How much leave to save for sickness after daycare starts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've had 2 kids in an in-home daycare and rarely used leave due to their illness. My provider is super-flexible and didn't send home or ask us to keep them home for things like colds, HFM, lice, etc. Obviously I kept them home if they were feeling poorly or had a fever, diarrhea, etc. We are a pretty close-knit group of parents with multiple sibling pairs and kind of viewed it like the kids were siblings-if one had something, chances are they'd all get it.

I've actually gotten more phone calls to pick my kid up from public school for vague stomachaches.

I can't believe you would WANT to keep your kid in a daycare that didn't send kids home that were contagious. That's pretty gross.

Yes, this is extremely irresponsible. Hand foot and mouth is not something to take lightly, it’s very contagious and it’s irresponsible to expose other children to your kid’s HFM because you couldn’t be bothered to take a day off from work. And lice? Again, also very contagious.

It’s really a shame that parents like you don’t recognize that it harms other kids to send your kid to child care ill. My DD has asthma and for her, a cold caught from another child means she’s up all night for many nights on a nebulizer barely able to breathe, with it often turning into bronchitis or pneumonia. I will never understand how parents think it’s ok to send kids with hacking coughs, fevers, etc into school. You are just hurting everyone else’s kids for your own selfish needs.

A daycare like that sounds unlicensed. Licensing laws require them to send home and and notify other parents for certain illnesses.

[Anonymous]

It’s honestly kid dependent.

[Anonymous]

It varies, obviously, but many kids do get sick frequently once they start daycare. Mine certainly did and I found that I did as well. I was never one to get sick easily before I had kids (despite working in a school myself) but now I get almost every virus they bring in. So my advice would be to save as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

I had to use my sick leave for maternity leave. I would try and save 6 days at least if you can

[Anonymous]

Find a good sitter on a service and use for sick days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't really have too much choice about this. I had to use all my leave while I was out on unpaid maternity leave.

But yes, the first year is hard with time off. I got used to bringing my laptop home every night just in case. That way I could usually get a few hours done, even if the rest of the day I was busy rocking a fussy baby.

A simple fever can keep them out for several days, a bigger thing like an ear infection can easily be a week.

I agree with this poster - I also made it a habit to bring home my work notebook and anything truly necessary with me each night. No problem if I ended up just lugging it home and back to work the next day. But on the many days when I had to stay home, I at least could log in while rocking a baby or deal with something truly time-sensitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't really have too much choice about this. I had to use all my leave while I was out on unpaid maternity leave.

But yes, the first year is hard with time off. I got used to bringing my laptop home every night just in case. That way I could usually get a few hours done, even if the rest of the day I was busy rocking a fussy baby.

A simple fever can keep them out for several days, a bigger thing like an ear infection can easily be a week.

I agree with this poster - I also made it a habit to bring home my work notebook and anything truly necessary with me each night. No problem if I ended up just lugging it home and back to work the next day. But on the many days when I had to stay home, I at least could log in while rocking a baby or deal with something truly time-sensitive.

I've started doing this too. Similarly I was only allowed to hang on to a handful of sick days during maternity leave. No major illnesses yet but the colds have been constant over the last two months and I keep getting asked to pick DD up whenever she has a runny nose, so I'm burning sick leave as soon as I accrue it. DH alternates when he can and will probably be the one to stay home should there be any major illnesses since I have so little leave.

It's a bit frustrating because our provider seems to be moving the goalposts on their illness policy- although there is a clause in there for "substantial" runny nose, it seems like ANY runny nose gets treated as "substantial". Did not have this issue when our older DC was there a few years ago.