Siblings & Sickness

[Chatter Box]

If you have siblings and only one gets sick do you allow the parent to drop off the non sick child?

[taylorw1210]

Yes, though I keep a very close eye on the kid for symptoms of illness.

[Blackcat31]

I only exclude the child with the actual symptoms.

It would be kind of silly to exclude the sibling too.

Lots of kids can be carriers of an illness/virus and not actually get sick.

If we exclude because of the possibility of the other child being contagious too, then schools would do it as well.

My own children RARELY caught the same illnesses.

My DD got strep all the time, my DS has never had it.

Here are some other threads about sibling illness and exclusions

https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=sibling+illness

[DaveA]

Yes I allow siblings but remind parents that they will be called for pickup at first sign of any symptoms.

[hope]

I also only exclude only the child with symptoms. I do however tell the parent to use their best judgement. I have an infant here 3 days a week. Her older 2 sisters come one of those days. One of the older sisters came down with hand foot mouth. The mom asked if she should keep all 3 home. Together we decided that she would keep the infant separate at home and she could continue to come here by I am able to keep her separate from the group. Both older sister are so close that one was bound to get it from the other so she kept both the older girls home even though only one had symptoms. The other got sick 2 days later.
Parents need to think through their decision of bringing the sibling. If that sibling gets you sick the parent will be out double the time from work.

[e.j.]

Depending on the illness, I ask that parents "consider" keeping the sibling home since it's usually only a matter of a day or two before they're down with the same thing. I don't refuse to take a sibling who isn't showing symptoms, though.