Working While Sick

[sharlan]

I have had cancer twice. The first time, I had to close for 2 wks while I was in the hospital. The second time, I never closed.

I had to close once, for 1 day when I had the flu.

I am clean, but not overly clean. I do wipe down the bathroom daily, tile gets swept daily, floors get mopped twice a week, carpets get vacuumed twice a week (more often if needed). Staircase handrails get wiped down weekly with Clorox wipes, along with all doorknobs and lightswitches. Baby toys get washed weekly, only 1 baby.

If anyone is really sick with a bad cold, I Lysol everything down for a couple of days.

We get colds, but rarely anything else.

I use hand sanitizer anytime we go to the park, the zoo, or Disneyland.

[countrymom]

I rarely get sick, I mean rarely. Now if I feel like I can't function for the day then I will let one of my own children to stay home and help out, but its very few days.
I have a neat and tidy house, I clean my bathrooms once a week, vacum everyday sometimes every other day, the floors get washed when I have a chance. I rarely wipe down toys, and no one here is sick. Heck my own children hardly get sick. They don't wash their hands, they have the 5 sec rule, they even fall asleep in their clothes.

I seriously think that people are so freaked out about germs that this is why they are sick. Germs are really good for people and help them build up immunity.

ok, this was gross, but last week at costco, they had free taste testing and the tester had an awful cold and she was coughing and sneezing everywhere, my dh says to the kids, that she should have stayed home instead of serving her germs on the food (he is so loud so I know the lady heard him)

[beachgrl]

I got sivk in the fall, thought it was the flu which thankfullyit wasnt and i worked one day sick and took off one day. I have done goo since and have had the kids out for a day or two at different times with vatious ilness but nothng major...guess was just a matter of time fir me despite obsessive handwashing last week due to the two newbies who had runny noses tomthe extreme..i ended up with a soar throat and feeljng run down by frifay and have had a head cold/sinus thing going on over the weekend which is still n full force unfortunately. The two newbues ended up still being out sivk since started running a fever so only have two today and we are having a laid back free play kinda day.

I try to keep things swept, vaccummed as needed and wipe down or lysol the things i know need it. Sometimes i just toss stuff in the dishwasher and let it go but i dont overly clean. I try not to use hand sanitizer because i know it carries its own risks and just do soap and water as much as possible. Im hoping i will be getting over this soon, hate feeling blah and not being my normal self with the kids but they are happy playing so its all good.

[Sunchimes]

I was talking to the nurse in my doctor's office about sanitizer. She said "Well, they use it in all of the hospital rooms entering and leaving. But, it doesn't disinfect anything. It just wets the germs." I was thinking, "If that's so, why bother using it in the hospital?"

I've always heard that kids need germs. I'm glad to hear that some of you aren't constant cleaners. I have one girl that drools all of the time and has constant allergies with drippy nose. During the days that she is my only kid, and will be for a day or two, I don't sanitize toys. But, if another child is expected the next day, everything plastic is dumped into the bleach bucket and I use lysol wipes on the rest--because of the drool as much as possible contagion. If no one is sick, I ease up on it.

The girl with allergies got RSV/pneumonia a couple of weeks ago, but she didn't get it here. She had been on a visitation week with her dad for 5 days when she got sick, so no telling where she got it. I cleaned all of the toys, just in case, but I think it was overkill-RSV has a pretty short shelf-life-like a few hours. No one here got it.

I've been sick 4 times in a year. I had one really bad cold the first month, 2 minor colds later in the year, and a stomach virus that I caught from dc baby. She was sick for two days (I was stupid--she was my only kid, so I kept her--I won't do that again.) She left at 4 pm on Friday, I got sick at 6 and hubby got sick at 6:30. Her family went off on a beach vacation the next day and I was suppose to have my birthday week off to play. Instead, I spent most of it sick as a dog. ;-) I'm much wiser now.

[MrsB]

Nope. I have never had a real bad illness. I am just one of those people I guess.

I do have to comment though about cleaning and hand sanitizer.....years ago in one of my enviornmental science courses, we read about how this one scientist had this theory that people were getting sicker more often and with all sorts of weird things because of our (society) over use of anitbacterial products.

Basically, he thought that we NEED some bacteria and germs to help us build up immunities and stuff. I really liked the study and I really believe a good part of it to be true because I have noticed a change in how often and with what kids are sick with now days compared to 2 decades ago.

As a kid, I washed my hands only once and sometimes only in the bath tub at the end of the day. I dropped food on the ground while I was outside playing and I still picked it up and ate it! , I think I even remember saving my gum on my bed post now and then so I could chew it again the next day. I didn't carry hand sanitizer with me every where I went and I probably didn't have a cute little package of personal tissues tucked in my pocket either. I rarely went to the Dr after I received all my imms, we didn't have "well-child" check ups every 6 months to a year. I brushed my teeth before bed and if I forgot, then I forgot.

My mom didn't give me fresh linens and a clean personal hand towel every day. If we were sick (and I mean REALLY sick) we stayed home from school and stayed in bed the whole day. We couldn't wait to go back to school the next day.

Basically, I really think that as a society, we have made ourselves sick. We don't eat well, we don't sleep well and we surely don't get enough sunshine and/or exercise.

As far as daycare goes, I would be interested in hearing (honestly) about who gets sick alot and what their cleaning/sanitizing habits are. I clean (tidy up) each day but honestly, I don't go out of my way to sanitize things. I do for babies when their is a lot of colds and fluidy stuff going around but really truly honestly, I am not a super indepth cleaner. I think kids should have germs on them. I think kids should be able to touch things and I don't whip out the hand sanitizer every time. I even send kids into the bathroom sometimes and know they left without washing their hands but don't make them go back in to do it if we are super busy.

I know I can't be off track by too much because this year has been a bad one in regards to sickness and illnesses going around (I'm sure because of the odd weather everyone had) but I have had maybe 2 kids take a sick day over this entire winter and I have 12 kids here....and a majority of them are really young. I also have 3 moms who work in the hospital/clinic and 2 teacher moms and I think those professions are exposed to just as much, if not more stuff than daycare providers.

I have always thought this too. Every daycare provider I have ever met that has done it for an extended period of time, hardley ever gets sick either.

I have 5 personal/sick days worked into my contract, but have only used maybe 3 for sick days in more than 5 years and 1 of them was when I was preggo with youngest DD and it was aweful morning sickness, not contagious.

I had one DCF I swear that was what her problem was. Her kids washed their hands like 50 million times a day, always had hand sanitizer. She wouldn't let her kids play in the dirt or ever get dirty. Her house was immaculate. She bleached everything and sanitized every toy, bathrooms, kitchens, floors everyday. Her 2 kids were THE sickest kids I have ever met in my entire life. One winter they missed over 22 days for being sick.

My own daycare kids almost always get attendance awards and if one of them gets sick, sometimes another will catch it, but most of the time not.

As far as sanitizing, I clean my daycare bathroom once a week, unless there is a spill. Toys I sanatize weekly if they are being played with alot and I know someone has been sick. If everyone has colds or is sick, I put up the play food and dishes, just because it is too difficult for little ones to pretend to eat without putting it to their mouth.

My daycare kids I have wash their hands after going to the bathroom and I do it after meals. But on occasion they forget or dont do a great job and I dont make a big deal about it. I dont have them do it before meals like the "book" suggests or after going outside to play, unless they are dirty and I usually give them a baby wipe to get the dirt off.

We also have the "5 second rule" or "god made dirt, dirt doesnt hurt" for dropped food.

This winter has been exceptionally bad for colds but most of the illness haven't been bad enough to be excluded from daycare. I have one that has missed 5-6 days this winter and one that has missed 2, but the rest have only been 1 or none.

[godiva83]

I very rarely get sick and sometimes think I could lick a subway pole without catching anything... Years working with kids I believe has helped out my immune system immensely. My DS on the other hand is constantly sick, the doctor say because he was very sick with pneumonia when 1 week old he just catches everything.

I almost closed today - I have a brutal head and chest cold that came on over the weekend, I truly thought it would have run it's course by now maybe being pregnant makes your body take longer to fight it ... I am considering canceling the field trip for tomorrow though