Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Do you leave the house if your kid has a cold if he seems fine otherwise? How do you know whether or not he's too sick to take out in public?

My general rules are that if he hasn't had a fever in 48 hours and it seems like he feels fine, we still go out regardless of a runny nose. Obviously we don't share drinks or snack with other kids if he's got a cold and I try to warn people ahead of time if we're, say, going to their houses, so that they can tell us not to come if they don't want to risk it. There are some places I wouldn't take him (the hospital, the new parents group I go to where there are sometimes 3-4 week old babies, etc) but we definitely still go the park and stuff.

Is this sane? Crazy? Rude? What do YOU do?

Check his snot color! http://health.families.com/blog/the-sec ... of-boogers

As a teacher, it drove me crazy when sick kids came to school coughing and sneezing everywhere. This is one reason I really hate the attendance incentive programs. At the school level though, the kids are handling books and desks, are sneezing all over the classroom, not washing hands often enough, etc etc. It becomes a real problem.

That said though, I refused to buy tissues, hand soap and sanitizer for my classroom and made kids go to the bathroom. I begged for student/parent donations, and they wouldn't bring stuff (this was NOT a disadvantaged district--most parents could afford to supply a freaking box of tissues if they so chose), so I said to hell with it, let them practice crappy hygiene because I couldn't afford $100+ for the stuff each quarter (the kids would use extremely wasteful amounts of the stuff so when I did supply it, my money just went down the drain in a hurry). Everybody survived.

For clarification, I'm not dissatisfied with my approach to it, just curious as to what other parents around here do, since I generally rate the sanity of other PPKparents very high.

We do check booger colors... it's a sorta sport around here. But it sometimes changes throughout the day. Like Wednesday morning, when we left the house, the Emperor's boogers were clear. By the time we headed home on Wednesday night, they were green again.

we definitely still leave the house. i make a point of not making people suffer us in close quarters, but i'm not going to completely quarantine my family on account of a cold.

I'll wait until 24 hours after a fever is gone (but Dax doesn't seem to get one with a cold usually) and stay away from kids if he's coughing or sneezing. I don't worry too much about just a runny nose unless it's green and extreme.

I get too crazy if we spend too many days going absolutely nowhere!

We don't go anywhere when baby Zoey has a cold.

We had friends who would bring their kids to our house, even when they were sick. They would then casually mention after the kids had hugged and kissed us that they were ill. My husband is immunocompromised, so he would then spend a week sick in bed. We thought it was very inconsiderate.

Of course these are the people who also said they would meet us somewhere at 10 am. We'd call at 10:15 when they failed to show up and they would say "Oh we just got the kids in the car, so we should see you in about 45 mins."

When I had one kid, heck even 2, we would cancel trips to the park, etc. Now, with 3 and nannying a fourth, we would never go anywhere from Oct-March if we waited for everyone to be 100% well. If it's just a cold, we'll go out just us. But if we're meeting anyone else, especially with other kids and my older parents, we'll let them know so they can make an informed decision for themselves. As for school, if my kids don't have fever, I let them decide for themselves. I just teach them how important good hygiene is.

ummm YES! haha. mummy goes craaazy if she's stuck at home with a cranky sick baby. i figure, at this age, it is impossible to keep them from putting things in their mouths, grabbing each other and otherwise sharing snot. and you are spreading a cold before you even have symptoms half the time, so it's pretty impossible to keep babies and toddlers of a certain age from getting each other sick. we went to a play group on monday, filled with snotty toddlers running around and touching my kid, and bam, tuesday morning, tzippy was congested. we went to our other play group the next day regardless. now, of course, i got the cold a few days later... i might be more inclined to stay home if I'M not feeling well though.

We would never be able to leave the house if we couldn't go out when one or both of the kid's had a cold. Gus has had a cold for the last 4 weeks. Eric has been sneezing the last two days. What else am I supposed to do, never ever leave the house? I get frustrated when I hear someone say they hate to see sick kids in public/in school. That is absurd, kids get sick a LOT. If not when they are young and in daycare then when they start kindergarten.

Of course we keep them home with fevers (48 hours after it ends) and I would if they ever had vomiting (luckily hasn't happened yet). But sneezing/coughing/runny nose? Yup, we go out. If we have a small or one on one play date I do ask the other parent or cancel, but if it's to the park, shopping, daycare etc. then we go out.

My kid vomiting is like my number one baby fear right now. I am NOT looking forward to the first time he pukes because he's sick!

I feel the same way a lot of you do... staying in the house makes me ca-ray-zay and if we stayed in every time his nose was running even a little bit, we'd never freakin' leave.

But I realized I made two faux pas in the past week and am feeling a bit bummed out about it. On Wednesday (the day of the changing snot!) we had a very short meetup with a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in almost a month... the Emperor's nose was running a little, but I didn't think anything of it because her kid and my kid play together at the park (with her kid's babysitter) almost every day and I know for a fact that her kid is around other kids with colds constantly at that park. But she got upset because her kid started showing cold symptoms yesterday, and whether or not the cold came from us, I still should've made it crystal clear to her that my kid was still running at the nose before we went to her house. I sent an apology email but I still feel really bad about it.

And then, I took him to a PPK potluck yesterday... and his nose is STILL a little runny (though not green now) and I think I probably should have tipped people off to that ahead of time too.

Reno has been sick for the past week and a half. The main day of the sickness she didn't want to leave the house and actually took a 3 hour nap in the early afternoon which was amazing since she doesn't nap anymore. We then kept her out of school for the next 2 days even though I knew she wasn't contagious anymore but we still ran errands and stuff those days. Colds can last weeks! There is no way she can stay home that entire time plus miss school. Some coughing and runny noses are fine for school I think as long as they are past the contagious part.

If she's puking (which thank goodness has only happened once in her entire 3 years) or has a fever we stay home. A cold we go out but won't go to any friends houses who have kids unless they are ok with it.

I go by the rules that most daycares give out. If there's fever, diarrhea, vomiting or constant coughing, kiddo stays home.
If it's your general run of the mill cold, we're carrying on our day as usual, but with phone calls and warnings to people we visit. I wouldn't take Malcolm to the hospital to visit someone or to my grandfather's house because he has a few different cancers at the moment.

Leaving the house is necessary when someone has a cold. Fresh air is much better than the dry air inside. If my son has no fever I make him leave the house - go for a short walk, play outside - not to long and well dressed, of course.

School: Normally I send him to school with a runny nose or a slight cough. This is considered OK ( I don't know one mother who let her kiddo at home because of a slight cold). But I like to give him a day or two off before things get worse.

Visiting people: normally I avoid to go to someone or to send my kid when we have a cold.

Same as a lot of folks here - I wait until any fever has passed and I let people know what's up. When Henry was younger all us moms were extremely careful about cooties and such but I noticed as the months went on we were less so. I do get a bit bummed when someone shows up to play with a major green snotnose but you never know anyway. We just went through a little bout of hand-foot-and-mouth and i have no idea where that even came from.

You know what's really annoying to me? The times when you really need to keep a kid home, resting, are the times when you just stuck schlepping to drs and pharmacies and whatnot all day. So really, those germs are out there no matter what. Keeping a minor cold home isn't really going to help anything.

That being said, it was pretty embarrassing when Silas sneezed on his speech teacher repeatedly last week.

Pretty similar: fever/vomiting/diarrhea and we stay home until symptom free for 24 hours. My kids don't get "colds" very often, but if they do, we avoid visiting anyone with a compromised immune system or a baby, although on occasion, I have used this as an excuse to avoid family gatherings. I do get a twinge of irritation when a friend shows up at our house to play and has a hacking cough, but since most of their friends are also schoolmates, they are exposed anyway.

I agree with the majority. When my oldest was little I worried about it but soon realized the grerms are everywhere at all times. I enforce good hygiene, though, especially frequent handwashing.

What irritates the heck out of me are babies with snotty noses and the parents seem oblivious. Gee, your child has been licking/wiping with his sleeve/rubbing on my child the snot that's been streaming from his nose for the past half hour. Do you not notice?

I work very hard not to be passive aggressive, though. I am always well equipped with tissues and will firmly place several in the parent's hand and say something friendly.

I don't make a point to keep my kids home unless either of them has diarrhea, is throwing up, has strep (until they are no longer contagious), has the flu, or has a fever. There are certain places we may not go if both or either of them has a cold (mostly places that have already been mentioned, like hospitals, homes of sick friends/family members, or places where they might have contact with very young babies) , but in general, we do basically what we always do.