Working Moms- how do you handle sickness?

MrsV092207

It's so frustrating.. last time N was sick, I kept her home the first day and the second day took her to the dr (it was an ear infection).  Not two weeks later, she's sick again.. kept her home yesterday and today I'm taking her to the dr again (of course she doesn't seem sick now, but at night it's awful).. I'm nervous to have her around other kids if she IS sick and of course I want her to rest..

Anyway, is there a 'rule of thumb' you follow with sickness, or is your DC strict with sick policies?  I can't imagine working in an office and being able to take this much sick time (esp since we're only in February)..  

CrisA0922

In our daycare the rule is fever or antibiotics means 24 hours at home...which usually turns into 2 days. Unless they take their temperature there though, they don't enforce the 24 hour rule. Either way the time they didn't take it she had an ear infection and since she needed antibiotics I had to keep her home for the 24 hours regardless. Hope N feels better soon.

jerzeygirl4ever

We luckily have our ILs close by to help with longer illnesses and my H gets a decent amount of sicktime. Its pretty much a 24 hour rulle like PP said; no fever/bodily functions (throw up) for 24 hours.

jerzeygirl4ever

I should add it gets better as they get older. I felt like P was sick every 3 weeks last winter. Knock on wood, we've had 2 illnesses since Thanksgiving and I attribute one to flying overseas/jet lag.

Bklynnj0118

jerzeygirl4ever:

no fever/bodily functions (throw up) for 24 hours.

 

Our is the same.  MH and I alternate if he is home sick otherwise we are fortunate to have family near by to help us in an emergency.

 Is she just starting daycare?  It will get easier as she goes along.  The first year was the hardest since he was sick a lot but he has gotten so much better now as he has gotten older.

knittygrl

It is 24 hours but I found with my older child when she was a baby that I frequently would have to keep her out for 4-5 days because she would get viruses that would cause her to have a fever for so many days and I couldn't send her back.  It's really hard and honestly I am already nervous how I will do it with two kids who will be getting sick now that I am back at work and the baby is in daycare too.  My mom helps when she can but she still works and my inlaws used to help but since my FIL got sick it is hard for them to use their days and they still work.  DH will be able to help more this time around since he has more days off and my work is VERY nice about letting me work from home or do what I need to.  I have worked there for a long time and built a good enough relationship with them that they understand but I still get extremely stressed over it and it sucks to see them sick.  Hope she feels better soon.

MrsGabbs4Ed

First all it SUCKS!!!!!  But you just deal with it I guess!  Evan has been sick twice in one month so far.  I call him "that baby that used up all my sick days"....and my job is generous with them, I get 12 per fiscal year (accumulated at 1 per month). I've used half of them already!  I also get 3 weeks vaca to burn through too. I know that is not the norm...one reason why I have not job searched since having kids even though I desperately want out for other reasons.  Ed sometimes will flex his time and help out when the kid(s) are sick but usually it's me since I get more PTO.

Our daycare rule is fever free for 24 hours without meds.  Kind of a clusterf*ck when his fever keeps going up and down and I either dose him or don't dose him. Hopefully he will go back to school Monday. 

Liz051405

The rule is basically what other people stated but I think when it comes to antibiotics, we follow the docs advice. If the dc said he can come back and school would disagree, the doc can fax a letter saying its ok. A doc's note overrules any rule.

I have actually seen them require a doc's note from a teacher once.

As far as what we do, well... In theory MH takes off because he gets paid time off and I don't get any aid time off. But in reality, it always seems to be a day he has to be in court or the kid wakes up sick after he's already left. So in those cases I stay home and if I can I work while they nap, etc. I charge er hour and am lucky to bill 3 hours in a sick day. I can do some hours after they go to bed.

This week I had S home sick and I just said screw it, I'm not working today. I'm relaxing and folding laundry while he sleeps. I'm so tired of always racing around. And now I feel guilty because with a sick day last week, a short month, a holiday monday and that sick day, this check is going to be a lot smaller than we need/want.

oct11bride03

Most daycares have a 24-hour fever-free, "issue"-free policy (i.e. vomit, diarrhea, etc). Like someone else said, this turns into 2 days at home.

Now that I WAH I'm going to be handling 99% of the sick days since I'm already here. Obviously if I have an important meeting/call or something my husband will have to step in, but this is one of the perks of the new job. 

Prior to this week, if she was sick we alternated days home with her so one of us wasn't using up time off. It was always easier for me to be home since I have/had a more flexible job but sometimes I just couldn't swing it and my husband would stay home. He actually stayed home with K earlier this week because I had just started my new job and couldn't be home. It was our choice to keep her home, though. She didn't have a fever, just a bad cough that we figured resting at home would help (which it did). It was only one day, not two. 

Chatty76

We are lucky that both our parents are close by and have watched our kids when sick.  I've only had to take off a few times myself.  Same for my husband.  RJ was sick alot his first year in daycare.  He started when he was 20 months.  This year he's been MUCH better.  My younger one started this past Sept at 18 months and has missed quite a lot of days.  Today he's home sick and my Mom is watching him.  We're very lucky in that sense.  First year is the hardest by far.

AmyRob04

Always the 24 hour rule, even now in public school. I've always been very fortunate and worked places with exceptionally generous vacation/sick/PTO policies so I've never had to worry about time, since I could also work from home at least part of the day when he was napping, etc. I've always done the vast majority of sick days because I've always been in a much more flexible place than Rob has been, and I expect that to continue. There have been a few times where I've had to ask my MIL to come up for the day and watch him for at least a few hours so I can go into the office, if there was a time when neither of us could be there, but only on the tail end of illness, I wouldn't want her there with him if he was REALLY sick, I don't think she'd know what to do if he had diarrhea or was vomiting (nor would I want to leave him in that state).

Kittycat196

My kids daycare is near where I work so I am the one who always has to pick them up early when they get sick and then stay home with them the next day.  I don't have any sick time left so when I need to do this I don't get paid for the day.

Sometimes my DH can watch them the next day when they are sick but it is always me that has to miss at least part of the day to bring them home early if they are sick.

 

penguingrrl

This is part of why I left my bank job last year. There was absolutely no flexibility as far as sick/vacation was concerned. I had 5 sick days a year and we were not allowed to use vacation time as sick time. Any extra sick days used were taken out of your (already meager) paycheck and you would get written up. They offered a sick nanny service, but there was absolutely no way I was leaving my children in the care of someone I had never met and they hadn't had a chance to get comfortable with. Plus, it was expensive to use (they partially subsidized but it was still a lot of money).

junebug1

if i have to take my son out b/c of fever and it turns out to be an ear infections and I get him to the ped that day, he's back to school tomorrow.  the ped will write a note saying that the fever is from the ear infection (which is not contagious) and it's never been a problem.  otherwise, fever free for 24 hours is the rule.  or vomit free for 24 hours is the rule at school.  i've rarely waited until next day to take them to the ped when they're sick, so I always know what i'll do about tomorrow before bed tonight...

vicki21

We can't send them if they have a fever and can only send them back once they've been fever free (without use of medication) for 24 hours.  For stomach stuff - it's 2 pukes or I think 3 loose stools before they call - and you can't send them back until they've been symptom-free for 24 hours (again, without use of medication).

Sometimes she just gets ear infections - which aren't contagious - with no fever or other symptoms and I'll send her if it's just that (at which point she's on antibiotics anyway) - like one time she had a well visit at like 5:30pm and we found out she had an ear infection - but that was it - so I sent her to school the next day since she felt fine and had had 2 rounds of antibiotics (nighttime and morning) before going anyway.

MH and I try to split repsonsibilities best we can but it's tough since he works in the city and often has meetings and things that are difficult to reschedule. It's not easy and especially with him working in the city has put a much bigger "burden" on me whereas prior to this job we literally split stuff like 50/50.

semdkm

It's a stressful nightmare.  I have two young kids-one is one, the other four, and they are in preschool/daycare.  My husband leaves by 3 am each day, so if they wake up sick, it's all on me. I take a 1/2 day and work from home the balance of the day once my husband gets home.  Luckily, my job is project-based, but as I'm expected to be in the office three days a week (and working from home w/o the kids there the other two), it makes for a really stressful situation, on top of the worse stress of the kids being sick. 

Despite that stress and the slack we get from work when it happens (and often--there are some months that I feel like I'm out some part of virtually every week), we always are conservative about keeping the kids home.  Our daycare claims to enforce a 24 hour rule, but I can see they let kids in when they clearly shouldn't be there, to be "parent friendly" (friendly to only that parent--b/c then that poor child gets all the other kids sick, inconveniencing all the other parents)....Regardless of what the doctor or daycare/school say, if my children don't look and feel "right", I keep them home.  Often just to rest it off completely.  Yes, my job is stressful and I've sometimes gotten a hard time, but my kids come first.  I can't send them in sick or not feeling well.

Hope your little one is feeling better soon!  Hang in there! 

MrsV092207

Ok that makes sense. It's a sticky situation for me bc I'm a sitter so if I call out that means THEY have to find alternate care or stay home and lose $ or sick days, and I don't get paid for that day. I just got back from the dr and she just has a yucky cold but she's miserable and I really just want her to rest. Not much of a fever but obviously not feelin well.

semdkm

We use daycare, but I know that we when we considered hiring a full time sitter, instead, we were aware of the possibility that whomever we hired would need sick time-that's life.  It's kind and professional of you to consider them, but any reasonable person couldn't fault you for taking sick time for yourself or your child.  Sorry you have to lose the money, though.  I know that's stressful.  When my kids just have a bad cold, I figure better to be on the safe side and let them rest before it turns into something worse.  Really hope she does feel better very soon!