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Since having LO, I have never stayed home sick . . . I have only ever stayed home when she could not go to daycare.

When I am at work, I regularly disinfect my phone, keyboard, mouse, and door handle (to my office), and wash my hands frequently throughout the day (just walking around the office and touching common surfaces can be enough to get you sick!). I also make sure to touch my face as little as possible during the day, for whatever help that may provide.

I have usually come to work when sick. Unless I am throwing up or going to the bathroom a lot. So far this year, I have just had a cold, so I could make it through the day. R has keep me home one day cause she was up most of the night from her shots and not herself so I didn't want to send her to day care.

I will only miss work if I have a stomach bug, other than that I save my sick days in case the little guy gets sick. Right now I am battling a cold I have had for almost a month and logically know I need a day of down time but I don't see that happening.

The last time I took a sick day was last May. Now that LO is here I am trying to hoard all of my sick days for when she is sick. I wash my hands often at work, and I use paper towels to open doors so that I'm not touching doorknobs that 50 other people touch all day long. I'm a little bit of a germophobe!

@DillonLion: apparently we're in the minority. I have taken more sick days because my lo got me sick than I can remember ever taking in my life. I try to take just one day for each cold and then suffer through the rest of the days. I'm pretty much useless when I'm at work with a cold but I don't get enough PTO days to stay home more than I do, especially with having to stay home with my LO for many days this winter for weather or health reasons.

I haven't found the magic yet. What will help us stay healthy? I'm not sure...

I've gotten at least 2 stomach bugs thanks to DS. That definitely made me take some days off work, so miserable! Before having a baby, I never really got sick or had to take off work.

@DillonLion: So sorry you guys are battling this. We are too... it's been 2 full weeks of passing some kind of virus back and forth and I am over it! I generally don't use a lot of sick time but I have already used 2 1/2 days in the past 2 weeks. I get nervous about using too many on myself since I worry that LO will need to be home too. I used to carry a ton of sick days from year to year... they're getting eaten up pretty quickly at the rate I've been going through them Hope you all feel better soon!

I took a sick day last week. No idea what was wrong with me - headache, nauseated, fatigue. But one day in bed cured me. I probably could have struggled through the day, but I think I would have felt crappy longer. I don't have an issue with taking sick days when needed. I can monitor email from home and most things can wait. Of course, that said, it was the first sick day I've taken for me (not LO) in a long time.

Not often. even when I'm sick, I have a wfh-able job so I almost always work even on "sick days" On the + side, my boss knows that I do this and forces me to use our "official" sick days as PTO/vaca instead!

We are technically allowed 10 sick days per school year (we can take more, but that's the guideline) and I usually use at least half of them. Before I had Liam, I used all of them every year, but now, I don't really get to rest if I stay home with him, so sometimes it's just easier to work if I have a little cold or a migraine.

Luckily, our sick days are used for maternity leave, so if I save some up, I get more full time pay when I have a baby.

I have never taken a sick day in my life, which is so weird... not that I haven't been half dead at work before but at my old job I didn't get sick days and I didn't want to waste vacation days. I haven't been sick since working my current job. I'm sure once LO arrives I will be taking many more!

I have to take sick days all the time---but they are for LO, generally speaking. I've taken 1 sick day for myself this year, when I had the stomach flu. Can't teach middle school while you're throwing up all over the place.

Fortunately, I'm able to work from home so I do. Unless I'm so sick I can't work, then I take a PTO. I think that's happened once in the past 2 years? I've had to work from home quite often since DS started daycare bc he's gotten sick at least once a month. Blah!

I only take sick days if I am throwing up nonstop or super, super, super sick. I had a horrible head cold this winter (complete with ear infection, yay!) and still went in; it's just easier to go in and get my work done than to stay at home feeling like crap and having nothing to do to take my mind off it.

I also want to save my PTO for fun stuff, or when LO is sick.

When I'm starting to not feel well, I always eat/drink a bunch of homemade chicken broth loaded with ginger and garlic. Just simmer a hunk of ginger and several cloves of garlic in homemade chicken stock, strain out the giner/garlic and you're good to go.

Rarely. I'm more prone to call in sick if one of my boys is sick.