2 yr old just started PN and constantly getting sick!!

D

Dianeb

Registered User
Hi all..

I am feeling rather miserable ....my 2 year old girl has recently started to go to a 5-day Pre-Nursery School in HK and ever since then, she kept getting sick!! She first caught a viral infection and developed a rash, then shortly after she recovered from that, she now has a fever with runny nose...Prior to going to PN, she also joined a number of playgroups but has never really been this sick preivously. Even though I have already been told that it is very common for kids to get sick once they start schools, I really was not expecting that it would be this frequent (esp given she was quite a healthy girl) ...I am getting worried...should I continue to let her go to PN? and is there anything I can do to help boost her immune system? I am trying to make sure that she eats sufficent fruit and veggie and does exercise everyday.

It just breaks my heart to see her getting sick all the time (and not to mention, trying to get my little one adapts to her new school and to attend classes on her own are already challenging enough )..........I really appreciate if anyone can share their experiences/thoughts :) Many thanks, Diane
 
this is par for the course when starting school. get used to it. it has nothing to do with the school or their hygiene. schools here are hygiene fanatics. she needs to build her immunity and the only way to do that is to get sick, sadly. if you pull her out now, then when she goes to kindergarten, it will happen then instead.

she can't have been going for very long, only a couple of weeks... it does get better. but she needs to keep going (of course, not when she is sick) if she is going to get better in the long run.
 
Kids fall sick a lot more when they start school. With my daughter, when she started school at 3, every three weeks she would be down with fever and congestion. It worried us a lot, but her doctor always said this is normal when they start school.
Eventually it got better after a year, so don't worry a lot, this is will improve gradually.
 
I have to agree with what the others have said. Getting sick constantly is part of life when kids start school, but it's not forever. After about a year, the number of colds will decrease. New teachers also get constantly sick, by the way, so it's not just the kids. My son was constantly sick when he started preschool, but now nothing gets him sick!
 
thank you so much for your replies..i guess taking her out from PN is not the solution. Guess i have to learn to manage my expectation and try not to stress so much when she is sick.......thanks for sharing your experiences..it really helps me feel better and to realise that i am not alone!
 
I don't agree that a child MUST get sick when he or she starts nursery school. Especially if the child is always getting sick. To me, if the child is always getting sick it signals that their immune system is not well-developed. Playgroups are totally different places from schools--for one thing the amount of time spent in a playgroup is limited. In a school children are sitting in and breathing the same air as their peers for many hours at a time. They also don't have their parents there to oversee them and make sure they're not picking their nose and touching things etc. Of course, there are teachers but there is one teacher for quite a few students--they don't see everything. Kids are dirty. Seriously. I work at a school and it always amazes me how gross kids can be--they don't mean to be. And not every child in your daughter's school will have parents who help them keep a good level of cleanliness. I often have kids who will cough right in my face without covering their mouths and they are always touching me--often without washing their hands. Thankfully, my immune system is pretty strong at this point so I rarely get sick from them.

When my son started nursery school in HK he did get sick more frequently but it wasn't constant sickness. I would say about once a month he'd get a major sickness that kept him at home for 1-3 days. Mostly he would get fevers. A few times it was vomiting.

The big thing I really recommend is getting your daughter on some good supplements. Try giving her some Barlean's fish oil. I don't like the flavored orange fish oil you get at the pharmacy--I don't think it's as good as Barlean's. They have one for kids now that is flavored. Get her on some probiotics. DDS has a probiotic powder for children that can be mixed in liquid (milk, juice etc.) and get her on a good-quality anti-oxidant daily vitamin like Usanimals by USANA. If you can, add fresh juiced juice (that you juice yourself) to her diet--not just fruit juice but add green veggies too. I've started doing this with my son to help him build up better health and it is making a huge difference.

And most importantly, let your daughter rest. Make sure she's not overworked or overstimulated by activities outside of school. Create a restful environment in your home (turn off the TV, computers etc.) Running an ionizer while she sleeps can help her rest better too. The body needs lots of rest to have a healthy immune system. I don't think you have to accept that she's just going to always get sick and there's nothing you can do about it. Yes, kids will get sick more frequently but if she's constantly sick (every week or every other week down with a major sickness) that's no good.
 
if my kid was getting sick once/month and missing 3 days of school each time, i would probably have written "constantly"...

and as someone who has worked in a playgroup and run two of them, i can tell you that not only do the kids get sick a lot, but so do the teachers.
 
carang said:
if my kid was getting sick once/month and missing 3 days of school each time, i would probably have written "constantly"...

and as someone who has worked in a playgroup and run two of them, i can tell you that not only do the kids get sick a lot, but so do the teachers.
Click to expand...

Really? That's pretty normal, I think. Guess it depends on your definition. I think if a child is missing so much school that she or he cannot really be part of what's going on or catch up with what's going on, then that's cause for concern. But, part of developing an immune system is being exposed to illness and letting one's body fight it. The problem in HK is that very few parents let their children naturally fight an illness--they treat all the symptoms but don't let the body experience controlled fever etc. Anyway, that's a whole different topic.

As a teacher, I never got more sick than when I lived in Mainland China. Within teaching for one month I came down with full-blown whooping cough. Yeah, not fun. But, then again there were no standards for hygiene at my school and I was on the birth control pill (which suppresses immunity usually). It was quite disgusting at my school. But, since that time I've never had a problem with getting sick from my students. In recent years, nutrition and rebuilding my body's inner ecology has become my main focus and I credit that with being able to withstand the "puke fest" that happens at my school every year.
 
i agree it's normal... what i was saying is that if i were writing the OP, i would probably have used "constantly" in my post. it is a bit of an exaggeration, i'm sure. i highly doubt that the OP's child is sick every single day.... but when a child gets sick once per month or once/3weeks, it feels like you've just gotten over one sickness only to encounter the next one.
 
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