I wouldn't.

A 5 year old can and should wear a mask unless outdoors. Or at least a face shield. Our preschool requires all children over 2 and all teachers to wear masks indoors.

The reason to mask your 5 year old is to make sure he/she does not spread the virus he/she could be carrying to the daycare provider and to the other families.

How likely is your 5 year old to catch the virus outside of the daycare environment? If he/she is likely to catch the virus outside the daycare environment, I would say he/she should mask up at daycare.

Do you and your husband go into work? What kind of activities do you do outside of work? Does your child do any sports? Do you go out to eat at restaurants? Do you socialize with neighbors? etc. If yes to any of those, your child should wear a mask. If you are all working from home and not socializing and not participating in activities, then your child is more likely to get the virus from daycare then anywhere else. In that case, I wouldn't bother if no one else is masked. The mask won't help in that case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only her won’t make a difference. How many kids are 25 months or older?

I can see no kids in masks if there are only two kids over 24 months and they both have a younger sibling there (siblings would probably have the same COVID status).

This is the situation. 6 kids, 3 families with sibling pairs. 3 kids over 2.

I wouldn’t bother. Europe doesn’t use masks under 11 and they have done way better than we have. I would be comfortable with this level of risk woth current stats.

Do you not read the news? Europe isn't doing so good right now. Not a model to follow.

I would be fine with them not wearing a mask in this setting.

My 3, almost 4 yr old attends preschool and mask wearing is encouraged but has pretty poor compliance. I really don’t think in the 5 and under it is very protective. They touch all over the mask, take it on and off constantly, chew on it, leave it places.

I think asking only 1 kid to wear a mask does not make sense.

My 4 YO just moved from a private preschool to a private JK through 12. No one but teacher wore mask at private preschool. At the JK-12, all students wear one including JK.

At JK-12, kids all wear masks with lanyards so they can easily take mask on and odd. I’d be inclined to do something similar for your kid for practice and respect not bc it does anything. But I think this one goes either way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I send my 5 year to day care with the toddler since school is virtual and we have to work. It is a small home day care with three families. The owner always wear masks but never mentioned that the 5 year old should. The next oldest child is 3.5 and doesn't wear a mask.

She's basically doing you a favor by taking your 5 year old and dealing with distance learning for you and you are complaining that 1 kid is not wearing a mask?

Op here. Not complaining at all. She is amazing and I am eternally grateful. She has helped us through the entire pandemic. I am just wondering what other people would do with their 5 year old in this situation.

I'm curious why you are worried now? I assumed this was a new situation. Is there an older sibling who is in school? Some added risk?

If she will wear it I'd continue to encourage her to, ,uch easier to keep the habit, than to have to reteach it.

A friend recently decided to send her 3 year old to another day care and asked me about it. Since there is an unmasked sibling I hadn’t really thought about it much.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, she should wear a mask. Imperfect as it is with little kids it’s still vitally important.

Why is it vitally important? Especially if there is an unmasked sibling.

My K and 1st grader are being schooled this semester with 2 other children by an ES teacher in her home with her son being one of the other two. No masks. We have been living in a very tight bubble in terms of masks and social distancing but I want their schooling to be as normal as possible even if this private approach is abnormal.

Yes, she should wear a mask. Imperfect as it is with little kids it’s still vitally important.