But 30 minutes earlier I might have been telling my husband, ‘Don’t tell the daycare about the fever Max had last night!’”Ĭheck your daycare’s parent handbook for their policies. “Yes, I grumble about the parents dropping off kids with diarrhea. Even so, when Max first started daycare and I went back to work, we were both sick all the time.” Mason also gets frustrated when moms and dads drop off kids who are sick, but she understands some parents (including herself) don’t always have much choice. When I come home, I change my clothes as soon as I walk in the door. “At work, we’re constantly disinfecting and cleaning and washing hands. She knows how futile the war against germs can feel. Kate Mason,* an early childhood educator in Sudbury, Ont., works at a daycare and sends her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Max,* to another one. (The nasal flu vaccine is not available in Canada this year.) If it’s the first time your child has ever had a flu shot, they’ll need two separate doses, four weeks apart. The Canadian Paediatric Society also recommends flu shots for any adult caregivers living or working with kids under age five.
Always wash your toddler’s hands as soon as you get home from daycare, and before they eat or interact with siblings.Ĭhildren over the age of six months should get a yearly flu shot. Ukpeh’s best advice for keeping the whole family healthy is to make sure everyone is getting lots of rest and eating nutritious food. Other common outbreaks at daycares and schools can include gastroenteritis, lice, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pinworms (sorry!). The common cold can cause swelling and congestion in the nose and throat, and in a toddler’s tiny ear tubes, which is what causes the earache.) These bugs are easily spread through direct and indirect contact between toddlers in close proximity, who are likely wiping their noses, sneezing and coughing while sharing toys and food-no matter how many times the daycare workers clean the diaper-change station or disinfect toys that have been drooled on. (Ear infections can be caused by either a virus or bacteria. Many of the typical illnesses found in daycare settings, including the common cold, stomach bugs, conjunctivitis (pink eye) and hand, foot and mouth disease, are caused by viruses. This is because daycares are “the perfect environment for the transmission of viruses,” he says. Henry Ukpeh, a paediatrician in Peterborough, Ont., confirms that it’s normal for toddlers starting group child care to get sick-developing as many as eight to 12 colds in the first 12 months. A friend whose daughter had just started daycare had to cancel plans with us twice in one week: The first time because her daughter had contracted pink eye, and then again five days later because she’d caught hand, foot and mouth disease. And from what I’ve gleaned from commiserating with other parents of toddlers over the years, we got off easy. It was a seemingly endless stream of runny noses, low-grade fevers, mysterious rashes and minor bouts of diarrhea. But after only two months in the daycare germ storm, I’d already lost count. Before my daughter started daycare at 19 months, I could count on one hand the number of times she’d been sick.