to be careful with me, and I can of course talk to him, but can’t even do that with the baby, so we’re completely disconnected.

Honestly, it’s nearly breaking us. My husband is so burned out, and my mental health is plummeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve currently thrown out my back. I’m nearly completely bedridden and have been for about 2.5 weeks. For the first two weeks, I could only sit or stand for about 10 mins at a time and that was very painful. Now I can stand and walk around with minimal pain for about 45 mins (sitting is still painful).bI can’t lift anything. It’s getting better with intensive physical therapy, but I’ve got probably 1 more week until I’m at my usual mobility, and I won’t be able to lift heavy things for probably another 2-4 weeks after that.

It’s terrible.

My kids are 1 and 2.5. I cannot hold them, get them in or out of their cribs or high chair/boosters, change them, give the baby a bottle, even really watch them (they move too fast and I can’t turn my neck quickly). My husband is doing EVERYTHING. All childcare, laundry, cooking, pet care, cleaning, etc, etc. plus some caretaking of me (though I can mostly take care of myself, at least). We have asked the nanny to come early/stay late once or twice, but we don’t have the money to pay for any significant overtime.

I can at least snuggle with my older kid, and read to him, because he understands he needs to be careful with me, and I can of course talk to him, but can’t even do that with the baby, so we’re completely disconnected.

Honestly, it’s nearly breaking us. My husband is so burned out, and my mental health is plummeting.

Sorry you are going through this PP.

This validates my decision not to do surgery on an athletic injury that does not cause me pain day-to-day, just during the relevant sport...I do not think a household with a young toddler (but no nanny or local grandparents) could handle it even with a super helpful and available spouse

[Anonymous]

I had the onset of ulcerative colitis when my kids were 1 and 5. I'll try to spare you most of the gory details, but let's just say me and the toilet spent a LOT of time together for several months while I was being worked up and until treatment took effect.

It was not good. My husband dealt with the kids while I was indisposed, but was clearly put out about it. But other than the times I was literally unable to get off the toilet, I just powered through as much as possible with the usual routine/demands. I couldn't really eat, so lost over 30 lbs and was weak, had horrible abdominal pain, etc.

Thank god I eventually got an effective treatment and was able to get back to normal. DH is a good dad/spouse overall, but reacts poorly in emergency/high stress scenarios. He doesn't really empathize at all with me if I am ill, but is a classic Man Cold patient if something's wrong with him. It's probably his biggest fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had the onset of ulcerative colitis when my kids were 1 and 5. I'll try to spare you most of the gory details, but let's just say me and the toilet spent a LOT of time together for several months while I was being worked up and until treatment took effect.

It was not good. My husband dealt with the kids while I was indisposed, but was clearly put out about it. But other than the times I was literally unable to get off the toilet, I just powered through as much as possible with the usual routine/demands. I couldn't really eat, so lost over 30 lbs and was weak, had horrible abdominal pain, etc.

Thank god I eventually got an effective treatment and was able to get back to normal. DH is a good dad/spouse overall, but reacts poorly in emergency/high stress scenarios. He doesn't really empathize at all with me if I am ill, but is a classic Man Cold patient if something's wrong with him. It's probably his biggest fault.

Just to clarify, he is at baseline a pretty equal parenting/household partner. It was the extra/uneven care burden that he was salty about, even though it wasn't avoidable.