DH and I both had two really bad days with Covid but thankfully they barely overlapped.

If the kids are still well, they continue going to daycare and DH handles everything after work, same as if I were out of town. I do the same when he is sick or out of town. We've gone through a few rounds of flu or other viruses this way. I get it's a lot harder for a SAH parent who doesn't have regular daycare.

It's only really bad when one or both parents AND a kid are sick at the same time, so they can't go to daycare. One memorable occasion was when DH, our 3yo and I all got food poisoning. We also had a 6mo, who by virtue of breastfeeding rather than eating the same food we ate, got away without getting sick. The problem, of course, was that meant DH and me dealing with a sick toddler and a breastfeeding infant while we were both puking our guts out. Thankfully it didn't last long. TV, puke bowls next to the couch, and all three of us sleeping in the living room so we could trade off duties to whoever wasn't puking at the moment.

Yes, I had the flu with 3 young kids while spouse was out of town. I did the bare minimum, the kids rallied (and watched a ton of tv), and it was fine.

I got really sick twice with kids. Once was a stomach bug, and I could not stop sh**ting and couldn't get off the couch. The other time I was having dizzy spells and couldn't stand up. Both times my mom took off work and came from out of town to help. My husband is a doctor and wouldn't take off unless I was literally dying.

Yes. Grandma was a huge help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Assuming your 8 year old is neurotypical, they should actually be able to handle quite a bit themselves. If they don’t know how to make a frozen waffle, get cheese sticks for themselves and their siblings, etc — you should work on that.

If you are sick, your hsuband should take off work. But if you were really in a pinch, I think between TV and your eight year old, you could make it work.

My 8 yo would love to turn into "mom" for a day and boss some young sibs while the real mom is out of commission.

Anonymous wrote: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!

As someone who did 26 weeks of chemo with two kids under five, 1 and 2 for us. No grandparents. You just make it work. My kids watched an insane amount of tv.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh geeze, wait till you all have the same stomach virus at the same time. Like the Walking Dead.

The only thing worse than a violent stomach virus is the waiting for it to hit you. Knowing that, as your toddlers throws up ALL OVER YOU, that when it hits you, it will be worse. Much much worse. I always spend those hours feeling nauseous from PTSD, and then the real nausea hits. Sigh.

Ha! I'm 1529 and I feel both of these. Nightmare.

I got pneumonia when my oldest was a baby and my mom came out to stay with us until I was better. DH was in a new job and couldn't take off.

When my kid picked up norovirus from daycare and then spread it to both my DH and I....

I remember picking my kid up early after sudden onset and once we were home and while he was puking all over me and pooping at the same time, thinking...yeah this is not good at all. I'm gonna go ahead and switch to only liquids. I saved myself a tiny bit of misery. Called my husband and asked him to come home early (which he did) and then warned him to be careful about what he was going to eat, if anything considering the kid was spewing from all orifices. He didn't listen. I think at some point we both might have been crying for our own parents, lol. Looking back, the only saving grace was that it hit the two of us in waves. Given how violently ill we were for 48 hours not entirely sure how we would have otherwise managed a 15 month old.

Anonymous wrote:Oh geeze, wait till you all have the same stomach virus at the same time. Like the Walking Dead.

The only thing worse than a violent stomach virus is the waiting for it to hit you. Knowing that, as your toddlers throws up ALL OVER YOU, that when it hits you, it will be worse. Much much worse. I always spend those hours feeling nauseous from PTSD, and then the real nausea hits. Sigh.

Sure. I had breast cancer and a complete mastectomy.

My husband did what he could but had to work. It was Covid time, so I just sat up in bed, took my Vicodin, and kept working remotely. Yay American health care.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Assuming your 8 year old is neurotypical, they should actually be able to handle quite a bit themselves. If they don’t know how to make a frozen waffle, get cheese sticks for themselves and their siblings, etc — you should work on that.

If you are sick, your hsuband should take off work. But if you were really in a pinch, I think between TV and your eight year old, you could make it work.

Anonymous wrote:Picture this- Feb 2021 (height of COVID). I have a 2yo and a 3 WEEK old. Dh took two weeks off work after birth then got stuck on a last minute trip across the country. He leaves. 3 hours later I start puking/pooping (at the same time) my brains out. I had a C section and truly thought I was going to rip my entire incision back open I was throwing up so violently. No one would come help be because it was COVID and I had a stomach bug. I spent 48 hours on the bathroom floor with a newborn latched to my boob and a two year old running rampant doing god knows what because I wasn't watching her.

That sounds incredibly awful!!

I have one memorable one to add. My spouse was relocating our family from city A to city B for a job within the same company. The bosses in both cities were being inflexible about his start date and ultimately City A told him at the last minute that he needed to work over New Years, which were the days we were planning to literally drive/move. We had already told our landlord we would be out on December 28 and our furniture and belongings were on the moving truck. We made arrangements to stay at a hotel in City A for a few extra days with our toddler twins.
Then I got a violent norovirus or stomach virus, the worst I’ve ever had. On New Years Eve! Boss of city A had already been adamant DH had to work. I had to call the part-time preschool I had unenrolled my children from to beg them to let me sign my kids up for the day of winter break camp. The preschool was 2 blocks away from our old apartment but 20 minutes away from the one room hotel we were in. We obviously had no kitchen so I had my spouse grab dry cereal boxes from downstairs to feed the kids breakfast and stopped at a bodega to buy them bagels for lunch (the preschool kindly gave them cheddar bunnies for snack). My husband wasn’t allowed to leave work to pick them up at 3pm and the subway ride back to the hotel involved transferring train lines. My amazing best friend and amazing part time sitter, neither of which had a car with car seats, both went together to get the toddlers and pick them up. Obviously they couldn’t really look after them in the one room hotel room while I was ill, so they came and got the stroller and took them to Barnes & Noble and got them dinner. I literally had to crawl to the door to hand off the stroller. Thankfully I was better the following day and no one else got sick. But it was not how I wanted to spend our last moments handling an out of town move with small children.