Hellobee Boards

No shoes in the infant room and they disinfect everything at the end of the day.

My LO started at 4 months and she was sick all the time until she was 13 months old. It sucked.

That sounds like run of the mill daycare. My LO always has a sniffly nose/cough but nothing more serious than that besides a rando ear infection here and there. I am not sure changing daycares would help you.

@travellingbee: usually 9.

I don't know if this helps, but this happened to my co-worker - she ended up having to pull her son from daycare after a few months because he was just constantly sick and she was missing a ton of work. She went on to have a nanny and started him early in pre-school. I hope your poor LO feels better soon!

My son is in the older classrooms at daycare (2.5 yrs old) but from what I can tell when I pass by the infant/baby rooms, there are:

-no shoes in the rooms, hallways, gross motor rooms. In fact, everyone (parents, staff, kids) take off their shoes in the lobby. They can either walk barefoot, with socks, or with booties provided by the daycare

I am unsure about the actual ratio of care providers to infants, but there are several "classrooms" and then everyone takes turns in the communal baby gross motor room (there is a separate gross motor room for 2-3 yr olds). I'm sure it gets wiped down at the end of everyday, but I don't think it is wiped throughout the day.

Sorry to hear your LO is sick!! it's so stressful when they are. Perhaps you should look into other daycares just to see what your options are and whether a different daycare has differing policies on sickness/cleanliness.

the pacifier thing would be alarming to me if it happened several times. If it was just once, then I'd chalk it up to "it happens" but several times, they need to have better monitoring.

@travellingbee: I am so sorry he is sick again. Poor little dude!!

There are up to 16 in our infant room. 4:1 ratio. Right now there are 10, I think, just got two more today. But there is a sticky mat right outside the door, so any dirt is trapped on that and not tracked into the room. They also don't let siblings into the room. If they have an older sibling, they have to dropped off first.
I can't believe that they let him pick up another pacifier. Are they not labeled?

Aww, poor guy! You guys must be so stressed and finding a good daycare can be so hard!

My LO has been in daycare since ~4 months and hasn't really had anything worse than a cold and conjunctivitis (no antibiotics needed).

Our daycare is a large center, two infant classes of 12 each with 1:3 teacher ratio plus floaters who also help the other classrooms. Shared space for napping and eating. No shoes allowed (shoe covers), separate paci containers for each kid/labeled paci's.. Most kids only use them when napping anyway. They collect toys throughout the day to disinfect at closing time-- there are enough playthings to go around all day. Also no bouncers, jumpers, etc so it's all pretty much just being held and floor play.

We've had notices of hand foot & mouth, chickenpox, etc going around the center but my LO has never gotten it.. No ear infections, vomiting, etc.

Is your daycare strict about sending kids home? For us, they pretty much send kids straight home at the first sign of illness and are very strict about Dr's notes for returning.

Hope your baby gets well soon and you can all get some peace and rest!

@travellingbee: sounds standard to me. The more expensive daycare centers around us have a no shoes policy in baby rooms. The ones we can afford do not. They clean after the day is over. When she first started there, I thought the teachers should clean a toy after a kid puts it in their mouth. Then I realized that was a pipe dream, I was just happy they were holding the babies and keeping them happy.

@travellingbee: my son is 10 months old and has been in daycare since 12 weeks. Knock on wood, but the worst he's had is a perpetual runny nose and 1 ear infection in all that time.

Our daycare has 10-12 babies in the infant room, but all the kids are grouped by age. And the caregivers and parents wear shoes in the infant room, too. I've spent a lot of time in his room and have seen babies with other kids' pacis in their mouth; they clean toys at the end of the day but if one's like, covered in slobber they put it up until the end of the day.

So our daycares sound pretty similar, except your son seems to be a lot sicker, unfortunately!

ETA: In my state, they can't clip pacifiers to babies. It's a strangulation risk. And if they see a baby with the wrong pacifier, they take it off of them and wash it before giving it back to the right kid or put it back in the container.

I don't know about the rules BUT my son started preschool this year and he's sick ALL THE TIME. I asked the pediatrician if there was anything we could do and she put him on a month of this like preventive medicine called Broncho Vaxom. Google it and ask your pediatrician, it seems like it really could work based on the literature I found online.