Nina Panikssery

The limit does not exist.

brought home every plague in first six mo, covid, hfm, slap cheek, rsv.

They usually say 8 to 12 illnesses per year.

My girls were sick every 2 to 3 weeks in their first year of daycare.

My daughter started daycare at 6 months and got sick a ton the first year.

Despite all this, many parents who have the option not to, that is they can afford in-home care with a nanny or for one parent to stay home, still choose to send their babies and toddlers to daycare.

How come?

Surely most well-off adults wouldn't agree to be ill non-stop in exchange for the monetary savings daycare provides?

Asking around, it seemed like the most common reason given was that parents believed daycare illnesses built immunity.

That if their babies and toddlers got sick at daycare they'd get less sick later in childhood and so overall it would net out the same.

Unfortunately few could point me to any evidence for this but nevertheless passionately defended the view.

The claim that daycare illnesses simply offset childhood and adult illness immediately seemed suspect to me for a number of reasons.

1.

Quite confident, the most common illnesses, colds and flu, don't build immunity in general, in kids or adults, because they mutate every year.

2.

Quite confident, the same illness has a greater risk of complications in babies versus older children and adults.

3.

Moderately confident, the same illness has a greater duration in babies versus older children and adults.

4.

Moderately confident, illness during early development is probably more harmful than illness during adulthood.