sick, sick, sick Ages & Stages

jo_will · 03-03-09, 04:40 PM

I had a full time nanny until Alexa was 16 months. I started to see that she was getting bored at home and put her in an Emilia Reggio daycare. She loves it, likes the educators, the classes and the gym. The problem is she is ALWAYS sick. She gets one cold, finishes the cold, gets another cold, etc ... I am wondering if I am doing her any favors, maybe she would have been better off at home with the nanny ... I know that she needs to build her immunity but maybe if I would have kept her home until 3 or 4 she would have built her immunity slowly over time and when she would have started school she would have been less sick. Any advice, thoughts, opinions would be greatly appreciated. I feel so sorry for my little munchkin ....

TTUAlison · 03-03-09, 05:50 PM

How long has she been in the daycare? (Sorry, I'm not sure how old she is now

)

Mommy2KNIH · 03-03-09, 06:42 PM

I used to work in a daycare and it didnt matter if they started the child at 6 weeks or 4 years old, the child is going to get sick quite a bit a first. There are soooooo many different germs there and they are new to your little one so chances are she has not built an immunity to them. The longer she is in, the less she will get sick (providing it is a clean facility) because she will become immune to a lot of what is going around. We would have this conversation with all the new enrolled families. They would come to us with the same question as you on if they should wait to enroll them until they are older. If the center is dirty (which I dont think you would have your child there if it was) then changing centers might lessen the amount of times she gets sick but overall she will get sick a lot for the first 0-6 months. You should see it diminish after that though

If you dont do it now then you will just go through this when she starts Kindergarten (unless you are planning on homeschooling her).

~babydoll~ · 03-04-09, 08:30 AM

All kids who start child care get sick often. It will take some time for her to build an immunity to all the new germs she encounters. Poor little one.

Handwashing, even though it's challenging with toddlers, is the best way to stop the spead of germs, as well as routine toy sanitizing. As long as you're comfortable that those things are happening and that Alexa is happy there, I wouldn't change centers or put her back at home. It will only happen again when she goes back to school.

I hope she's really well again soon.

jo_will · 03-05-09, 09:59 PM

Thanks!! It's been less than 3 months since she started so I guess she has at the very least 3 more tough months ahead of her. Poor munchkin!! Her fever was as high as 104.7, very scary! We brought her to the clinic and did an xray of her lungs, thankfully there is no infection and it seems it is just a nasty virus. She is back at daycare now and doing much, much better except for her nasty cough. The daycare is very high end and appears spotless but I guess appearances can be deceiving, I will ask them about the handwashing and toy sanitizing protocols.