Daycare Question - Buffalo Grove,IL

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I have 3 kids and use an in-home daycare. She is like family to us, and us to her. Only one kid is there Mon-Fri from ###-###-####, but they are all there on full days off of school.

If I have one kid sick, I'd absolutely send the other two. If they are healthy and want to go, they can go. There is no protecting kids from colds, really. I don't meant that to come off wrong, but it's a cold. It's going to pass around all winter long.

My sitter also scrubs the heck out of anything when any kid goes home sick. So maybe that would have helped? Not sure if you did that or not, but I'm going to guess you did :).

I just think if you're going to make that policy, you'd need to be prepared to take a hit on pay. If my healthy kid can't come because my sitter is afraid of germs, I wouldn't pay for it.

I hope everyone feels better soon!

ETA: I saw your question the other day about sick kids. Kids are going to get sick in the winter. If they have to stay home for colds they get, you may want to be prepared to have to look for new families. My sitter takes my kids almost all of the time. Though if my kids are sick I choose to stay home with them. I go to her house at lunch to give medicine if they need it, or she can give it with a doctor's note. I just think that you need to be prepared to deal with some kids who aren't 100% healthy. It's unfair to families if you make them stay home over colds or coughs. Sometimes my 4 year old stays at daycare instead of going to school because he just needs a nap...she would never tell me no or make me take him home unless he has a fever or is tossing cookies. Figure out what you want your sick policy to be and have all of the parents sign it. You might be the best provider out there, but as a working parent, I can tell you it doesn't seem like my needs and your policies would mesh. I do wish you the best though!

please keep in mind, by the time a child is actually showing symptoms of an illness, they have already been contageous for a couple days at least, so the sibling may not have been the reason for the rest of your daycare kids getting sick to begin with. Sorry, but facts are facts. I ran a home daycare for YEARS, and the only exception to my rule on this "illness" rule was in the case of something like headlice. The whole family, (siblings) had to stay home until the situation wqas remedied. THAT is something that can and will be passed around while we may not be aware that one is on a child we think is clean of them. I went through too tough an experience with it ONCE, and that was one time too many. I made sure that my families either treated all kids, or kept them all home until the coast was clear to keep my other kiddos safe. Good luck!

not a daycare provider here, but a daycare user :) my humble opinion is, they may have used the logic that if she is away from sister, then less likely she will get it. a long shot but possible. i'm not sure you can really tell them not to bring her...and by "can", i mean, "should". schools don't do that. the rule is no fever for 24 hours. the baby may never have gotten it. i think it's unfortunate...but not something you can really dictate them leaving the baby at home over.

now keeping in mind i only have 1 child :) so i can only say what i think i would do. i get the logic. mom is home with a sick kiddo, she doesn't need the baby around a. likely catching it, and b. making things harder for an already miserable kiddo. with the possibility that the baby may not even get it, i can understand her thoughts.

sorry, i know you are looking for providers. maybe they will give you different advice. but that's my two cents! :)

If a child has a fever, diarrhea, or is puking...these are the reasons they cannot attend child care. Otherwise the parents are paying for it whether they are home sick, laying in a lawn chair getting a tan, working, or Christmas shopping. They are paying and the child is not considered ill. I would thing you would not have had much of a chance of convincing them the child could not be there on the off chance that she "might" be getting sick. Each and every child in child care is probably coming down with something right this very minute but until they are actually showing symptoms they are not ill.

I would have brought the one child to care too. I agree rules and regulations are there for the protection of everyone but the rules are usually pretty clear in the state regulations books.

If a child is not physically sick you must let them come to care or be prepared to give the parents the day off.

That would mean that you just think they might be coming down with something so they can't come then that parent would take that day off the weekly rate and not pay your for a day you refused to care for their child.

I have had entire families get sick except for one child, or a whole family battle head lice over and over and over and 1-2 of the kids never ever had a a single nit in their hair. This child even slept in the same bed as a sibling. Never ever got it. Everyone is different and no one can guess or not guess if someone is "going to" get sick.

If they all came down with the bug as little sis, they must have caught it from the older child before she was showing symptoms. Most infections have an incubation time of a few days at least.

Whatever you feel is right for your business needs to be written down in policy - don't make up rules as you go. Our daycare center does not require siblings stay home and sick kids can return 24 hours after the fever is gone (yes, even if they still have a runny nose or cough).

Good luck!

Our home daycare provider has a policy that if one kid is sick, the siblings stay home too, for that exact reason. I get it and appreciate her efforts to keep sickness from spreading!

Hi, I don't think you should make a child stay home because they might get sick otherwise you'll have no clients all winter long.

More than likely she was contagious before she began to show symptoms, meaning, the other kids caught her germs before anyone knew she was sick.

The kids are going to get sick. That's part of the deal when you place your children in a childcare situation. My 2 1/2 year old is in his first year of daycare. I've been battling colds most of the school year. It's just par for the course.

I would only make it a rule that kids must stay home for fever, vomiting and lice. Parents generally know what they're getting themselves into.

Since the other day care children got sick at the same time the well sibling did, I suggest that they were all sick because they were exposed by the first child that was sick and not by the sibling who continued in care.

Well... everyone getting the fever today meant that everyone was exposed from the older child. They could have both stayed home, and today you'd still have been making the same phone calls.

Now... if they HADN'T all gotten sick today, the younger one coming pretty much guaranteed they'd all get sick sometime in the next week (brining in the germs from home)... but as luck would have it, everyone was already exposed and incubating away.

The only daycares/preschools I know that disallow siblings/family members when ONE person is sick are those centers or providers who have an 'Absolutely No Sick Children' policy... which is usually in place because they care for (or are themselves) immunocompromised (like cancer, or transplants, etc).

My son's preschool was one such school. I think we got ONE thing brought home in 3 years. Maybe two? Anyhow... in those types of environments that have medically fragile children in them... transmission is taken VERY seriously (50,000+ people die every year in this country from the common cold and the flu... many -if not most- children), because colds are lethal. Not that my son didn't get sick... but first "maybe" sign, you keep them home to see if it develops, and if it does... then it's SEVENTY TWO hours before bringing them back in once they're "better" (24 is just 'better than nothing').

If we needed 'sick child care' our provider just had us call Virginia Mason, who was one of several providers who had sick child daycare.

Not that my son never got sick... he caught everything I brought home from the hospital and from school, and everything going around the university campus from my husband. But those were isolated events. We didn't come to know the horror of "sick from october-may" until we hit the public school system where it's cold after cold after cold after fly after cold after stomach bug after cold after... oy vey.

I guess it depends on how long you want to be in business. Sorry, but kids pass illnesses all the time. My oldest might bring home a cold from school, have it for 3 days, recover, 2 days later my middle child shows the same symptoms, same song & dance, and then the baby gets it later. Sometimes my oldest gets sick, but none of the other kids get it at all. If I had my 3 kids at your daycare, each time ONE of my kids got sick, I'd be taking several days off of work, just in case the others get it. What parent can afford to miss that much work?

I have worked in a daycare center for a few years, and it was very common practice that only the SICK child be kept home, unless the sick child had something severe, like hand-foot-and mouth, or chicken pox.

Kids get sick--it is a fact of life. We can't, nor should we, shelter them from ALL germs. Their immune systems need to be built, and that can only happen with reasonable exposure. I'd let the healthy siblings of the sick kid come, but just practice heightened hygiene--extra vigilant with handwashing, sneezing into the elbow, etc.

You need to implement the policy now and make everyone sign it.
I wouldn't even care if she figured out it was because of her.

Hey!
As a home daycare provider I have battled with this exact question. Answers on here are funny b/c people go to centers. Of course siblings come at a center b/c they are most likely in different rooms! Also home daycare is so completely different from a center!! This is not a "sterile" environment where everything is made so that it can be completely sanitized daily. This is my HOUSE where the kids are laying on the couch one after another. I do agree that since it is a cold it would be hard for me to make them all stay home, but what about the flu??? The other difference in home daycare is that we need to try and not spread as much as possible b/c once my kids and I get it the whole place is closed down. So not only did the parent have to stay with the first kid that had it , then they send the sibling to infect us and then we all get it and I am closed until it is gone! I also think that since I give a sibling discount--if one is sick they should all stay home. I am still debating on adding it to my policy! PM me--I'd love to know what you decide!

L.