Reply to Constant illness - was it like this before?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Since originally posting this about a month ago, my kid has had two more fevers, each lasting 4+ days. So we’re up to 13 illnesses in seven months. How do people do this without losing their jobs/minds? Are people seriously taking off work every other week? And if so, how are they not getting fired? I genuinely don’t know what I’m going to do when I have a newborn in a few months and he brings all this crap home to the baby who will have zero immune system. I’m a pretty resilient person in general but am really struggling mentally with this. Sorry if this comes off as whining (per a previous poster), but screaming into the void of an anonymous internet forum is pretty much my only outlet at the moment.[/quote]

I think you reevaluate what your specific child needs and is like.

1. You may need a nanny (especially as you are going to have 2 children in care, each getting sick)
2. Then you have your preschooler attend a half-day nursery school 3 mornings a week, where you child gets to socialize and learn from each other and do all the wonderful things, but isn't around kids as much (and make sure they are OUTSIDE for a good strong hour of that 3 hour time) so won't get as sick.

And you will also have the nanny for your child to stay home when s/he is sick and can't go to nursery school.  A really ill child needs to be with parents, but a child who is under the weather, has a low-grade fever and cold can certainly be with a nanny.

I have directed childcare centers and preschool programs for years and years.  We had one infant who got so many illnesses that affected her lungs, she had to be pulled out so that she didn't have permanent lung damage. ALL the other infants in that room got a few illnesses but never as much as she did, right at the same time as she was down with bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. etc.  So your child might just courbe the one you gets sick more and harder than the other kids in the class.

Of course, you should be doing things like sending a new, clean water bottle every day, take clean linens every week (and when he has a cold, you could send clean linens in halfway through the week for his cot so he isn't sleeping on germy linens)

And ask the teachers what they do to make sure kids aren't passing too many illnesses on, like not sharing water bottles, washing their hands before and after they eat, after they use a tissue on their nose (and teacher should wash their hands after using tissues on a child's nose or theirs) not using the water table (but putting lots of hard sensory materials in there like flour, sand, shredded paper, beans, whatever so they get their sensory needs met) when lots of kids have snotty noses (kids are SUPPOSED to wash their hands begore and after using hte water table but honestly that is HARD HARD HARD to manage in a busy classroom and often doesn't get done).  Also any water in the water table MUST BE emptied and the water table washed with FAntastik or something like it between uses.  No letting the water sit and reusing it after nap!

But the truth is, young children don't always sneeze into tissues, wash their hands perfectly, NOT hug and kiss when they have a cold, they will put stuff in their mouth and then hand it to the next child (yuck, and we tried to keep that from happening and talking about PRETENDING to drink from the cup but... 3s be 3s.)

Post covid, we could ask teachers who don't feel 100% to wear a mask, but the truth is, the kids are giving it to each other more than a teacher is giving it to a child.  [/quote]

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