Originally Published by ABC News
If your child attends childcare, you’ve probably had to take many sick days off to help nurse your little one back to health — and then additional time to get yourself better.
It’s common for healthy children to have up to 12 viral illnesses per year, according to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
But research suggests that children who attend childcare get sick more often. Some doctors even estimate they could get sick up to 20 times a year.
A winter full of illnesses could be your family’s new normal, so you might be wondering if it ever gets better.
The good news is, it does — eventually.
Why does my child get sick so often at childcare?
A 2017 study on childcare attendance and respiratory tract infections found infections of kids two and under were higher in the first two months of childcare.
The data collected also showed children who attended family daycare and childcare, on average, had between 4-5 sick days per month, at the start of care.
Victorian general practitioner Dr Shiraz Mahkri said the frequency was “quite possible” and there are multiple reasons why childcare kids get sick so often.
He said one factor was that they’re entering childcare when their immune systems were still developing and they were being introduced to these germs and viruses for the first time.
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