Daycare Sicknesses--I've had enough!

[sarahfran]

My poor sweet 5 month old has been in daycare 2 days/wk for 2 months now. He's been sick every week with something new. I'm not exaggerating. Two weeks ago it was a vomiting flu. Last week it was a terrible hacking cough and low grade fever. This week it's diaherra. I have had it up to here with it. I know everyone says "he's building his immunity early," but if doctors really though this was a good thing, they'd suggest exposing kids to germs in the first few months.

The daycare center is a nice place--caretakers are good, facility is nice, etc. etc. But I can't stand having my sweet little guy sick all the time. He's miserable and can't be learning as much as he should when he's fighting illness!

I have already elected the $5k dependent care spending acct, so if I don't have daycare I may lose the $$ through payroll deductions I can't stop. We don't have the $$ for me to hire a nanny placement service... what should I do???
-Sarah
Mom to Dylan, 8/18/03

Motherhood is such a joy!

[emmasmama]

Sarah, I could be wrong, but can't you use the dependent care spending acct toward whatever kind of child care you wish, including having someone who comes to your home? If you're looking for a nanny, a good place to try might be the local college, if they have an early childhood development or education programs. I used to be a mother's helper for twins when I was in high school and the girl who really watched them most of the time was in this type of program. She watched them 2 or 3 days a week and worked it around her classes. Might be a good way to find someone more affordable and in my opinion probably more interested in doing a good job.

One note, if you are able to use the dep. care spending acct toward in-home help, you would probably need to pay whoever you hired as if they were an actual employee and not just 'under-the-table'... this would mean you would have to pay 1/2 the soc. security and medicare, etc, so it gets a bit more complicated I imagine. Still, may be worth looking into and might be a much nicer arrangement for you. I would consult an accountant about this if you have one and are thinking about it.

I can't think that all those illnesses could possibly be a "good" way to build up your child's immune system. Have you discussed these issues with your pediatrician at all? It seems to me that it's not good to have your child getting so many illnesses on top of each other because he will get run-down and won't be able to fight off new bugs as well. Maybe a short-term solution (if possible) would be to skip a week of daycare and find an alternate situation or stay home from work (if you can). This would give him a little time to really get all the way better before returning to daycare. Just another thought.

Hope this is helpful and hang in there!

[KGoes]

I have been really lucky with daycare - the only illnesses DD has had have been inflicted on her by her parents. One thing that I do is I bring her own toys to daycare. That way she is chewing on her toys and not getting as many germs. I always say that it's as a courtesy to the other babies, since DD has the sniffles. Then, I can wash them off at home in the evenings. Also, you might want to check and make sure that the daycare wipes everything down at night. All the toys at our daycare are washed before the next day. It must help since we had a baby in our room with RSV and it did not spread and one baby in the other infant room had the flu, and that did not spread either.

Kelley
DD born 7/03

[sarahfran]

Kelley,
Thanks for the great idea. I love the notion of "protecting the other kids from Dylan's sniffles" by bringing his own toys. Are there lots of kids in your DD's daycare? There are about 15 infants in Dylan's room and about 50 other up to 3 yr olds in the facility. I've wondered whether the sheer numbers add to the spread factor.

I haven't seen them washing the toys everyday, although they said they do... I'll have to find a delicate way to inquire again.

Thanks for the thoughts!
-Sarah
Mom to Dylan, 8/18/03

Motherhood is such a joy!

[KMommie]

We went through the same thing when DD started daycare in September. We were also part-time (two days a week) and DD was 4 1/2 months old. BOY, was I frustrated the first few months! I think we ended up keeping her home for about 4 weeks straight in September-October, and we were seeing the dr every week it seemed like! I was ready to throw in the towel. We started off with Hand, Foot, Mouth and then moved onto lots of colds with DD always ending up with an ear infection. If you can, you might want to try and keep DS home for a few weeks, to help him get strong and healthy. We just went through a bout of diarrhea, and we kept DD home for several weeks. It took her that long to get rid of the diarrhea, and start eating normally. It takes DD sooo long to recover completely. I can't even believe how many times DH and I have had to call in sick to stay home with DD. You might want to look into another day care facility with less infants per room. Ours has a limit of 12, but we looked at a couple of places that were down to 8. Also, you might want to look into home day cares, if you are comfortable with that. It's more affordable than a nanny usually. My SIL's son had to switch from a center to a home, because his immune system couldn't take it, he went from being 95th percentile across the board to 50th percentile from all the time he spent being sick. The bad thing is that whenever something goes through the home day care, everyone gets it usually, even the caretaker, so then the home ends up closed for a few days, while she recovers, leaving SIL scrambling for substitute care.

I hate it when people say that DD will be the healthiest Kindergartener. It's so hard when they are so little and sick. Hang in there!

Jeannie
mommy to Kiki 4/18/03

[jal]

Sarah,

Until I got to your last paragraph and tag line, I wondered if your post wasn't my DW joining me on these boards.

I don't have many suggestions, just mainly wanted you to know that others are facing the exact same thing as you.

However, I do have a few comments and questions.
1. As someone has already pointed out, your dependent care spending acct should be good for anything you use for dependent care so long as its purpose is so you and your spouse can work. This means you shouldn't have to lose the money. You could always hire a nanny for at least part of the year til that much money was spent. However, I did just learn this year that (at least with our plan) you can't get the money from the plan until after it's been deducted from your pay.

2. $5,000 for someone to watch your child for two days a week??? What's up with that, sounds extreamly high. Our son is in day care for about one and a half days a week, and our expected costs are like $1500 for the year.

Good luck, and hang in there.

[lcl]

wow. i can relate to daycare illness. my 17 mo old has been in daycare for 3 months and has been at day care for 8 days out of the last 20 days because of illness. we have to pay the full tuition even if he's not there. It's 1500 a month for 5 days a week . people do say that by grade school years daycare kids do not get as sick.

[KGoes]

There are up to 12 babies in DD's room and probably 125 more in the entire daycare up to school age. The daycare is in an old elementary school, and only the babies and the toddlers up to 18 months or so are on the first floor.

I hope Dylan is feeling better!
Kelley
DD born 7/03

[sarahfran]

Thanks for the support! I am now actively investigating alternatives (nanny sharing, in home providers, etc.). My problem is that I tend to be a bit of a nervous nelly, so I'm a little squeamish about leaving DS alone with just one adult and no back-up supervision. I guess I've seen too many of those wicked nanny stories where the kids end up getting beaten. BUT, now that I've lived with the attack of the germies, I think I'm willing to give it a go.

I'm a bit intimidated by the tax filing of becoming an employer to a nanny to pay above the table and be able to claim against my $5k. As an earlier poster said, I can call on an accountant for help with that, though.

As for the $5k... believe it or not, we pay $675/month for 2 days/wk. So by the end of the year, we'll have spent more like $8100! It's crazy, but this was one of the only facilities that would let us go part time (other would let us, but we'd have to pay for full time!), and at that there was a HUGE waiting list. When I first signed up, I was told I'd have to wait a year or more.

>sigh< It's depressing. Thanks again for the support!
-Sarah
Mom to Dylan, 8/18/03

Motherhood is such a joy!

[sarahfran]

Jeannie,
Did it get better after the first few months? Did she start going longer between sicknesses?

-Sarah
Mom to Dylan, 8/18/03

Motherhood is such a joy!

[marinkitty]

Sarah -

If you end up hiring a nanny there are two good payroll/accounting firms that will do the tax and payroll stuff for you since it is pretty complicated. One is Breedlove Associates and the other is GTM Associates (we use GTM but I know others who use Breedlove and are very happy with them). Both have websites that I don't have handy but you could find on Google. And I do take out the $5000 dependent care amount - I just have to submit the payroll sheet the agency gives me. They take everything out of our account automatically and even pay our taxes for us!

Good luck!

Edited to add: I don't have any interest in these firms and I'm sure there are others - just wanted to toss out a couple of names so you could check out their services/rates if you end up needing them!

Holly
Mom to Mia (3.17.03)

[Karenn]

Sarah,
I didn't quite get to read through all of the replies, but I did want to let you know- my DS was sick for almost all of winter last year. He got his first cold at 4.5 months and went maybe two weeks without a cold or some ailment the whole rest of the season. I think the last one was in late April. It was so hard to have a baby sick for what seemed like forever! And, here's the part I thought you might want to know, he was not in daycare. We would go to Mommy/Baby groups occassionally, but we didn't make it to too many because he was sick so often. I even got so tired of his getting sick that I "quaranteened" us and he still got sick. I know there are lots of factors that can impact your decision about daycare but keeping him out of daycare may not keep him as healthy as you're hoping.

Good luck in getting your little guy better!

[sarahfran]

Karen,
Thanks so much for saying that. Nice reassurance. We may not have an option, so it's nice to know that there's not necessarily a magic solution out there!

Not that I'm happy your son was sick last winter. I'm sorry he went through it, but glad he's okay now!
-Sarah
Mom to Dylan, 8/18/03

Motherhood is such a joy!

[KMommie]

Sarah,

Kiki's been in day care now for 5 months. She's now 9 months old, and it has gotten better (fingers crossed). I'm worrying though as we are coming up on the rotavirus season, and I HATE that kind of sickness. Kiki has had a constant cough since about October. She just can't get rid of it. It gets better, but never goes away. I think she starts to get rid of it, then catches another cold and that brings it back. It doesn't seem to affect her too much, she sleeps okay, and her appetite and mood is fine, so we still send her to day care.

I think it took about 3 months before she started attending day care regularly (didn't miss a day for more than 2 weeks straight). BUT, I would say, she's not as healthy as I would like. I don't like it that she's had this cough since October and she usually has a runny nose.

Anyway, I saw your post about nanny sharing. If you can find a good one, I think you might be happier. I wish we could afford nanny care!

Jeannie
mommy to Kiki 4/18/03

[Melanie]

I don't have any advice, just sympathy. My son also got sick last winter from a play class (eew! At least day cares clean their toys).

I will say that when I toured a local highly-recommended/accredited daycare with my little 3 month old deciding whether or not to go back to work, that list of illnesses posted on each room scared the heck out of me, so I guess it's not just your place. I believe that one washed their toys mid-day and in the evening.

[McQ]

Sarah ~ I pay our nanny legitimately and went through that whole process of getting set-up to pay taxes and such. It really wasn't that bad. I can help you if you like, just e:mail me offline if you're interested.

And I do claim what I pay the nanny against the $5K in my FSA. The company that handles our benefits just requires the dates worked, amount paid, the provider's name and signature. So there's not a lot of paperwork there either.

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03