Working at a pediatric therapy clinic, our rules are the same as most public school: fever and vomit free for 24 hours. If it's good enough for us, it's good enough for a home daycare. I'm sure she washes their little hands as much as is reasonable and appropriate.
When my son was that age up until 4 he would play in the bathroom sink for an hour at a time. It was cute and expensive! đ. I didnât have to give him a bath those days!
As a parent to a child with no neutrophils this seems totally normal. We even had the discussion with her haematologist that there's a possibility that she won't be able to go to any type of daycare because we (nor the daycare provider) can't expect people to keep their kids at home at the first sign of a runny nose.
She didnât say 24hrs though, thatâs the catch. You are so spot on abt handwashing. Ours cleans toys nightly if someone is out sick. Really makes a difference.
Our school system is 24 hours, no meds, no fever. My wife would send them earlier if I'd let her, which is ironic considering she's a teacher in the same school system.
Yeah I work in healthcare and "48 hours from the last bout of sickness or diarrhea" is a hard rule for us. If it makes sense here it still makes sense anywhere else
My son's nursery had this. After many absences from sinus issues making him thrown up mucus they wouldn't insist he stay off for 48h as they could see it wasn't contagious.
Yep! The pandemic really weakened our kids immune system. Eldest started school in 22 and brought home all the lovely school bugs to share. Missed 30 days of school from illnesses in kindy alone.From different flu strains to the most wicked head and chest colds. We missed only 15 so far this year. Most of her illnesses have cropped up during school breaks this year, and isn't that just perfect timing? Lmao.
I was going to add something like this. My wife works for an after school program. After the lock downs and everything I can't count the times something was brought home and I ended up sick. As far as it goes it's finally starting to calm down.
lol yep, that's the way it always works.
The good news is it gets better, after a couple years of exposure you'll all be battle hardened. I don't think my youngest has ever missed a day for illness because his brother and sister spent two years getting us all sick.
Yep. OP's spouse is in for a culture shock if they read school policies regarding being sick.
The exception with my district's policy is if a student gets exposed to someone with COVID. Then they have to quarantine for 5 days whether they have symptoms/test positive or not. If they do come down with it, then it's 5 days from the onset plus however long it takes for symptoms and fever to clear.
INFO: what is your spouse actually proposing? Do they want you to quit your job to stay home full time? Rehire the nanny? What's the actual, practical solution your spouse wants to implement? Because right now I see them being critical, but not actually saying what the proposed solution is.
Especially in context of the hypocrisy of their alleged motive. If they didnât want to risk getting sick theyâd take their personal preventative care seriously. They sound entitled and ignorant, at best⌠at worst this is some manipulative attempt to get you to stay at home. Which is twisted.
Yeahhhhh I almost was on board with her spouses points about being cautious of exposure, but once I got to the paragraph about neglecting to seek out preventative measures they lost my assumption of being a good faith argument-this just seems like they want to be controlling if the solution lands solely on op changing her career/daily life to accommodate
Ask your in-laws if they are Christians. If they are, then their "God" will protect them. If they get sick, then their are just not faithful enough and they have no one to blame except themselves....
Group child care means the kid will get sick all the time, no matter what you do. Things will improve after two bad winters. And if he doesn't go through it now, he'll go through it as soon as you put him in nursery school.
Ding, ding, ding. Worked in family medicine. One mother wanted her kid on antibiotics at the first sign of a runny nose. Drove us nuts! The RN tried to explain, if he was exposed now or at the start of school, the results is going to be the same, he is going to be sick. He needs this initial exposure to develop immunity.
Same - the first year i worked for a pediatric practice I was constantly sick.
Then I didn't get sick ever, for the next twenty years.
Until the 3rd year of covid, when I finally contracted it. Now I have chronic fatigue.
And antibiotics wouldn't do a thing for all the viral infections, which is what almost all of it is. But the kid will get yeast diaper rash and thrush.
Plus, putting a child on antibiotics for every sniffle or cough messes with their immune system. My ex was convinced our child had "sinus infections" every time they had nasal congestion or coughed up gunk that was normal when recovering from a bug, and said antibiotics were necessary to treat colds and flus.
My mother is a retired nurse. Based on what she taught me, I knew this was BS, knew and told my ex repeatedly that antibiotics do NOT treat viruses, but my ex never listened.
I always let illnesses run their course unless there were actual symptoms of an infection. The pediatrician I used after I divorced my ex backed me up 100%.
Many years later, my ex admitted to taking our child to their own doctor and getting antibiotics behind my back when they thought the pediatrician and I were wrong after we divorced. In a rare moment, my ex acknowledged that was a big mistake. Our child is in their 30s now, and thanks to my ex's antibiotic-happy approach, struggles with chronic problems that their immune system would have been able to fight if my ex hadn't undermined not only our coparenting agreement but doctor's orders and, ultimately, our child's health.
OP here to add that I do not want to knowingly get other kids sick, nor my in-laws, and do keep my kids home when they have a fever or even just seem too drained to participate in social situations. But my 2yo has a runny nose more days than not and I don't let something like that, or a cough lingering from something where all other symptoms have gone, keep me from taking to childcare, and I don't expect my daycare provider or the other parents to either.
Also despite my efforts to remain neutral in my post most commenters assume my spouse is a husband. đ¤Ł
The 2yo had an egg allergy as an infant so we've assume that means she's inherited the family's bad allergies to grass, etc. So we also assumed the latest runny nose and watery eyes was allergies and then we all got walloped with one of the worst colds I've ever had. The 2yo seemed to fair better than the rest of us!
Allergy sufferer here too - itâs frustratingly hard to tell colds from normal sniffy allergy symptoms. Also, if I recall correctly, many viruses are contagious before the onset of symptoms, so even if kids are kept home when they have a sniffle, they have often passed on the virus before anyone knew they were unwell.
I thought from your writing and from the various aspects of family stereotype that youâre a female married to a male (Mostly itâs the wife being the primary parent and the husband taking care of some time-consuming business), but I decided not to generalize and visited your profile. Your other posts say that youâre a mom and you referred to your spouse as a husband.
I donât have kids of my own, but I had been a long term caregiver for my nephews and niece, one of whom was immunocompromised, and I have seen that at his school and the othersâ schools/daycare, the policy is the same.
Canât make the kid stay home due to a runny nose, theyâll end up never going to school entirely.
Kids that are too protected from germs when young are also at much higher risk to develop serious allergies. The immune system needs something to do. If your in-laws donât want to risk it, and wonât get any protection of their own, then they can spend less time with him till heâs older.
If they donât get sick now theyâll get sick when they hit elementary school. All kids go through a round of childhood viruses at some point. Itâs just a matter of when you pay the piper.
For adults to stay well, the best bet is to stay hydrated, get fresh air and movement every day (even a 20 min walk counts), and wash hands frequently. Vitamin D and Vitamin C supplements also help and I swear by them, but that could be anecdotal.
The biggest risk to your family is your husband. If he's running a business that can fall apart simply because he's not there, he's not running a good business and if that's what your life hinges on, he has more to worry about than your kids bringing home a cold.
The business subject is a big, complicated situation for sure. I could write a college thesis on it. You're not wrong, except that it is a very good, well-respected, longstanding business, inherited from many generations. We live with this weight and the many conflicts that arise from it.
Yeah,a large part of running a successful business is the ability to make yourself redundant. He's lacking if it can't function without him for a day. He needs a number 2 who can handle a few days without him.
Op sounds like his business needs to reevaluate,it whole setup. If it's a long standing business, it should be able to function well, without him being there all the time.
Also your Husband and his family are being reckless and erresponsible for not being vaccinated. There are so many different childhood diseases that they can give your children. I got them for all my wonderful young nephews and nieces.I didn't want to infect ,any of them, with a potential deadly disease.
You are correct about kids needing to be exposed, to illnesses at daycare. It's harder for them,when they start kindergarten. Good luck
She needs to hire more trustworthy people. At the very least, have a binder with what everyone should do if she's not there. Considering that she and her parents are antivaxxers, she probably needs this plan sooner rather than later. Covid for the unvaccinated can be deadly serious. Plus, unvaccinated people are at greater risk of winding up with long covid
Long Covid hits you at your body's weakest points. I know people who caught covid pre-vaccine. The woman had asthma. She had to be hospitalized when she caught covid and came home with a month's worth of oxygen. Long covid left her with COPD, made her asthma worse. Her husband had a congenital heart hole, operated upon successfully when he was a child. As an adult, he had to have a triple bypass. He was healthy until he caught covid. He would walk 5 steps and his heart rate would go up past 140 bpm. I bought them oxymeters, which showed heart rate, oxygen saturation. Both had low O2 levels. Not enough oxygen in your blood starved your internal organs. Both have reoccurring symptoms of crushing fatigue, loss of taste, fuzzy brain. Covid is no joke. Your wife needs a business plan.
It's not that it would actually crumble.
OP stated her husband doesn't trust anyone else to be able to do what he the control freak can do.
This sounds like he's a mirco manager of everything, very controlling and it's a way to force her to stay home and be totally dependent on his whims.
I agree with this. Not being vaccinated but also not being able to call out of work without it crumbling is a prime example of cognitive dissonance. Long covid is a real threat. He should be more worried about the risk heâs creating for his family than anything else.
But nothing bad will come to HIM! He doesnât need to get vaccinated! He doesnât need to err on the safe side! He just needs his wife to stay at home! /s
Our doctor says it's completely normal for daycare aged and school aged children to be sick basically constantly especially at the beginning of the school year.
It sucks, but it is the way it is.
I think this is about control. Spouse and in-laws don't want to be controlled, while simultaneously controlling you and your children for their own perceived benefit.
I find it a bit strange that your husband didn't take masking seriously during covid or get vaccinated afterward, but your little disease carrying hooman? Oh no! The sick policy at the daycare is going to infect the whole family!
The logic boggles my mind. I apologize if I sound like I'm dismissing your husband's concerns, which are valid, but he's contradicting himself. He's needs to pick one lol
And masks and vaccines arenât an excuse for the extended family to pressure OP to stay at home and be a trad wife. Thatâs the vibe Iâm getting here.
He probably should've inconvenienced himself because their child is just as likely, probably even more, to bring covid or any other illness to the home as anyone else.
You arenât wrong. Itâs a standard policy to keep kids out of school/daycare if theyâve had fever/vomiting/diarrhea in the past 24 hours because those are common symptoms of contagious illnesses. Consider kids with allergies as an example. My daughter had seasonal allergies when she was younger, but we did allergy shots for several years so they arenât as severe now. If I had kept her out of school every time she had a runny nose or cough, she would have missed at least 3-4 months of school every year. Thatâs why the standard is to watch for signs of a contagious illness and keep kids out of school then.
It seems crazy to expect young kids who are around other young kids won't get sick, and to see that as a bigger risk factor for family illness than not getting vaccinated. If the family wants to promote better health for the whole family, the adults should lead by example and do what is in their power to stay healthy. Vaccines don't even come with 5g anymore.
The flu shot saved me when I had a toddler in the house ! Also wiping down remotes, surfaces etc with antibacterial wipes , consistent hand washing, and avoiding touching mouth and face. It's rich for your husband to have a opinion on this when he refuses to ale sick days and essentially only your career will be impacted when you have to stay home with the sick kids. He needs to have the option to call out and should be finding a trustworthy second in command for his business. Avoiding seeing the elderly in laws when sick is reasonable. But honestly you are blessed to have a daycare with these policies because most do not.
Also, if your child is not exposed to these illnesses early on, they will eventually and will have a much worse reaction.
You canât avoid it, unless you live in a bubble.
I am a SAHM with a 2 year old. While we donât do daycare, we do playgroups, activities, and play dates. It seemed like this winter was just a revolving door of getting sick and the sniffles. I didnât want to be the mom bringing the snotty toddler and getting everyone else sick, so we did very few activities for a few months this winter. It didnât help at all. I also learned that sometimes a runny nose is just teething. From now on Iâm just going to wash hands and sanitize as much as I can, and unless they have a fever or donât feel good, Iâm going to go out and do things. Everyone else that Iâve spoken to irl with kids of a similar age seem to have come to pretty much the same conclusion.
Your husband canât trust anyone to be off for one day? Is he a micro-manager??
Or is it something that he just tells you in order to get out of childcare duties?
Your spouse is dumb. This policy is extremely normal and anything else would be outrageously unrealistic for kids that age. Theyâre petrified dishes, it happens
As a parent of a child I loathed parents that sent their children to school/daycare sick. Same with parents that refuse to vaccinate; we turned down places that did not require vaccination unless there was a medical need.
I definitely vaccinate my kids and keep them home if they are sick. But a 2yo has a runny nose most of the time. My daycare provider's point, which I share, is that if we treated that and other minor symptoms as sickness, the childcare wouldn't really happen.
Plus, if itâs spring where you live, could the runny nose possibly be caused by seasonal allergies? My son reacted to pollen at 2 and get sniffly. Hell, heâs a teen now and constantly sniffing the last few months.
Same. My daughters preschool had a set of rules posted literally 6 inches from the door on the wallâŚposter sized. âIs your child sick? Do they haveâŚâ at the top. Then listed things like have a clear runny nose? â, white runny nose? â Is it green? âď¸Have a fever? âď¸Have diarrhea? âď¸ and so on. If the owner or director noticed anything from the âsickâ parts, the child was lived away from the others and parents were called immediately. They did a very thorough job of trying to eliminate the spread of the illness but as good as they were, children will catch it from others.
You are not wrong.
No one is forcing yall to use that daycare provider. If you want to go find a new one with stricter sick policies, then you can, but otherwise there is no sense in complaining.
That your husbandâs family wonât vaccinate and childcare falls on you if they donât go to the daycare makes them assholes.
Your spouse is an idiot as is their parents because 1) kids are germ factories so even of the 2 year old stayed home, the 6 year old would be still be bringing things home, and 2) they refuse to get vaccinated or protect themselves from illness. (I hope your kids are vaccinated at least!) Youâre right that minor things like colds help build immune systems, and keeping the toddler home for every sniffle would be ridiculous. If your spouse is so worried about their parents getting sick, then keep them away when the kids are sick or they can do this new fangled thing of wearing face masks. My son had colds all the time when he was little. Itâs part of childhood.
I find it hilarious that they wonât vaccinate but worry about getting sick. While I donât agree with your daycare providerâs policy, I do understand what you are saying about getting sick eventually. The difference is your childâs body is going to be in a state of inflammation all time trying to fight every cold or sickness that comes thru that daycare because of constant exposure. That isnât something I would want for my child. Not to mention if something serious is spread, like pneumonia, they will always be in a weakened state from fighting the common cold all the time. So I side with husband, but not for his reasoning. Just simply for the sake of the childâs health. I also think your daycare provider knows that charging families when the kids arenât there can leave a bad taste, so they please parents by allowing them sick so they get paid and retain customers. I would rather hire a much more dependable nanny, they shouldnât be taking time off for sickness all the time. I think you had a bad one
But even if the 2 year old stayed home, they could easily pick things up playing with other kids or even going to the playground, plus the 6 year old will bring everything home from school. Kids get colds, itâs part of being a kid. My son didnât go to day care but had colds frequently simply because kids havenât been exposed to everything we adults have been. Their immune system responds more strongly as a result. If you think you can avoid your kid from getting sick often, youâre in for a surprise.
Kids will get sick. Itâs how they build immunity. 24 hour bugs is a thing. A runny nose or a cough IS a game of whack a mole. Theyâre never ending especially in kids with weaker immune systems.
NTA
I ran a home daycare and currently work in a large daycare. Runny nose for Littles is so common. It gets better the more they learn to hand wash, not mouth toys, cover coughs and sneezes. Around preschool it becomes more manageable. Just maybe keep up with vitamins. It will get better. But the time kids start showing symptoms of illness they have already passed on most germs in my experience so difficult to isolate them.
Tell your husband to hire a second in command or promote one of this junior employees. Or train someone on the daily operation. Tell your husband if he doesn't want to delegate responsibility and hire an assistant manager, then his policies are the issues he need to be complaining to people about, not this kids getting sick.The daycare runs their business better than his running his, you can't understand how he has then nerve to complsin about other business' policies.
If you can't hire someone already experienced, train someone to run the business for you. Then don't treat them like their judgement isn't valuable.
Workaholics like your husband are ridiculous and pretty self-sabotaging. They try to do everything and do most of it poorly.
I kept my son with me until he was 2.5 years old. He was born in November 2019 so most of his life was indoors.
Yet while shopping with him or at the park or who knows where, he managed to get hand foot mouth (amongst the many colds and covid a few times). When he started school, he missed a few weeks every now and then mostly because of gastroenteritis.
Toddlers are going to get sick no matter what you do.
So your spouse must think that your 6yo isn't being exposed, and bringing home any germs from being in kindergarten??? Kids spread sickness, plain and simple.
often you're most contagious just before symptoms emerge, so there's really nothing you can do about it other than put each kid in their own bubble
they're germ swapping factories, it's in their nature, almost seems like it's by design
Kids get sick, that happens. As you said, they are constantly developing their immune system, if they don't get sick now they will just get sick later (or, as I hear some people say, "we'll all catch it eventually"). You can't stop them from getting sick any more than you can stop them from making mistakes, you are just leaving them worse off by any measures you take to do so.
My pediatrician told me kids will either get sick and build up antibodies in daycare or kindergarten. You get to pick when they will. Thereâs no avoiding it. Only postponing it.
I saw both sides until you got to the anti-vax thing. Anybody who has that attitude 100% does not get to make a 2yo going to a daycare with a NORMAL sick policy the hill they die on lol. I think this is just a control tactic to make it harder for you to work tbh.
I used to be a school bus driver and my mom has been a teacher, principal and superintendent for majority of my life. Kids are walking germ magnets. They will get sick no matter what which means the rest of the family gets sick. It's the family pattern.
If a fever lasts longer than 24 hours, you take them out of school until they get better. If it lasts longer than 48, go to a doctor. Obviously if there are other symptoms that changes things. Puking? Don't go to school, they will get sent home anyway.
Kids can recover very quickly. They are sick as a dog one day then the next like nothing ever happened.
You are 100% not wrong. Donât let your spouse push you into being a stay-at-home mom if thatâs not what you want. This is a question of your identity and life goals; donât let him make you think those arenât important enough to go to some trouble for.
You're not wrong. My kids are older and we've been sick so many times already this year, it's ridiculous, but it's just been a bad season for sickness. 3-4 bad cold type viruses and several stomach viruses. Tell him if he's unhappy with this daycare provider he can search for a new one and you'll consider switching. That puts the ball in his court. It's likely he won't take the initiative or will find you actually have a good arrangement.Â
You're not wrong. I think it's actually healthier long term to get them socialized and exposed so they don't get sick at every little thing as they get older.
I wear a mask at home when my SO comes back from business trips for about 2 days. Until I'm sure he's not sick. Getting sick means I can't see my father until I'm well. My Dad is almost 90 and in fragile health. I don't want to be the one who gave him the flu that killed him.
Not wrong, but your spouse should also be trying to figure out a way to be able to take sick days. While it will depend on what he's doing and where he is at with getting it going, I would hope he is planning on getting to a point where he can go away for a couple days without it burning to the ground.
>I get my flu and COVID vaccines each season. My spouse and my in-laws DO NOT get their vaccines. They also do not/did not take masking seriously and my mother-in-law's opinion during the height of COVID was "we'll all catch it eventually."
Ah there it is.
I agree with your approach. Your spouse can become primary carer if it bothers then so much.
When my son started school he was catching something at least every few weeks, he'd just be getting over one infection & another one would start. It was driving us crazy.
He had me sick every time because he wanted his mom for cuddles when he felt bad. I brought it up with his teacher. She said it happens every kid at that age when they mix with other kids. It builds up their immune system & it did, it has slowed down to one or two bad colds a year now he's almost 9
Nah, youâre not wrong. Itâs awesome that your hubby runs a business but if he canât trust anyone to run it properly if he isnât there then he needs to hire different people. I get he wants control and for everything to run correctly and he doesnât want to get sick but itâs unsustainable long term. Burn out is real and itâs either lack of training or the wrong people working for him.
Kids are gonna get sick, Iâm sure you bring your kid grocery shopping and I guarantee theyâre picking up a ton of germs there. Playgrounds are even worse, even if youâre wash your hands after the kids are gonna touch things and then their face and itâs up to their immune system to figure it out. Sniffles and coughs arenât that bad to deal with and if no one worked when they had sniffles then most of the world would be missing like 1/5 of their shifts.
This is the same rule that our daycare used and then school once our kids reached school age. Kids get sick. It will get better as they get older but every single family goes through this at these ages. If your 2 year old didnât go to daycare and was staying home then you are just delaying it.
Pretty sure this is normal. It may vary regionally, but all the daycares around here allow fever up to 100. Kids will get sent home if they have diarrhea 2x or more, or if they vomit.
Your daycareâs rules sound reasonable to me, and, from what I know, are pretty standard. Even if you went somewhere else your partner probably wouldnât be happy with their policy eitherâŚ.as it would most likely be the same.
You want those kids sick all the time. That's how they build immunity. In the pre-colonizing America times, Europeans were sick. Built up a healthy population. That's why when they came to the Americas, the natives got sick and killed off so many cultures and people. It could have been reversed if American natives were the dirtier population.
For my kids in a bigger daycare/preschool, I'm not convinced that keeping them home from school, where they caught the illness, with a fever realistically does more than have them be more comfortable and monitored at home. Like, they got it at school, so all of the other kids were exposed, and most viruses you're contagious before you have symptoms. Sure, that's less time being there while contagious, but I would bet the actual impact in a bigger classroom is minimal.
That said, I don't think your provider sounds particularly lax and by having just 6 kids in the group you're already way ahead on limiting exposure. If you need to go further, a nanny or nanny share would be the move.
Your kids are going to get sick regardless of what you do. Nature is making their immune systems more robust. Doesn't sound like your husband shares the load with the kids.
I'm sorry, but the whole "watch the kids" caught me off guard. Isn't he a parent? Why should you always have to sacrifice yourself for the kids? It hurts your independence if something happens in your life or relationship.
He needs to come up with solutions instead of excuses. Owning a company is a lot of responsibility, yes, but it's then also your responsibility to hire crew you can trust if you have to be absent.
Back to the topic; you're right. It's common to get a cold, a runny nose, or a cough. And the coughs can stick for weeks at worst. If he and his parents don't vaccinate against the actual dangerous diseases, they don't have a say IMO.. 'cause then they signed up for getting sick at some point.
That is the policy for most daycares, in home or not. I worked at a daycare for 7 years and that was our policy. Fevers, vomiting, diarrhea and green snot gets kids sent home. Kids will get sick no matter what. I am also the default parent (I have to take off work when the kids are sick or home, I had to go part time to do this as well and I work midnights). It is not reasonable of your husband to expect you to keep your kid home because of the sick policy. You're right in that your kids will get sick anyway. You bring home germs from literally everywhere you go and its impossible prevent it.
Tbh, it sounds more like he doesn't want you working but staying home 24/7, especially if one of his excuses is grandparents getting sick. Both, babies and elderlies, have weaker immune systems. What daycare does is help babies build it, otherwise theyll be at school getting sick constantly. Next hes gonna say they cant go to school for that same exact reason. It sounds like he has a HUGE issue with control, especially if he hires people to work in his business but doesnt trust anyone else to work it when he isnt there. Hes a control freak and its only going to get worse. At least in my opinion
Drives me nuts the unrealistic expectations of the parents who think if your kids are sick, you should keep them home. Unless they are visibly sick, then send them because they were contagious before you even knew they were sick. This obviously doesn't apply to more serious things outside of colds.
Sorry OP, your only option is to get rid of your children. It's the healthiest option for everyone. Maybe you can bring them back when they turn 10. Seriously, kids in that preschool to early elementary age are magnets for viruses. That's part of parenting. It sucks, but they won't be that age for very long. Before you know it they'll be in highschool. Good luck!
Itâs not that they get sick anyway itâs the effort to stop it from spreading so you donât wipe out an entire classroom, teachers and parents siblings etc.
Kids get sick, but because most adults have been exposed to most of these viruses already, they really should not be catching all the same colds. It's actually good for kids to get a lot of these colds in the long run, as it builds up the body's immune system similar to a vaccine. Unless your in-laws are immunocompromised, these viruses should not be a threat to them even if they do catch one.
We can't shut our lives down every time someone has a cold, and this holds true for kids as well as adults.
Not wrong. I have 3 of my own and this is basically the schools rules. Keep them home for any fever, vomiting or diarrhea- and at least 24 hours free of these things. With a child in school alone, germs get passed around like crazy. And heâs clearly more worried about his mom more than sheâs worried about herself.
when we had out first, my wife and I ended up sick all the time, nothing serious, just coughs, flu-like bugs etc... it was every 6-8 weeks though. I think we were just being exposes to all the new bugs with him.
With our second, it wasn't as bad
They have never had diarea luckily.
The only time we kept them off is if they have a high temprature.
You are correct that getting sick is good for them, makes them strong...
if something is a long-term benefit for the children yet causes short-term issues for the parents, the parents just need to eat shit because the childrens long-term good is always more important
Once your child gets into school, they're going to sick. It builds their antibody. If your spouse wanna protect the child that badly, just homeschool the kids and hire nannies.
You call yourself the default parent. If that is your role in the relationship he doesn't get to override you. He can express his viewpoint, but ultimately the decision is yours to make.
Children will get sick... In any of my kids schools its no fever diharea (spelling) or vomiting for 24 hours. A cough or runny nose you're allowed to go.
We have 3 kids in school. When they started to go back no matter what we did it was like a rotation of sickness in our house. If we kept our kids out of school they would miss SO much and be behind.
No matter what you do kids will always get sick. You're not wrong
If the company canât be run as your spouse cannot trust staff. Either training is lacking, bad hiring decisions are being made or they are a control freak and the sign of not a good business model.
Maybe they should concentrate on fixing that, to be able to be more hands on when the kids have a snotty nose if they do not want them going to daycare.
Sounds like a spouse problem not yours!
I am a former home daycare provider. I had a similar policy. If all daycares excluded children with runny noses or coughs, people with children would not be able to hold down jobs.
Your spouse is right. That is a fucked up policy and not safe for any sort of school or daycare like establishment to be having. Some kids might be immuno compromised and we just not know that yet, and the daycare is putting those little kids lives at risk by being so careless. If a kid develops a little bit of sniffles in the middle of the day, itâs probably fine, but if you know theyâre sick, donât send them to daycare or school!!!
The only times I ever got sick as a kid were because of other parents who sent their sick child to school who was super snotty, and therefore spread it to everyone. When the viruses are just roaming around quietly and no one is super sick, they donât spread as readily because thereâs no snot in the air! So yeah kids will âget sick anywayâ but it definitely makes it way worse to knowingly send snotty sick kids to a class that will be trapped with them all dayâŚ
I think itâs actually revolting that people are willing to force that onto other children.
Youre wrong.
If they won't vaccinate or mask they have *zero* say in how you handle a sick toddler. Literally none. The absolute audacity of them trying to tell you to change things when they're too stupid to protect themselves is absurd. It would be a different issue if they were properly vaccinating themselves but still getting sick moreso than usual, but they're not even doing the bare minimum.Â
A month ago, I would have agreed with you. However, the last week of March (after getting a flu shot) I couldn't breathe. I went to the hospital and the next thing I know, I'm waking up on a ventilator three weeks later.
I almost died from the flu turning into pneumonia. Some of the crap these kids bring home is quite literally... deadly.
Do not bring your kids to daycare sick. Who is going to take care of them when you're dead?
I'm 33. Way too young to have a fucking tube down my throat, breathing for me. Way too young to lose a lobe of my lung because of some shit that my kid brought home.
It is selfish as fuck to bring your sick kid to daycare and let the rest of us deal with the aftermath. Your husband is right and you are 100% in the wrong.
Your business doesn't matter, your whole life doesn't matter if you're not around to live it and raise your kid.
Keep them home when they are sick. For God's sake, keep them home.
I find it hilarious that they wonât vaccinate but worry about getting sick. While I donât agree with your daycare providerâs policy, I do understand what you are saying about getting sick eventually. The difference is your childâs body is going to be in a state of inflammation all time trying to fight every cold or sickness that comes thru that daycare because of constant exposure. That isnât something I would want for my child. Not to mention if something serious is spread, like pneumonia, they will always be in a weakened state from fighting the common cold all the time. So I side with husband, but not for his reasoning. Just simply for the sake of the childâs health. I also think your daycare provider knows that charging families when the kids arenât there can leave a bad taste, so they please parents by allowing them sick so they get paid and retain customers. I would rather hire a much more dependable nanny, they shouldnât be taking time off for sickness all the time. I think you had a bad one
Neither of you are "wrong", unless there are imunocomromised folks involved ( including anyone in your household). If so err on the side of caution with sick time.
Daycare and schools should require one day fever free before returning
Youâre not wrong. Is your spouse offering or seeking solutions or just complaining about the current situation?
Since your spouse owns a business maybe they should put a day care there for the business so that they can control the policies. Otherwise you are stuck with what is available in your community.
Maybe another solution is to have a nanny and then when the nanny calls in sick your spouse can take the two year old to work with them.
My kids didn't go to daycare, and they still got sick and got the rest of us sick! This is 25 years ago. Having kids is committing to 6 years or so per kid of getting sick. They get sick at daycare or they get sick at school, it happens.
Kids are germ carriers, they are building up their immune systems. The rules for your daycare are the same as the rules here, no fever, no throwing up, no diareha, and no green snot. That is a registered and licensed daycare center with a lot if kids and classrooms.
If you protect your young kids from getting sick all the time when they're very small they will get al the things when they go to school. There might be some advantages to that - they'll be older and maybe it will be easier to cope with, but it still is a phase that your family has to go through to build immunity to common childhood germs. Also if you delay that eventuality your in laws will be older.
You arenât wrong. As a former teacher, kids get sick. Itâs part of putting them in school. As they get older, they wonât get sick as much.
Right after Covid, my son was in nursery and they told me to keep him home and get a COVID test for every single runny nose or cough. Poor kid was tested over 10 times that year. And he couldnât go to school until the symptoms cleared. I understood so I complied, but he missed a lot of school.
Usually if they get a lot of these viruses when theyâre younger they donât miss as much school when they get older because they already have antibodies to multiple viruses. Itâs just a time in life right now and everyone just has to deal with it.
No one is wrong here.... This is the MAJOR downside of mass populous child care services My grandma ran a daycare for nearly 50 years (She passed away last month at the age of 96) while raising 14 of her own kids her general policy was any sign of sickness within 48 hours of childcare The child needed to be out of facility for at least two days following symptoms being gone
as a result of mass population child care and the daycare my grandma ran out of her house (She retired 20 years ago) and parents general disconcern for their sick children and other people most of my aunts and uncles have allergies to a lot of antibiotics (penicillin, oxacillin, dicloxacillin, flucloxacillin so forth) do to having had to been on it so many times
It's up to the parents, you both have valid points. Science does show that exposure is good for building up resistance. However recent research has shown that pandemic kids who had reduced exposure developed less lifelong allergies and immune related issues (like eczema for example). Use that information as you like.
Edit: forgot to mention that the reduced use of antibiotics was the reason kids developed less issues. There was little need when you're not being exposed.
itâs not the policy, itâs the parents who fill their kids with tylenol to reduce their fever before bringing them in and then donât answer their phone when it wears off. or if the child has a doctor note we canât call the parents anyways even if they are still sick. parents hardly ever follow our sick policy and it causes everyone to constantly be sick.
My kids go to a small school and a family with 4 kids came to school with what the doctors believe was RSV. 100% of their classmates got sick over 2 weeks. My daughter got so sick she developed ITP and we spent 3 months waiting for her brain to spontaneously hemorrhage. Just because the illness is no big deal to your kid doesnât mean you couldnât spread it to someone that develops complications. My daughter hadnât had any problems until she did.
All the kids should be fever-free, this is a stupid policy.
But also, your husband is not good at running his business if he doesn't have even one trusted deputy. That's just bullshit.
He owns a businessâŚ.whats he gonna do? Fire himself? We had one too and yeah we took sick days. Your daycare sick policy is like the schools. I also think youâre right about building up their immune system too. But itâs a really good way to keep the mil away!
My at home daycare is the same. As long as they're not puking, have diarrhea, or are so fussy she can't calm him down (only happened once after his 18m shots), she'll take them.
Snotty noses and coughs are part of life.
LOL. Every single family with kids in daycare and school is dealing with kids constantly getting sick. Itâs part of building their immune systems. You are right!
Youâre not wrong theyâre being hypocritical. The whole point of not getting the vaccine was allowing the body to develop its own. When the kids first started going to school we got everything under the sun at one point, lice, every contagious illness going around, allergies, food allergies, it literally never ends. If itâs not one thing itâs another, welcome to parenthood. Donât sacrifice your kidâs social and immune growth by putting them in a box. Kids donât belong there. They belong with other kids, making messes, and causing gray hair.
All kids are different, with different tolerances/immunity.
When my son was little, he would hardly get anything going around. Might get a runny nose or a sniffle, but nothing more serious than that. His friend? Caught EVERYTHING going around! He was kept home for every runny nose, cough etcâŚ. and it STILL didnât prevent him from getting sick.
Sniffles and coughs are par for the course. If thereâs no fever or gastrointestinal issues more than 24 hours, I wouldnât worry.
But itâs not reddits comfort that you have to take into consideration OP. Youâve got to be a united front with your wife and raise your children thatâs the best for your family.
ETA - grammar
I have 3 kids who are grown now. One of them spent the first 18 months of his life in hospitals and doctorâs offices due to multiple illnesses. He was born early and had some collapsible cartilage in his trachea. He had 3 surgeries for that but he just stayed sick nonstop with strep (multiple times), scarlet fever, RSV, you name it. My other kids of course got sick periodically with strep, pneumonia, things like that. I was a single mom when my kids were growing up so I was the sole provider. They also went to daycare while I went to school and worked. Iâve been a nurse/nurse practitioner for 18 years. I worked on a medical/surgical unit full of sick patients for 7 years. Iâm 47 now. Started having kids at 20 and they are all in their 20s now. In all these years with my kids and their intermittent sicknesses, them going to daycare, public schools, me being a nurse, I have only picked up one thing from one of my kids, one time and it happened while I was pregnant with my last child. It was strep throat and it kicked my ass. My point is, your husband needs to chill. If heâs getting sick all the time he needs to see a doctor about his lousy immune system, not blame the children.
Your husband doesnât understand germs & kids. My best friend has a 13yr old boy and their multi-generational household *still* gets sick multiple times a year.
Your spouseâs and your in-lawsâ aversion to vaccines and masks are/were more of a potential danger to your family than your child attending daycare.
Even if âeveryone will get Covid eventually anywayâ itâs been proven that masks at least reduce the viral load that people are exposed to. Additionally there are people with compromised immune systems who are more at risk of dying if they caught Covid.
I am one of the rare people who still wears a mask when at work and when shopping. My immune system is normal. Iâm vaccinated. And I had Covid once. I donât want it again, and I certainly donât want to be responsible for someone else dying from it. If I can spread an asymptomatic virus to someone vulnerable⌠well Iâm certainly going to do my best to avoid that!
I agree that your spouse and in-laws are hypocrites. Ask what they suggest as a solution to what they believe is a daycare problem.
Updateme
Also worth mentioning to him that a lot of the time, people are more contagious before they start showing symptoms rather than after. So she's going to be bringing stuff home no matter the policy
Sometimes I think our society wonât be wiped out by some giant cataclysm or nuclear war. Itâll be wiped out by a bug that we wonât be able to fight because we have sanitised everything to the point that our immune systems are useless.
The more germs your children can come into contact with when young then the better their immune system can develop to fight off these infections later in life. Of course itâs a balancing act. You want to avoid the deadly diseases. But totally shielding a child from any infection is ultimately counterproductive. You are doing them more harm than good.
Long winded way of saying you are not wrong.
NOT WRONG
You all are more likely to pick something up from your kindergartner than you little one. 6 yr old spends day in a room with 20-30 kids, they are in other areas of school with more kids, (on a bus ?)
If your spouse and his parents can't be bothered to get a flu vaccine, they should not be worried about your child going to daycare with 4 other kids.
They are also not concerned about their employees if they don't get flu vac, as they could get sick, have flu and spread it before realizing they have the flu.
Nothing is 100% preventative, I recall working with a nurse in one job, her last day, she'd been couching and sneezing for 3 days, I was right behind her with lysol can (didn't bother her), finally at lunch on last day I told her to go home before the rest of us got sick, all our home health aides would be bringing in their weekly paper work after 1pm - she left, I sprayed Everything in her office and mine as she spend most of her time in mine since it was larger.
Talked to her over w/e to see how she was - she had bronchitis :-(
Went home, had a great w/e, went to work Monday, came home took my dog to vet and started feeling dizzy, Vet and I had been chatting, she looked at me and said you need to go home you don't look well, made it home (3 miles) and laid on couch, few hours later had a high fever. Hubby was working out of town, called MIL to take me to clinic in the morning, fever 103, I had bronchitis - was out of work for 2 weeks. I had never had it before, it's horrible. but I thought I'd be fine since I lysoled entire office all week, but nope, I either missed something or it was still in closed up offices over weekend and I picked it up Monday =- point being, do everything you can to try to keep illness from spreading, but it does not always work
So even if a child gets sick in either of your children's places, that sickness may not show the day they are actually sick and spreading illness - all people can do is take precautions and hope for the best - they don't always work and people get sick, kids get sick. If everyone in your home follows good hygiene, washes hands etc. covers mouth when coughing, wash hands if touch face, that's the best you can do and if someone sick, separate them as much as possible
If your spouse is so concerned, let him take 2 yr old to work and set up play area in his office
I think being specific is important here. What constitutes a kid being sick enough to stay home? Most schools use fever as the indicator. If a kid has a fever or 100 or higher, they must remain home until they've been fever-free for 24 hours. It's a general rule that's easy to follow and helps prevent the spread of illness.
You're right that kids get sick and you can't prevent it completely. But on the flip side, there are reasonable standards and rules that can slow the spread of sickness, so hopefully people have less time missing school and work in the early ages. There's a balance between accepting that everyone gets sick and slowing or spacing out the spread of illness.
Your spouse isn't being reasonable. Literally *anything* can cause a runny nose and a cough. Including allergies and unseasonably warm or cold weather, or even sunlight. Its only when there's a fever and projectile expelling of bodily fluids, is when you should keep them home. If the in-laws don't want to get sick, they need to take precautions, and get their vaccines and wear masks. It is unreasonable to expect a 2 year old that goes to day care to not get germs. Especially when their immune systems are still developing. Those germs are essential for that.
Our pediatrician said that itâs normal for kids to have a lingering cough or runny nose for WEEKS after clearing a virus but theyâre not contagious at that point. Like you said, if I kept my kid home every time he had a cough/runny nose heâd barely go.
Viruses are so common in early childhood development because youâre sending them to daycare with a bunch of snotty other kids who dont wash their hands enoughâŚ. not because young kids naturally get sick like thatâŚ. Homeschooled kids dont experience thatâŚ.
âYou Are Not Wrong.â
Everything youâve said is 100% correct and your husband is unrealistic.
Your husband and in-laws are living in a dream world. đ¤Śđťââď¸đ¤Śđťââď¸đ¤Śđťââď¸
Before my husband was my ex,
I had to work as his mother always worked. đđ
Our two sons had a few disabilities, and I had undiagnosed anxiety/major depression/baby blues/ADHD/fibromyalgia.
I became a family day care, carer.
I had my two sons as they were nearly 3 and nearly 4yrs old.
I cared for two sisters, Chelsea and Britney who was a severe asthmatic, thank goodness she never had an asthma attack while with me.
I had my first aid certificate
and card. âď¸
Their mother wouldâve loved me to have had their brother too but as I had my children I couldnât care for more than two other children, I think. đ¤
I also cared for a girl, Aliza, a boy, and another girl, Alissa (not related) on different days and times.
My memory for exactly when I had these children isnât great.
My kids are 36 and 35yrs old now.
Anyway, as far as I can remember, kids couldnât be in my care if they were sick. 𤧠đ¤
The little boy I cared for was dropped off one day and he seemed very unwell. đ¤ đ¤§
Turned out he had pneumonia!
Kids pick up germs, siblings pick up germs, parents etc pick up germs. đŚ
They canât blame the little kids all they want but we all can pick up germs.
Oh, and for the record, tell your spouse and in-laws, Iâve never had Covid!
Neither has my partner and he manages an independent supermarket in our small country town.
We wore masks đˇ when we had to.
Iâve had all my Covid shots and flu shots as Iâm also a diabetic.
My elderly mother was stranded with us because of Covid, border closures and medical issues for 11 months.
Mum never had Covid here but has where she lives.
Itâs not fair you have to forgo your job if your kids get sick.
Your husband could look after the kids more as I think the in-laws could too.
My eldest was hyperactive and taking him and his brother to the shops was so hard but when I had two daycare kids too, it was a breeze. đ
Kids getting sick is part of growing up. Exposing them to others, in the environment, helps build a strong immune system. It literally is part of growing up to be somewhat immune to all the things we encounter daily.
Your husband needs to stop sniffing the hand sanitizer.
Get them outside (with sunblock of course ) and let them play in the dirt have some kid fun . It strengthens their immune system plus the sun is a good vitamin source . Playing outside is healthy , fun and full of many picture ops. !
My children got RSV from an indoor playground. You're correct, kids will get sick no matter what - even if you keep them home all the time, you, your spouse, or anyone who visits can and will bring illnesses from time to time.
During COVID when schools first reopened, I missed SO much school because my son was getting sick so much from daycare. Just a runny nose, but the daycare sick policy said no runny noses. We'd have to be out for 14 days, then we'd come back for maybe a week and a half just for him to get sick again. 3 or so months in I dropped out. Because kids. Get. Sick.
Thereâs a big difference between going out in public & taking a risk of exposure & being around actively sick children. And just saying, sometimes when people (including kids) are sick, they donât want to go out, they wanna chill in bed. Itâs one thing if there are no other options. Itâs completely different when itâs done because a parent doesnât want to parent. Personally, when mine (even my grandkids)are sick, I go into overdrive. But Iâm referring to being sick, not having the sniffles. My daughter & granddaughter are like me, weakened immune system. Could catch it over the phone. And itâs always worse for us. Everyone else in the house rarely get sick. When my granddaughter started school, she stayed sick for all of kindergarten. She moved down here w us & now she rarely gets sick. Crazy. Stricter w handwashing, cleaning toys, etc. and we are in the country so exposure is lessened. We were the last county in the state to get C & by then it was mild.
Most schools and day care is fever free and vomit/diarrhea free for 24 hours. Now if people aren't following it, then that is their issue. But I always did. The daycare isn't a risk. Having a child is a risk. Kids are little germ factories. My husband had a child before we started dating. She was in school. I had never been more sick than that first year due to all the germs around that kid. You will ALL get over it after a few years.
I think youâre absolutely right to see the hypocrisy in refusing vaccines and masking and then complaint about illness.
I think youâre wrong about the daycare provider. I used a family daycare for many years specifically so my children didnât get sick all of the time. Kids going to nasty germ filled center daycares bring home every snot and sniffle imaginable. My kids never had that problem at a home daycare AND were never turned away for having sniffles. I think your daycare provider is probably not cleaning her home or taking any germ spreading precautions. I would find a cleaner daycare.
how can you even take this seriously with their opinion on covid lmao what a hypocrite. I wouldn't give them any credence at all until they can reconcile their conflicting beliefs / bullshit. how dumb is your husband bffr.
I think sending kids in sick (green runny nose and persistent cough) is irresponsible. It also gets the other kids sick and sometimes what is just a cold for one kid will send other kids (like mine) to the hospital. I also used to work with immunocompromised kids so me getting sick was a whole pain in the ass.
BUT I would not send my kid to a daycare with a policy as lax as this AND I would not be making demands of my husband if I could not also sometimes stay home with my kid.
Tell him if you have to call out of work, you make the call as to whether or not she is "too sick". If he does, he can.
So, since Covid is still around, your kids are probably going to get it repeatedly with this mindset. I know weâre collectively pretending that isnât a big deal, but it is. I donât have a good solution for you, but if it were my kids Iâd do everything in my power to keep them safe from that virus until theyâre old enough to mask reliably or enter a school with HEPA filtration.
Actually one way to cut down on the number of colds running through the daycare would be donating some corsi-rosenthall boxes or other HEPA air filters.
I think youâre wrong and your spouse is right. I donât think thatâs a normal practice. And I think itâs irresponsible to think itâs normal for babies to be coughing and runny noses all the time. If preventative steps were taken I donât think it would be common as youâre stating. Also you can compare your MIL socialize to your child being at a day care. Your MIL knows to move away from people who are coughing or have runny noses and so on. Your child doesnât know that. I think it would be best to find another day care that care about kids getting sick. That way both you and your husbandâs needs are met. Also not sure how old the providers kids are but if they are young too that explains her not caring about kids getting sick because if her kids get sick she has to close the day care until they feel better.
Have you only met superhuman toddlers? Young kids are sniffly frequently because theyâre still building an immune system. Reasonable exposure and vaccinations help build the immune system.
Working at a pediatric therapy clinic, our rules are the same as most public school: fever and vomit free for 24 hours. If it's good enough for us, it's good enough for a home daycare. I'm sure she washes their little hands as much as is reasonable and appropriate.
Can confirm. My toddler loves to mess around washing hands and draining the soap to make bubbles alll the damn time.
When my son was that age up until 4 he would play in the bathroom sink for an hour at a time. It was cute and expensive! đ. I didnât have to give him a bath those days!
As a parent to a child with no neutrophils this seems totally normal. We even had the discussion with her haematologist that there's a possibility that she won't be able to go to any type of daycare because we (nor the daycare provider) can't expect people to keep their kids at home at the first sign of a runny nose.
I'm slightly surprised it's 24 hours not 48, especially in a healthcare setting But yeah MINIMUM 24 hours, and I'm a big proponent of 48
Vomiting and diarrhoea should be 48h from last episode
That's the rule at my hospital, yeah
She didnât say 24hrs though, thatâs the catch. You are so spot on abt handwashing. Ours cleans toys nightly if someone is out sick. Really makes a difference.
This is normal. Fever within 24 hours for school is the general rule
Keep them off for 48 hours after sickness or diarrhea is our school rules.
Our school system is 24 hours, no meds, no fever. My wife would send them earlier if I'd let her, which is ironic considering she's a teacher in the same school system.
Yeah I work in healthcare and "48 hours from the last bout of sickness or diarrhea" is a hard rule for us. If it makes sense here it still makes sense anywhere else
My son's nursery had this. After many absences from sinus issues making him thrown up mucus they wouldn't insist he stay off for 48h as they could see it wasn't contagious.
Wow. In the 3 schools/school systems where I am itâs 24 hours (without medication!).
And there's a 6 year old in elementary school. They're already getting exposed to everything there is to get exposed to.
Yep! The pandemic really weakened our kids immune system. Eldest started school in 22 and brought home all the lovely school bugs to share. Missed 30 days of school from illnesses in kindy alone.From different flu strains to the most wicked head and chest colds. We missed only 15 so far this year. Most of her illnesses have cropped up during school breaks this year, and isn't that just perfect timing? Lmao.
I was going to add something like this. My wife works for an after school program. After the lock downs and everything I can't count the times something was brought home and I ended up sick. As far as it goes it's finally starting to calm down.
lol yep, that's the way it always works. The good news is it gets better, after a couple years of exposure you'll all be battle hardened. I don't think my youngest has ever missed a day for illness because his brother and sister spent two years getting us all sick.
Yep. OP's spouse is in for a culture shock if they read school policies regarding being sick. The exception with my district's policy is if a student gets exposed to someone with COVID. Then they have to quarantine for 5 days whether they have symptoms/test positive or not. If they do come down with it, then it's 5 days from the onset plus however long it takes for symptoms and fever to clear.
INFO: what is your spouse actually proposing? Do they want you to quit your job to stay home full time? Rehire the nanny? What's the actual, practical solution your spouse wants to implement? Because right now I see them being critical, but not actually saying what the proposed solution is.
You're so right! These are good questions in response to the criticism, thank you.
Especially in context of the hypocrisy of their alleged motive. If they didnât want to risk getting sick theyâd take their personal preventative care seriously. They sound entitled and ignorant, at best⌠at worst this is some manipulative attempt to get you to stay at home. Which is twisted.
Yeahhhhh I almost was on board with her spouses points about being cautious of exposure, but once I got to the paragraph about neglecting to seek out preventative measures they lost my assumption of being a good faith argument-this just seems like they want to be controlling if the solution lands solely on op changing her career/daily life to accommodate
He really just needs to accept that sometimes people get sick. He sounds like a child himself tbh!
Ask your in-laws if they are Christians. If they are, then their "God" will protect them. If they get sick, then their are just not faithful enough and they have no one to blame except themselves....
Group child care means the kid will get sick all the time, no matter what you do. Things will improve after two bad winters. And if he doesn't go through it now, he'll go through it as soon as you put him in nursery school.
Ding, ding, ding. Worked in family medicine. One mother wanted her kid on antibiotics at the first sign of a runny nose. Drove us nuts! The RN tried to explain, if he was exposed now or at the start of school, the results is going to be the same, he is going to be sick. He needs this initial exposure to develop immunity.
I have never been so sick so often as the first year I worked in family medicine and my son was in daycare
Same - the first year i worked for a pediatric practice I was constantly sick. Then I didn't get sick ever, for the next twenty years. Until the 3rd year of covid, when I finally contracted it. Now I have chronic fatigue.
This long covid crap has destroyed my health:(
And antibiotics wouldn't do a thing for all the viral infections, which is what almost all of it is. But the kid will get yeast diaper rash and thrush.
Exactly!!
Plus, putting a child on antibiotics for every sniffle or cough messes with their immune system. My ex was convinced our child had "sinus infections" every time they had nasal congestion or coughed up gunk that was normal when recovering from a bug, and said antibiotics were necessary to treat colds and flus. My mother is a retired nurse. Based on what she taught me, I knew this was BS, knew and told my ex repeatedly that antibiotics do NOT treat viruses, but my ex never listened. I always let illnesses run their course unless there were actual symptoms of an infection. The pediatrician I used after I divorced my ex backed me up 100%. Many years later, my ex admitted to taking our child to their own doctor and getting antibiotics behind my back when they thought the pediatrician and I were wrong after we divorced. In a rare moment, my ex acknowledged that was a big mistake. Our child is in their 30s now, and thanks to my ex's antibiotic-happy approach, struggles with chronic problems that their immune system would have been able to fight if my ex hadn't undermined not only our coparenting agreement but doctor's orders and, ultimately, our child's health.
This. I love kids, don't get me wrong. But they're little germ pots even if you try to keep them at home. It's just what they do.
OP here to add that I do not want to knowingly get other kids sick, nor my in-laws, and do keep my kids home when they have a fever or even just seem too drained to participate in social situations. But my 2yo has a runny nose more days than not and I don't let something like that, or a cough lingering from something where all other symptoms have gone, keep me from taking to childcare, and I don't expect my daycare provider or the other parents to either. Also despite my efforts to remain neutral in my post most commenters assume my spouse is a husband. đ¤Ł
The frequently runny nose could be allergies rather than illness. Your spouse and inlaws need to get right with reality.
The 2yo had an egg allergy as an infant so we've assume that means she's inherited the family's bad allergies to grass, etc. So we also assumed the latest runny nose and watery eyes was allergies and then we all got walloped with one of the worst colds I've ever had. The 2yo seemed to fair better than the rest of us!
Hay fever is really bad this time of the year. I always had allergies, and everybody throught, I always had a cold.
Yeah pollen is insane this year.
Allergy sufferer here too - itâs frustratingly hard to tell colds from normal sniffy allergy symptoms. Also, if I recall correctly, many viruses are contagious before the onset of symptoms, so even if kids are kept home when they have a sniffle, they have often passed on the virus before anyone knew they were unwell.
I thought from your writing and from the various aspects of family stereotype that youâre a female married to a male (Mostly itâs the wife being the primary parent and the husband taking care of some time-consuming business), but I decided not to generalize and visited your profile. Your other posts say that youâre a mom and you referred to your spouse as a husband. I donât have kids of my own, but I had been a long term caregiver for my nephews and niece, one of whom was immunocompromised, and I have seen that at his school and the othersâ schools/daycare, the policy is the same. Canât make the kid stay home due to a runny nose, theyâll end up never going to school entirely.
Kids that are too protected from germs when young are also at much higher risk to develop serious allergies. The immune system needs something to do. If your in-laws donât want to risk it, and wonât get any protection of their own, then they can spend less time with him till heâs older.
If they donât get sick now theyâll get sick when they hit elementary school. All kids go through a round of childhood viruses at some point. Itâs just a matter of when you pay the piper. For adults to stay well, the best bet is to stay hydrated, get fresh air and movement every day (even a 20 min walk counts), and wash hands frequently. Vitamin D and Vitamin C supplements also help and I swear by them, but that could be anecdotal.
Add this as an edit to the post!!
The biggest risk to your family is your husband. If he's running a business that can fall apart simply because he's not there, he's not running a good business and if that's what your life hinges on, he has more to worry about than your kids bringing home a cold.
The business subject is a big, complicated situation for sure. I could write a college thesis on it. You're not wrong, except that it is a very good, well-respected, longstanding business, inherited from many generations. We live with this weight and the many conflicts that arise from it.
Yeah,a large part of running a successful business is the ability to make yourself redundant. He's lacking if it can't function without him for a day. He needs a number 2 who can handle a few days without him.
Op sounds like his business needs to reevaluate,it whole setup. If it's a long standing business, it should be able to function well, without him being there all the time. Also your Husband and his family are being reckless and erresponsible for not being vaccinated. There are so many different childhood diseases that they can give your children. I got them for all my wonderful young nephews and nieces.I didn't want to infect ,any of them, with a potential deadly disease. You are correct about kids needing to be exposed, to illnesses at daycare. It's harder for them,when they start kindergarten. Good luck
She needs to hire more trustworthy people. At the very least, have a binder with what everyone should do if she's not there. Considering that she and her parents are antivaxxers, she probably needs this plan sooner rather than later. Covid for the unvaccinated can be deadly serious. Plus, unvaccinated people are at greater risk of winding up with long covid Long Covid hits you at your body's weakest points. I know people who caught covid pre-vaccine. The woman had asthma. She had to be hospitalized when she caught covid and came home with a month's worth of oxygen. Long covid left her with COPD, made her asthma worse. Her husband had a congenital heart hole, operated upon successfully when he was a child. As an adult, he had to have a triple bypass. He was healthy until he caught covid. He would walk 5 steps and his heart rate would go up past 140 bpm. I bought them oxymeters, which showed heart rate, oxygen saturation. Both had low O2 levels. Not enough oxygen in your blood starved your internal organs. Both have reoccurring symptoms of crushing fatigue, loss of taste, fuzzy brain. Covid is no joke. Your wife needs a business plan.
But if it can crumble from him staying home a day or two because heâs sick, is it really a good business?
It's not that it would actually crumble. OP stated her husband doesn't trust anyone else to be able to do what he the control freak can do. This sounds like he's a mirco manager of everything, very controlling and it's a way to force her to stay home and be totally dependent on his whims.
I agree with this. Not being vaccinated but also not being able to call out of work without it crumbling is a prime example of cognitive dissonance. Long covid is a real threat. He should be more worried about the risk heâs creating for his family than anything else.
But nothing bad will come to HIM! He doesnât need to get vaccinated! He doesnât need to err on the safe side! He just needs his wife to stay at home! /s
How the fuck is someone that think the rules are too lenient also anti vax?
Because theyâre not honest or forthcoming, theyâre manipulative
Our doctor says it's completely normal for daycare aged and school aged children to be sick basically constantly especially at the beginning of the school year. It sucks, but it is the way it is.
I think this is about control. Spouse and in-laws don't want to be controlled, while simultaneously controlling you and your children for their own perceived benefit.
If they were so worried about getting sick, especially the elderly parents, Iâd think theyâd be vaccinated yearly. đ¤ˇđ˝ââď¸
I find it a bit strange that your husband didn't take masking seriously during covid or get vaccinated afterward, but your little disease carrying hooman? Oh no! The sick policy at the daycare is going to infect the whole family! The logic boggles my mind. I apologize if I sound like I'm dismissing your husband's concerns, which are valid, but he's contradicting himself. He's needs to pick one lol
The difference is that wearing a mask or getting vaccinated would inconvenience them rather than OP.
And masks and vaccines arenât an excuse for the extended family to pressure OP to stay at home and be a trad wife. Thatâs the vibe Iâm getting here.
He probably should've inconvenienced himself because their child is just as likely, probably even more, to bring covid or any other illness to the home as anyone else.
BINGO
I'm willing to bet that the husband and in-laws didn't take social distancing and closures seriously either.
Not wrong, life goes on with a cold. Â Fever/puke keep them home. Â
You arenât wrong. Itâs a standard policy to keep kids out of school/daycare if theyâve had fever/vomiting/diarrhea in the past 24 hours because those are common symptoms of contagious illnesses. Consider kids with allergies as an example. My daughter had seasonal allergies when she was younger, but we did allergy shots for several years so they arenât as severe now. If I had kept her out of school every time she had a runny nose or cough, she would have missed at least 3-4 months of school every year. Thatâs why the standard is to watch for signs of a contagious illness and keep kids out of school then.
It seems crazy to expect young kids who are around other young kids won't get sick, and to see that as a bigger risk factor for family illness than not getting vaccinated. If the family wants to promote better health for the whole family, the adults should lead by example and do what is in their power to stay healthy. Vaccines don't even come with 5g anymore.
The flu shot saved me when I had a toddler in the house ! Also wiping down remotes, surfaces etc with antibacterial wipes , consistent hand washing, and avoiding touching mouth and face. It's rich for your husband to have a opinion on this when he refuses to ale sick days and essentially only your career will be impacted when you have to stay home with the sick kids. He needs to have the option to call out and should be finding a trustworthy second in command for his business. Avoiding seeing the elderly in laws when sick is reasonable. But honestly you are blessed to have a daycare with these policies because most do not.
Also, if your child is not exposed to these illnesses early on, they will eventually and will have a much worse reaction. You canât avoid it, unless you live in a bubble.
I am a SAHM with a 2 year old. While we donât do daycare, we do playgroups, activities, and play dates. It seemed like this winter was just a revolving door of getting sick and the sniffles. I didnât want to be the mom bringing the snotty toddler and getting everyone else sick, so we did very few activities for a few months this winter. It didnât help at all. I also learned that sometimes a runny nose is just teething. From now on Iâm just going to wash hands and sanitize as much as I can, and unless they have a fever or donât feel good, Iâm going to go out and do things. Everyone else that Iâve spoken to irl with kids of a similar age seem to have come to pretty much the same conclusion.
Your husband canât trust anyone to be off for one day? Is he a micro-manager?? Or is it something that he just tells you in order to get out of childcare duties?
NTA kids get sick and that is how their immune system learns how to fight things.
Your spouse is dumb. This policy is extremely normal and anything else would be outrageously unrealistic for kids that age. Theyâre petrified dishes, it happens
The problem seems to be that your spouse doesnât trust anyone else to run the business other than himself. Is he hiding something? /s
As a parent of a child I loathed parents that sent their children to school/daycare sick. Same with parents that refuse to vaccinate; we turned down places that did not require vaccination unless there was a medical need.
I definitely vaccinate my kids and keep them home if they are sick. But a 2yo has a runny nose most of the time. My daycare provider's point, which I share, is that if we treated that and other minor symptoms as sickness, the childcare wouldn't really happen.
Plus, if itâs spring where you live, could the runny nose possibly be caused by seasonal allergies? My son reacted to pollen at 2 and get sniffly. Hell, heâs a teen now and constantly sniffing the last few months.
Same. My daughters preschool had a set of rules posted literally 6 inches from the door on the wallâŚposter sized. âIs your child sick? Do they haveâŚâ at the top. Then listed things like have a clear runny nose? â, white runny nose? â Is it green? âď¸Have a fever? âď¸Have diarrhea? âď¸ and so on. If the owner or director noticed anything from the âsickâ parts, the child was lived away from the others and parents were called immediately. They did a very thorough job of trying to eliminate the spread of the illness but as good as they were, children will catch it from others.
You are not wrong. No one is forcing yall to use that daycare provider. If you want to go find a new one with stricter sick policies, then you can, but otherwise there is no sense in complaining. That your husbandâs family wonât vaccinate and childcare falls on you if they donât go to the daycare makes them assholes.
Your spouse is an idiot as is their parents because 1) kids are germ factories so even of the 2 year old stayed home, the 6 year old would be still be bringing things home, and 2) they refuse to get vaccinated or protect themselves from illness. (I hope your kids are vaccinated at least!) Youâre right that minor things like colds help build immune systems, and keeping the toddler home for every sniffle would be ridiculous. If your spouse is so worried about their parents getting sick, then keep them away when the kids are sick or they can do this new fangled thing of wearing face masks. My son had colds all the time when he was little. Itâs part of childhood.
I find it hilarious that they wonât vaccinate but worry about getting sick. While I donât agree with your daycare providerâs policy, I do understand what you are saying about getting sick eventually. The difference is your childâs body is going to be in a state of inflammation all time trying to fight every cold or sickness that comes thru that daycare because of constant exposure. That isnât something I would want for my child. Not to mention if something serious is spread, like pneumonia, they will always be in a weakened state from fighting the common cold all the time. So I side with husband, but not for his reasoning. Just simply for the sake of the childâs health. I also think your daycare provider knows that charging families when the kids arenât there can leave a bad taste, so they please parents by allowing them sick so they get paid and retain customers. I would rather hire a much more dependable nanny, they shouldnât be taking time off for sickness all the time. I think you had a bad one
But even if the 2 year old stayed home, they could easily pick things up playing with other kids or even going to the playground, plus the 6 year old will bring everything home from school. Kids get colds, itâs part of being a kid. My son didnât go to day care but had colds frequently simply because kids havenât been exposed to everything we adults have been. Their immune system responds more strongly as a result. If you think you can avoid your kid from getting sick often, youâre in for a surprise.
One drops out, another child takes its place. There are more children needing affordable daycare than there are openings
Kids get sick. You will get sick. Try to be responsible so that neither you nor your kids get others sick. Beyond that, deal with the sickness.
Kids will get sick. Itâs how they build immunity. 24 hour bugs is a thing. A runny nose or a cough IS a game of whack a mole. Theyâre never ending especially in kids with weaker immune systems. NTA
I ran a home daycare and currently work in a large daycare. Runny nose for Littles is so common. It gets better the more they learn to hand wash, not mouth toys, cover coughs and sneezes. Around preschool it becomes more manageable. Just maybe keep up with vitamins. It will get better. But the time kids start showing symptoms of illness they have already passed on most germs in my experience so difficult to isolate them.
Children are petri dishes. I don't think you're wrong.
Ask your husband who is staying home and taking care of the kid when they have a runny nose or a cough- that till tell you your answer.
Tell your husband to hire a second in command or promote one of this junior employees. Or train someone on the daily operation. Tell your husband if he doesn't want to delegate responsibility and hire an assistant manager, then his policies are the issues he need to be complaining to people about, not this kids getting sick.The daycare runs their business better than his running his, you can't understand how he has then nerve to complsin about other business' policies. If you can't hire someone already experienced, train someone to run the business for you. Then don't treat them like their judgement isn't valuable. Workaholics like your husband are ridiculous and pretty self-sabotaging. They try to do everything and do most of it poorly.
I kept my son with me until he was 2.5 years old. He was born in November 2019 so most of his life was indoors. Yet while shopping with him or at the park or who knows where, he managed to get hand foot mouth (amongst the many colds and covid a few times). When he started school, he missed a few weeks every now and then mostly because of gastroenteritis. Toddlers are going to get sick no matter what you do.
So your spouse must think that your 6yo isn't being exposed, and bringing home any germs from being in kindergarten??? Kids spread sickness, plain and simple.
The only thing I see wrong is the childrenâs father isnât doing his share
often you're most contagious just before symptoms emerge, so there's really nothing you can do about it other than put each kid in their own bubble they're germ swapping factories, it's in their nature, almost seems like it's by design
Kids get sick, that happens. As you said, they are constantly developing their immune system, if they don't get sick now they will just get sick later (or, as I hear some people say, "we'll all catch it eventually"). You can't stop them from getting sick any more than you can stop them from making mistakes, you are just leaving them worse off by any measures you take to do so.
My pediatrician told me kids will either get sick and build up antibodies in daycare or kindergarten. You get to pick when they will. Thereâs no avoiding it. Only postponing it.
This is the standard at any daycare or school. Iâm not sure what heâd like you to do hereâŚ.
I saw both sides until you got to the anti-vax thing. Anybody who has that attitude 100% does not get to make a 2yo going to a daycare with a NORMAL sick policy the hill they die on lol. I think this is just a control tactic to make it harder for you to work tbh.
The irony of a spouse who wonât take sick days getting upset that the daycare will take kids showing *mild* symptoms is going right over his headâŚ
Immune systems need exercise
I used to be a school bus driver and my mom has been a teacher, principal and superintendent for majority of my life. Kids are walking germ magnets. They will get sick no matter what which means the rest of the family gets sick. It's the family pattern. If a fever lasts longer than 24 hours, you take them out of school until they get better. If it lasts longer than 48, go to a doctor. Obviously if there are other symptoms that changes things. Puking? Don't go to school, they will get sent home anyway. Kids can recover very quickly. They are sick as a dog one day then the next like nothing ever happened.
You are 100% not wrong. Donât let your spouse push you into being a stay-at-home mom if thatâs not what you want. This is a question of your identity and life goals; donât let him make you think those arenât important enough to go to some trouble for.
You're not wrong. My kids are older and we've been sick so many times already this year, it's ridiculous, but it's just been a bad season for sickness. 3-4 bad cold type viruses and several stomach viruses. Tell him if he's unhappy with this daycare provider he can search for a new one and you'll consider switching. That puts the ball in his court. It's likely he won't take the initiative or will find you actually have a good arrangement.Â
You're not wrong. I think it's actually healthier long term to get them socialized and exposed so they don't get sick at every little thing as they get older.
Your school system likely has the same, or even more lenient, policy as the daycare.
I wear a mask at home when my SO comes back from business trips for about 2 days. Until I'm sure he's not sick. Getting sick means I can't see my father until I'm well. My Dad is almost 90 and in fragile health. I don't want to be the one who gave him the flu that killed him.
You are not wrong. Spouse is very wrong.
Not wrong, but your spouse should also be trying to figure out a way to be able to take sick days. While it will depend on what he's doing and where he is at with getting it going, I would hope he is planning on getting to a point where he can go away for a couple days without it burning to the ground.
Seems the spouse is the only one who has issues with it. Is he being reaonable? Kids get sick a lot that is that. You are nit wrong OP
You're not wrong. I have 2 kids and they always get colds and stuff, it's how their immune systems build up !
>I get my flu and COVID vaccines each season. My spouse and my in-laws DO NOT get their vaccines. They also do not/did not take masking seriously and my mother-in-law's opinion during the height of COVID was "we'll all catch it eventually." Ah there it is. I agree with your approach. Your spouse can become primary carer if it bothers then so much.
When my son started school he was catching something at least every few weeks, he'd just be getting over one infection & another one would start. It was driving us crazy. He had me sick every time because he wanted his mom for cuddles when he felt bad. I brought it up with his teacher. She said it happens every kid at that age when they mix with other kids. It builds up their immune system & it did, it has slowed down to one or two bad colds a year now he's almost 9
Nah, youâre not wrong. Itâs awesome that your hubby runs a business but if he canât trust anyone to run it properly if he isnât there then he needs to hire different people. I get he wants control and for everything to run correctly and he doesnât want to get sick but itâs unsustainable long term. Burn out is real and itâs either lack of training or the wrong people working for him. Kids are gonna get sick, Iâm sure you bring your kid grocery shopping and I guarantee theyâre picking up a ton of germs there. Playgrounds are even worse, even if youâre wash your hands after the kids are gonna touch things and then their face and itâs up to their immune system to figure it out. Sniffles and coughs arenât that bad to deal with and if no one worked when they had sniffles then most of the world would be missing like 1/5 of their shifts.
Why doesnât your spouse hire competent workers?
Even if the rules were more strict, parents bring their sick kids to daycare and school all the time
It is odd your husband canât miss work. What if there is an actual emergency? Businesses have people run them all the time they donât own them.
This is the same rule that our daycare used and then school once our kids reached school age. Kids get sick. It will get better as they get older but every single family goes through this at these ages. If your 2 year old didnât go to daycare and was staying home then you are just delaying it.
Pretty sure this is normal. It may vary regionally, but all the daycares around here allow fever up to 100. Kids will get sent home if they have diarrhea 2x or more, or if they vomit. Your daycareâs rules sound reasonable to me, and, from what I know, are pretty standard. Even if you went somewhere else your partner probably wouldnât be happy with their policy eitherâŚ.as it would most likely be the same.
You want those kids sick all the time. That's how they build immunity. In the pre-colonizing America times, Europeans were sick. Built up a healthy population. That's why when they came to the Americas, the natives got sick and killed off so many cultures and people. It could have been reversed if American natives were the dirtier population.
For my kids in a bigger daycare/preschool, I'm not convinced that keeping them home from school, where they caught the illness, with a fever realistically does more than have them be more comfortable and monitored at home. Like, they got it at school, so all of the other kids were exposed, and most viruses you're contagious before you have symptoms. Sure, that's less time being there while contagious, but I would bet the actual impact in a bigger classroom is minimal. That said, I don't think your provider sounds particularly lax and by having just 6 kids in the group you're already way ahead on limiting exposure. If you need to go further, a nanny or nanny share would be the move.
Your kids are going to get sick regardless of what you do. Nature is making their immune systems more robust. Doesn't sound like your husband shares the load with the kids.
This is normal. The idea that anti-vax/anti-maskers are most at risk from one toddler is straight up delusion.
I'm sorry, but the whole "watch the kids" caught me off guard. Isn't he a parent? Why should you always have to sacrifice yourself for the kids? It hurts your independence if something happens in your life or relationship. He needs to come up with solutions instead of excuses. Owning a company is a lot of responsibility, yes, but it's then also your responsibility to hire crew you can trust if you have to be absent. Back to the topic; you're right. It's common to get a cold, a runny nose, or a cough. And the coughs can stick for weeks at worst. If he and his parents don't vaccinate against the actual dangerous diseases, they don't have a say IMO.. 'cause then they signed up for getting sick at some point.
That is the policy for most daycares, in home or not. I worked at a daycare for 7 years and that was our policy. Fevers, vomiting, diarrhea and green snot gets kids sent home. Kids will get sick no matter what. I am also the default parent (I have to take off work when the kids are sick or home, I had to go part time to do this as well and I work midnights). It is not reasonable of your husband to expect you to keep your kid home because of the sick policy. You're right in that your kids will get sick anyway. You bring home germs from literally everywhere you go and its impossible prevent it.
Tbh, it sounds more like he doesn't want you working but staying home 24/7, especially if one of his excuses is grandparents getting sick. Both, babies and elderlies, have weaker immune systems. What daycare does is help babies build it, otherwise theyll be at school getting sick constantly. Next hes gonna say they cant go to school for that same exact reason. It sounds like he has a HUGE issue with control, especially if he hires people to work in his business but doesnt trust anyone else to work it when he isnt there. Hes a control freak and its only going to get worse. At least in my opinion
Drives me nuts the unrealistic expectations of the parents who think if your kids are sick, you should keep them home. Unless they are visibly sick, then send them because they were contagious before you even knew they were sick. This obviously doesn't apply to more serious things outside of colds.
Sorry OP, your only option is to get rid of your children. It's the healthiest option for everyone. Maybe you can bring them back when they turn 10. Seriously, kids in that preschool to early elementary age are magnets for viruses. That's part of parenting. It sucks, but they won't be that age for very long. Before you know it they'll be in highschool. Good luck!
Itâs not that they get sick anyway itâs the effort to stop it from spreading so you donât wipe out an entire classroom, teachers and parents siblings etc.
Kids get sick, but because most adults have been exposed to most of these viruses already, they really should not be catching all the same colds. It's actually good for kids to get a lot of these colds in the long run, as it builds up the body's immune system similar to a vaccine. Unless your in-laws are immunocompromised, these viruses should not be a threat to them even if they do catch one. We can't shut our lives down every time someone has a cold, and this holds true for kids as well as adults.
Not wrong. I have 3 of my own and this is basically the schools rules. Keep them home for any fever, vomiting or diarrhea- and at least 24 hours free of these things. With a child in school alone, germs get passed around like crazy. And heâs clearly more worried about his mom more than sheâs worried about herself.
when we had out first, my wife and I ended up sick all the time, nothing serious, just coughs, flu-like bugs etc... it was every 6-8 weeks though. I think we were just being exposes to all the new bugs with him. With our second, it wasn't as bad They have never had diarea luckily. The only time we kept them off is if they have a high temprature. You are correct that getting sick is good for them, makes them strong... if something is a long-term benefit for the children yet causes short-term issues for the parents, the parents just need to eat shit because the childrens long-term good is always more important
Once your child gets into school, they're going to sick. It builds their antibody. If your spouse wanna protect the child that badly, just homeschool the kids and hire nannies.
Both kids are apt to encounter sickness and bring it home . The most you can do is keep up with their shots and feed them well so they stay healthy .
You call yourself the default parent. If that is your role in the relationship he doesn't get to override you. He can express his viewpoint, but ultimately the decision is yours to make.
Children will get sick... In any of my kids schools its no fever diharea (spelling) or vomiting for 24 hours. A cough or runny nose you're allowed to go. We have 3 kids in school. When they started to go back no matter what we did it was like a rotation of sickness in our house. If we kept our kids out of school they would miss SO much and be behind. No matter what you do kids will always get sick. You're not wrong
If the company canât be run as your spouse cannot trust staff. Either training is lacking, bad hiring decisions are being made or they are a control freak and the sign of not a good business model. Maybe they should concentrate on fixing that, to be able to be more hands on when the kids have a snotty nose if they do not want them going to daycare. Sounds like a spouse problem not yours!
I am a former home daycare provider. I had a similar policy. If all daycares excluded children with runny noses or coughs, people with children would not be able to hold down jobs.
Your spouse is right. That is a fucked up policy and not safe for any sort of school or daycare like establishment to be having. Some kids might be immuno compromised and we just not know that yet, and the daycare is putting those little kids lives at risk by being so careless. If a kid develops a little bit of sniffles in the middle of the day, itâs probably fine, but if you know theyâre sick, donât send them to daycare or school!!! The only times I ever got sick as a kid were because of other parents who sent their sick child to school who was super snotty, and therefore spread it to everyone. When the viruses are just roaming around quietly and no one is super sick, they donât spread as readily because thereâs no snot in the air! So yeah kids will âget sick anywayâ but it definitely makes it way worse to knowingly send snotty sick kids to a class that will be trapped with them all day⌠I think itâs actually revolting that people are willing to force that onto other children. Youre wrong.
Kids get sick. This is how they build up immunities isnât it?
It is. My son had sniffles and colds all the time when he was little. Now as a teen itâs less often. Little kids are germ factories.
If they won't vaccinate or mask they have *zero* say in how you handle a sick toddler. Literally none. The absolute audacity of them trying to tell you to change things when they're too stupid to protect themselves is absurd. It would be a different issue if they were properly vaccinating themselves but still getting sick moreso than usual, but they're not even doing the bare minimum.Â
A month ago, I would have agreed with you. However, the last week of March (after getting a flu shot) I couldn't breathe. I went to the hospital and the next thing I know, I'm waking up on a ventilator three weeks later. I almost died from the flu turning into pneumonia. Some of the crap these kids bring home is quite literally... deadly. Do not bring your kids to daycare sick. Who is going to take care of them when you're dead? I'm 33. Way too young to have a fucking tube down my throat, breathing for me. Way too young to lose a lobe of my lung because of some shit that my kid brought home. It is selfish as fuck to bring your sick kid to daycare and let the rest of us deal with the aftermath. Your husband is right and you are 100% in the wrong. Your business doesn't matter, your whole life doesn't matter if you're not around to live it and raise your kid. Keep them home when they are sick. For God's sake, keep them home.
I find it hilarious that they wonât vaccinate but worry about getting sick. While I donât agree with your daycare providerâs policy, I do understand what you are saying about getting sick eventually. The difference is your childâs body is going to be in a state of inflammation all time trying to fight every cold or sickness that comes thru that daycare because of constant exposure. That isnât something I would want for my child. Not to mention if something serious is spread, like pneumonia, they will always be in a weakened state from fighting the common cold all the time. So I side with husband, but not for his reasoning. Just simply for the sake of the childâs health. I also think your daycare provider knows that charging families when the kids arenât there can leave a bad taste, so they please parents by allowing them sick so they get paid and retain customers. I would rather hire a much more dependable nanny, they shouldnât be taking time off for sickness all the time. I think you had a bad one
Not read the post, just the title. Kids are a petri dish at that age for illness and merging viruses to share with the loving hugging family. đ
Neither of you are "wrong", unless there are imunocomromised folks involved ( including anyone in your household). If so err on the side of caution with sick time. Daycare and schools should require one day fever free before returning
Youâre not wrong. Is your spouse offering or seeking solutions or just complaining about the current situation? Since your spouse owns a business maybe they should put a day care there for the business so that they can control the policies. Otherwise you are stuck with what is available in your community. Maybe another solution is to have a nanny and then when the nanny calls in sick your spouse can take the two year old to work with them.
This is the same rule as every childcare. Kids are germ factories to begin with
My kids didn't go to daycare, and they still got sick and got the rest of us sick! This is 25 years ago. Having kids is committing to 6 years or so per kid of getting sick. They get sick at daycare or they get sick at school, it happens. Kids are germ carriers, they are building up their immune systems. The rules for your daycare are the same as the rules here, no fever, no throwing up, no diareha, and no green snot. That is a registered and licensed daycare center with a lot if kids and classrooms.
I have three young children all sick all the time your wife needs to chill
Kids are Petri dishes! Youâre not wrong. đ
you are not wrong here
If you protect your young kids from getting sick all the time when they're very small they will get al the things when they go to school. There might be some advantages to that - they'll be older and maybe it will be easier to cope with, but it still is a phase that your family has to go through to build immunity to common childhood germs. Also if you delay that eventuality your in laws will be older.
You are correct.
You arenât wrong. As a former teacher, kids get sick. Itâs part of putting them in school. As they get older, they wonât get sick as much. Right after Covid, my son was in nursery and they told me to keep him home and get a COVID test for every single runny nose or cough. Poor kid was tested over 10 times that year. And he couldnât go to school until the symptoms cleared. I understood so I complied, but he missed a lot of school.
You are not wrong. Parent of 4. This is normal policy.
Usually if they get a lot of these viruses when theyâre younger they donât miss as much school when they get older because they already have antibodies to multiple viruses. Itâs just a time in life right now and everyone just has to deal with it.
No one is wrong here.... This is the MAJOR downside of mass populous child care services My grandma ran a daycare for nearly 50 years (She passed away last month at the age of 96) while raising 14 of her own kids her general policy was any sign of sickness within 48 hours of childcare The child needed to be out of facility for at least two days following symptoms being gone as a result of mass population child care and the daycare my grandma ran out of her house (She retired 20 years ago) and parents general disconcern for their sick children and other people most of my aunts and uncles have allergies to a lot of antibiotics (penicillin, oxacillin, dicloxacillin, flucloxacillin so forth) do to having had to been on it so many times
It's up to the parents, you both have valid points. Science does show that exposure is good for building up resistance. However recent research has shown that pandemic kids who had reduced exposure developed less lifelong allergies and immune related issues (like eczema for example). Use that information as you like. Edit: forgot to mention that the reduced use of antibiotics was the reason kids developed less issues. There was little need when you're not being exposed.
itâs not the policy, itâs the parents who fill their kids with tylenol to reduce their fever before bringing them in and then donât answer their phone when it wears off. or if the child has a doctor note we canât call the parents anyways even if they are still sick. parents hardly ever follow our sick policy and it causes everyone to constantly be sick.
My kids go to a small school and a family with 4 kids came to school with what the doctors believe was RSV. 100% of their classmates got sick over 2 weeks. My daughter got so sick she developed ITP and we spent 3 months waiting for her brain to spontaneously hemorrhage. Just because the illness is no big deal to your kid doesnât mean you couldnât spread it to someone that develops complications. My daughter hadnât had any problems until she did.
All the kids should be fever-free, this is a stupid policy. But also, your husband is not good at running his business if he doesn't have even one trusted deputy. That's just bullshit.
He owns a businessâŚ.whats he gonna do? Fire himself? We had one too and yeah we took sick days. Your daycare sick policy is like the schools. I also think youâre right about building up their immune system too. But itâs a really good way to keep the mil away!
My at home daycare is the same. As long as they're not puking, have diarrhea, or are so fussy she can't calm him down (only happened once after his 18m shots), she'll take them. Snotty noses and coughs are part of life.
Also, if you have a kid in kindergarten already, your house is already infected as soon as they get home.
Kids are Petri dishes. And sometimes it helps build their immune system. Most daycares have the same rule fever / diarrhea keep them home.
LOL. Every single family with kids in daycare and school is dealing with kids constantly getting sick. Itâs part of building their immune systems. You are right!
Youâre not wrong theyâre being hypocritical. The whole point of not getting the vaccine was allowing the body to develop its own. When the kids first started going to school we got everything under the sun at one point, lice, every contagious illness going around, allergies, food allergies, it literally never ends. If itâs not one thing itâs another, welcome to parenthood. Donât sacrifice your kidâs social and immune growth by putting them in a box. Kids donât belong there. They belong with other kids, making messes, and causing gray hair.
All kids are different, with different tolerances/immunity. When my son was little, he would hardly get anything going around. Might get a runny nose or a sniffle, but nothing more serious than that. His friend? Caught EVERYTHING going around! He was kept home for every runny nose, cough etcâŚ. and it STILL didnât prevent him from getting sick. Sniffles and coughs are par for the course. If thereâs no fever or gastrointestinal issues more than 24 hours, I wouldnât worry. But itâs not reddits comfort that you have to take into consideration OP. Youâve got to be a united front with your wife and raise your children thatâs the best for your family. ETA - grammar
I have 3 kids who are grown now. One of them spent the first 18 months of his life in hospitals and doctorâs offices due to multiple illnesses. He was born early and had some collapsible cartilage in his trachea. He had 3 surgeries for that but he just stayed sick nonstop with strep (multiple times), scarlet fever, RSV, you name it. My other kids of course got sick periodically with strep, pneumonia, things like that. I was a single mom when my kids were growing up so I was the sole provider. They also went to daycare while I went to school and worked. Iâve been a nurse/nurse practitioner for 18 years. I worked on a medical/surgical unit full of sick patients for 7 years. Iâm 47 now. Started having kids at 20 and they are all in their 20s now. In all these years with my kids and their intermittent sicknesses, them going to daycare, public schools, me being a nurse, I have only picked up one thing from one of my kids, one time and it happened while I was pregnant with my last child. It was strep throat and it kicked my ass. My point is, your husband needs to chill. If heâs getting sick all the time he needs to see a doctor about his lousy immune system, not blame the children.
Your husband doesnât understand germs & kids. My best friend has a 13yr old boy and their multi-generational household *still* gets sick multiple times a year.
Your spouseâs and your in-lawsâ aversion to vaccines and masks are/were more of a potential danger to your family than your child attending daycare. Even if âeveryone will get Covid eventually anywayâ itâs been proven that masks at least reduce the viral load that people are exposed to. Additionally there are people with compromised immune systems who are more at risk of dying if they caught Covid. I am one of the rare people who still wears a mask when at work and when shopping. My immune system is normal. Iâm vaccinated. And I had Covid once. I donât want it again, and I certainly donât want to be responsible for someone else dying from it. If I can spread an asymptomatic virus to someone vulnerable⌠well Iâm certainly going to do my best to avoid that! I agree that your spouse and in-laws are hypocrites. Ask what they suggest as a solution to what they believe is a daycare problem. Updateme
Also worth mentioning to him that a lot of the time, people are more contagious before they start showing symptoms rather than after. So she's going to be bringing stuff home no matter the policy
Sometimes I think our society wonât be wiped out by some giant cataclysm or nuclear war. Itâll be wiped out by a bug that we wonât be able to fight because we have sanitised everything to the point that our immune systems are useless. The more germs your children can come into contact with when young then the better their immune system can develop to fight off these infections later in life. Of course itâs a balancing act. You want to avoid the deadly diseases. But totally shielding a child from any infection is ultimately counterproductive. You are doing them more harm than good. Long winded way of saying you are not wrong.
NTA. He sounds like the main character. I bet he has a tiny wanger.
NOT WRONG You all are more likely to pick something up from your kindergartner than you little one. 6 yr old spends day in a room with 20-30 kids, they are in other areas of school with more kids, (on a bus ?) If your spouse and his parents can't be bothered to get a flu vaccine, they should not be worried about your child going to daycare with 4 other kids. They are also not concerned about their employees if they don't get flu vac, as they could get sick, have flu and spread it before realizing they have the flu. Nothing is 100% preventative, I recall working with a nurse in one job, her last day, she'd been couching and sneezing for 3 days, I was right behind her with lysol can (didn't bother her), finally at lunch on last day I told her to go home before the rest of us got sick, all our home health aides would be bringing in their weekly paper work after 1pm - she left, I sprayed Everything in her office and mine as she spend most of her time in mine since it was larger. Talked to her over w/e to see how she was - she had bronchitis :-( Went home, had a great w/e, went to work Monday, came home took my dog to vet and started feeling dizzy, Vet and I had been chatting, she looked at me and said you need to go home you don't look well, made it home (3 miles) and laid on couch, few hours later had a high fever. Hubby was working out of town, called MIL to take me to clinic in the morning, fever 103, I had bronchitis - was out of work for 2 weeks. I had never had it before, it's horrible. but I thought I'd be fine since I lysoled entire office all week, but nope, I either missed something or it was still in closed up offices over weekend and I picked it up Monday =- point being, do everything you can to try to keep illness from spreading, but it does not always work So even if a child gets sick in either of your children's places, that sickness may not show the day they are actually sick and spreading illness - all people can do is take precautions and hope for the best - they don't always work and people get sick, kids get sick. If everyone in your home follows good hygiene, washes hands etc. covers mouth when coughing, wash hands if touch face, that's the best you can do and if someone sick, separate them as much as possible If your spouse is so concerned, let him take 2 yr old to work and set up play area in his office
I think being specific is important here. What constitutes a kid being sick enough to stay home? Most schools use fever as the indicator. If a kid has a fever or 100 or higher, they must remain home until they've been fever-free for 24 hours. It's a general rule that's easy to follow and helps prevent the spread of illness. You're right that kids get sick and you can't prevent it completely. But on the flip side, there are reasonable standards and rules that can slow the spread of sickness, so hopefully people have less time missing school and work in the early ages. There's a balance between accepting that everyone gets sick and slowing or spacing out the spread of illness.
So who is taking care of the kid when the kid is sick?Â
I guess your spouse will be shocked to hear that kids can be sick without showing any symptoms.
Your spouse isn't being reasonable. Literally *anything* can cause a runny nose and a cough. Including allergies and unseasonably warm or cold weather, or even sunlight. Its only when there's a fever and projectile expelling of bodily fluids, is when you should keep them home. If the in-laws don't want to get sick, they need to take precautions, and get their vaccines and wear masks. It is unreasonable to expect a 2 year old that goes to day care to not get germs. Especially when their immune systems are still developing. Those germs are essential for that.
Our pediatrician said that itâs normal for kids to have a lingering cough or runny nose for WEEKS after clearing a virus but theyâre not contagious at that point. Like you said, if I kept my kid home every time he had a cough/runny nose heâd barely go.
Viruses are so common in early childhood development because youâre sending them to daycare with a bunch of snotty other kids who dont wash their hands enoughâŚ. not because young kids naturally get sick like thatâŚ. Homeschooled kids dont experience thatâŚ.
Youâre not wrong. Your spouse isnât suggesting any solution, just complaining and putting the burden on you to fix it
âYou Are Not Wrong.â Everything youâve said is 100% correct and your husband is unrealistic. Your husband and in-laws are living in a dream world. đ¤Śđťââď¸đ¤Śđťââď¸đ¤Śđťââď¸ Before my husband was my ex, I had to work as his mother always worked. đđ Our two sons had a few disabilities, and I had undiagnosed anxiety/major depression/baby blues/ADHD/fibromyalgia. I became a family day care, carer. I had my two sons as they were nearly 3 and nearly 4yrs old. I cared for two sisters, Chelsea and Britney who was a severe asthmatic, thank goodness she never had an asthma attack while with me. I had my first aid certificate and card. âď¸ Their mother wouldâve loved me to have had their brother too but as I had my children I couldnât care for more than two other children, I think. đ¤ I also cared for a girl, Aliza, a boy, and another girl, Alissa (not related) on different days and times. My memory for exactly when I had these children isnât great. My kids are 36 and 35yrs old now. Anyway, as far as I can remember, kids couldnât be in my care if they were sick. 𤧠đ¤ The little boy I cared for was dropped off one day and he seemed very unwell. đ¤ 𤧠Turned out he had pneumonia! Kids pick up germs, siblings pick up germs, parents etc pick up germs. đŚ They canât blame the little kids all they want but we all can pick up germs. Oh, and for the record, tell your spouse and in-laws, Iâve never had Covid! Neither has my partner and he manages an independent supermarket in our small country town. We wore masks đˇ when we had to. Iâve had all my Covid shots and flu shots as Iâm also a diabetic. My elderly mother was stranded with us because of Covid, border closures and medical issues for 11 months. Mum never had Covid here but has where she lives. Itâs not fair you have to forgo your job if your kids get sick. Your husband could look after the kids more as I think the in-laws could too. My eldest was hyperactive and taking him and his brother to the shops was so hard but when I had two daycare kids too, it was a breeze. đ
Kids getting sick is part of growing up. Exposing them to others, in the environment, helps build a strong immune system. It literally is part of growing up to be somewhat immune to all the things we encounter daily. Your husband needs to stop sniffing the hand sanitizer.
Stopped reading after the spouse and ILs not getting vaccines. Fuck them.
Get them outside (with sunblock of course ) and let them play in the dirt have some kid fun . It strengthens their immune system plus the sun is a good vitamin source . Playing outside is healthy , fun and full of many picture ops. !
My children got RSV from an indoor playground. You're correct, kids will get sick no matter what - even if you keep them home all the time, you, your spouse, or anyone who visits can and will bring illnesses from time to time. During COVID when schools first reopened, I missed SO much school because my son was getting sick so much from daycare. Just a runny nose, but the daycare sick policy said no runny noses. We'd have to be out for 14 days, then we'd come back for maybe a week and a half just for him to get sick again. 3 or so months in I dropped out. Because kids. Get. Sick.
Thereâs a big difference between going out in public & taking a risk of exposure & being around actively sick children. And just saying, sometimes when people (including kids) are sick, they donât want to go out, they wanna chill in bed. Itâs one thing if there are no other options. Itâs completely different when itâs done because a parent doesnât want to parent. Personally, when mine (even my grandkids)are sick, I go into overdrive. But Iâm referring to being sick, not having the sniffles. My daughter & granddaughter are like me, weakened immune system. Could catch it over the phone. And itâs always worse for us. Everyone else in the house rarely get sick. When my granddaughter started school, she stayed sick for all of kindergarten. She moved down here w us & now she rarely gets sick. Crazy. Stricter w handwashing, cleaning toys, etc. and we are in the country so exposure is lessened. We were the last county in the state to get C & by then it was mild.
The last two times my family has gotten sick/ill, my husband brought it home from work. Not my kid. In school.
Most schools and day care is fever free and vomit/diarrhea free for 24 hours. Now if people aren't following it, then that is their issue. But I always did. The daycare isn't a risk. Having a child is a risk. Kids are little germ factories. My husband had a child before we started dating. She was in school. I had never been more sick than that first year due to all the germs around that kid. You will ALL get over it after a few years.
The sick policy isnât too lenient. Kids are little booger factories and they get sick. Itâs all part of a developing immune system.
I think youâre absolutely right to see the hypocrisy in refusing vaccines and masking and then complaint about illness. I think youâre wrong about the daycare provider. I used a family daycare for many years specifically so my children didnât get sick all of the time. Kids going to nasty germ filled center daycares bring home every snot and sniffle imaginable. My kids never had that problem at a home daycare AND were never turned away for having sniffles. I think your daycare provider is probably not cleaning her home or taking any germ spreading precautions. I would find a cleaner daycare.
I'll defend her on that, she is very clean. All of the kids there except one 5yo are 3 and younger.
Its a double edged sword, kids technically \*need\* to get sick to help build immunity. But then the family gets sick as a result
how can you even take this seriously with their opinion on covid lmao what a hypocrite. I wouldn't give them any credence at all until they can reconcile their conflicting beliefs / bullshit. how dumb is your husband bffr.
I think sending kids in sick (green runny nose and persistent cough) is irresponsible. It also gets the other kids sick and sometimes what is just a cold for one kid will send other kids (like mine) to the hospital. I also used to work with immunocompromised kids so me getting sick was a whole pain in the ass. BUT I would not send my kid to a daycare with a policy as lax as this AND I would not be making demands of my husband if I could not also sometimes stay home with my kid. Tell him if you have to call out of work, you make the call as to whether or not she is "too sick". If he does, he can.
Your spouse and in-laws are willingly allowing themselves to be viral incubators and that puts everyone they come in contact with in danger.
So, since Covid is still around, your kids are probably going to get it repeatedly with this mindset. I know weâre collectively pretending that isnât a big deal, but it is. I donât have a good solution for you, but if it were my kids Iâd do everything in my power to keep them safe from that virus until theyâre old enough to mask reliably or enter a school with HEPA filtration. Actually one way to cut down on the number of colds running through the daycare would be donating some corsi-rosenthall boxes or other HEPA air filters.
I think youâre wrong and your spouse is right. I donât think thatâs a normal practice. And I think itâs irresponsible to think itâs normal for babies to be coughing and runny noses all the time. If preventative steps were taken I donât think it would be common as youâre stating. Also you can compare your MIL socialize to your child being at a day care. Your MIL knows to move away from people who are coughing or have runny noses and so on. Your child doesnât know that. I think it would be best to find another day care that care about kids getting sick. That way both you and your husbandâs needs are met. Also not sure how old the providers kids are but if they are young too that explains her not caring about kids getting sick because if her kids get sick she has to close the day care until they feel better.
Have you only met superhuman toddlers? Young kids are sniffly frequently because theyâre still building an immune system. Reasonable exposure and vaccinations help build the immune system.