Winter Sickness Bug

If there is one thing which I dislike about this time of year more than any other, its the winter sickness bugs. I was very fortunate with my eldest two and we missed all sickness bugs for the majority of their pre school years and even once starting school neither of them were sickly children.

My youngest however has suffered a few times in the past couple of months with the horrible sickness bug, it seems to be sweeping his entire school, and going round and round!

Last Friday he came home from school happy, bounding through the door full of the things he had been doing at school that day for Children in Need, the evening stated out in the ordinary way but he said he wasn't hungry at tea time, and by half past 6 he was complaining of a tummy ache and then seemed to suddenly come over very ill, he was sick three times that night, waking up the next morning still under the weather and sleepy.

Monday morning he still looked peaky and off his food and he was complaining of a sore throat and funny taste in his mouth. but through the day he picked up and ate his tea.

He thankfully is now much better, and back at school, speaking to a fellow school mum this morning she told me her 5 year old has had the same sickness and then sore throat a couple of times n the past month and the doctor said that besides common belief you can catch the winter sickness bug several times over, and when you have more than one child the bug can spread through the family a few weeks apart and then start back off at the first child again - a nasty never ending cycle.

There is a few things that I try to do in order to prevent spread obviously washing hands is important, and not sharing cutlery I have also found washing clothes and towels separately even if they are not soiled, so that other family members clothes are not washing with the poorly childs clothes seems to help. Cleaning taps, toilet handles and door handles as often as possible is also a great way to prevent spread, try to limit visitors and also don't let the person who has had sickness or an upset stomach go anywhere for 48hours after the last episode.

When children are in school tho and parents have work commitments this 48hour ban can sometimes be hard to stick to as quite often the child will be sick once or several times in a short time span and then perk up and seem to be much better, so the following 48 hours drag and often parents feel the child is better and can return to school quicker. this is why the virus spreads so much in children so it is important to respect the 48 hour rule as much as possible.

I am hoping that we can get through the next 4 weeks of school (yes there is only 4 more weeks of school before they break up for Christmas!) without any more bouts of sickness and then enjoy the Christmas holidays illness free.