Just tell me it gets better(illness vent)

[Strong Mama]

Ds started preschool this year in August. He has never been to a daycare/school setting before, but he has been regularly to playgroups/indoor play areas, etc where there are a lot of germs.

He has never been so sick in his life this year so far we have gotten:

6 colds.
1 sinus infection
2 stomach bugs
lice
and now on our second round of pink eye

its only november~!!

he misses at least one day of school a week!!

Is this normal? I am getting very frustrated and am to the point of pulling him out, even though he loves it so much!

[mommy68]

You may get better advice. But if he has never been in a daycare/preschool environment before now then it sounds like it is completely normal. Well, it's not normal to be sick, but normal to pick up every little thing that goes around until they build up their immunity.

My DD was the worst to pick up every little thing that went around last year in kindergarten. Winter months were the worst, between Dec-April. It seemed that she had something every week until spring moved in. She even spent two years in preschool before Kinder so I would have thought she'd built up her immunity but she still got sick.

Do you give your child vitamins or a supplement to help them keep their immune system strong? My DD wasn't a good eater so I believe that caused her to pick things up easier.

If you plan to keep your child in school once they start Kindergarten then the best thing you can do is keep them in school now so they can work on building up their immunity.

[Satori]

Sounds normal to me if its his first time in. I just pulled my dd from school due to the illness issue but she has immune issues so she won't build immunity to what she's been catching but for a kid with a normal immune system? I'd leave them. 1 day a week isn't bad, we missed about half the days from end of Aug to end of Oct.

[Cardinal]

it does get better and is normal!!

jonathan was in school/MDO last year part-time and got sick frequently ::
it was bad


but we are so much healthier this year I think b/c of his previous exposures building up his immune system.

my sister had the same experience. her kids literally never left the house until they were 2 because of her fear of germs. well then she sent them to a 2 day a week day care and they were sick the first MONTH of school. Now they're doing a lot better!

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

I agree. This sounds normal for kids entering preschool for the first time. Its a much more intense germ-sharing atmosphere than an occassional (even weekly) playdate or similar. And yes, it does get better.

Just to be sure though, do check that your school has and follows a good policy on not accepting sick kids at school, does good hand-washing routines, and makes sure kids aren't sharing things like hats (especially in the dress-up area, if there is one).

Does the school tell you when something is going around? Ours used to post when there was pink eye or lice or similar at the school. That was a good clue for parents to spend more time emphasizing hand washing and watching for early symptoms. For things like pink eye, which are so contagious in the early stage, knowing to watch and get things treated as soon as the least sign appeared helped the whole school.

My kids are just past preschool age and virtually never get sick at this point.

[meowmix]

Our first year when Trevor was in K and Rachael had her first year of 3/day week preschool it was AWFUL. We had some sort of barfing bug that went around from literally Oct until January. We were puking over xmas (no xmas dinner that year!). Someone was barfing every week. I went insane and ran around our house, crying, and bleaching all our surfaces/toys. I washed my hands in bleach like everytime I touched something. That was the WORST WINTER EVER. Though it's kind of funny to look back on now (me crying as I obsessively wash my hands and bleach my house and do laundry is darkly amusing to me now). BUT----

This year my son is in 2nd grade, my daughter in K and no one has gotten sick. We've had like a little bit of the sniffles once but no lice, no sinus infections and the best thing? NO BARFING!

So I think it does get better! : but I hope I didn't jinx myself but posting this!