spinoff: illness/infection

[aihcalappa]

The head lice thread got me thinking. Does it bother you when your childrens playmates are ill, or have some communicable infection, and the parents don't bother to warn you before they play?
I'm a pretty big germ-o-phobe, so this bothers me a lot. I want to know if someone is ill, so I can make an informed decision as to whether I want to risk exposing my family. I try to give others the same courtesy. How do you feel about this issue?

[mammal_mama]

I'm not so concerned about the run-of-the-mill "bug," where the kids still feel energetic enough to play -- but have a cough and runny noses.

But if my girls are running a fever, I don't take them to people's homes and I'd certainly inform anyone who was thinking of coming over. When my girls had chicken pox, I let people know.

Even though my girls are still pretty energetic when they run fevers -- they were also energetic with chicken-pox.

[GuildJenn]

Generic cold/cough AFTER any fever is fine with me. Anything else and I expect and appreciate a phone call so that I have the choice.

[Peony]

I need to know with any illness. A simple cold can not be so simple in my DD2 who has an extensive history of respiratory issues. She also catches every single bug known to man, seriously, since Sep 1st, she has been ill 3 times. Neither of my DC go to daycare/school so this is just stuff she has picked up the library, grocery store, etc... All of our playmates know what we have have gone through with her and the vast majority of time I get a phone call ahead of time. If not, I have no problems informing the parents that we really do need to know about illnesses. I always extend the same courtesy and let them know about any germs that I know we might be harboring.

[limabean]

There was a thread here that had some good responses about this.

[Redifer]

I'm kinda weird about it: if my kids are sick, even without typical symptoms (cranky, lethargic, but no cough/nose issues/tummy issues), I won't take them visiting. We have several severely immune-compromised family members, including MIL, who if she gets a mild cold it quickly turns into double pneumonia and a 3 week hospice stay. Granted, my kids almost never get sick.

However, I really don't care if sick kids come to play at my house. My kids have pretty strong immune systems. Like I said, they almost never get sick: the 4 year old to this day has only been sick twice, the baby is just now getting her first cold at 16 months old. I'm kinda figuring the constant exposure helps their little immunities kick in.

I just make sure that if we have a playdate with a sick friend to limit exposure to other family members for a while to ensure all germs are gone and we're not contagious.. which isn't hard anyhow, cuz our family members are very rarely feeling well enough for company.

[One_Girl]

My dd goes to school and will get whatever is coming around sooner or later so it really doesn't bother me. My friends don't bring their kids out of the house when they are to sick to play and often we have seen them earlier in the week before they got sick so the germs are already with us.

[elmh23]

Our playgroups "rules" are no puking and no fevers. For the most part, runny noses and coughs are ok as long as your kid wants to be there.