Am I hurting my child by putting her in daycare at 22 months?

cjra wrote:
On Dec 9, 10:24 am, Beliavsky wrote:
On Dec 6, 11:33 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:



Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
My concern is her (physical) health as she will inevitably go down
with something pretty soon. This was the crux of my relative's
argument - that a child under 3 is best left protected at home. Maybe
I should have said this more explicitly in my original post.
Oh, pbbbthb on the health issue. If the child were immune
compromised, that would be a problem, but otherwise, it's not the
end of the earth for kids to get sick. They're going to start building
up their immune systems sooner or later. Sure, she'll come home with
crud (and likely pass it on to you), but keeping her home will just
postpone that process until later. Make sure you're happy with the
sanitary practices at the daycare, keep her home perhaps if something
bad is going around, and just deal with the rest. I'm enjoying a
cold brought home by my 4yo preschooler now. I'd love not to have
to deal with that, but what else is one going to do?
Reading the story below made me more pessimistic about the health
effects of day care.

Why?

All kids should be getting these vaccines, whether they're in daycare
or at home. However the government can't mandate the vaccines for a
child who is at home, but can do so for a child in school/daycare.

That these vaccines are being recommended or required is simply a
measure of good public health, not reflective of the daycare setting.
It's very true having kids in large groups means more likelihood of
disease spread, but presumably even a parent at home with their child
is not going to keep their kid locked up all day for fear of disease.

Exactly. The point is that toddlers and preschoolers are
wretched little germ spreaders regardless of their environment.
Unless you're willing to lock them up in a bubble, they're going to
get sick, and they're going to share with the rest of the family.
Even locking them up only works for a relatively short amount of
time when they're not off to school and have no older sibs who are
off at school to bring things home to them (or other relatives
out in the world bringing things home).
Will they catch more stuff at preschool or daycare? Probably.
Is keeping them away from daycare or preschool going to stop them
from getting the flu? Nope. It might reduce the odds a bit, but
it's not going to eliminate the risk. My kids have been at preschool
since two years old. They've brought home all sorts of bugs, but
never once have they brought home the flu. The only bout we've had
with *that* came from exposure at work. *If* a kid comes to school
with flu, it'll spread faster there than among older kids or adults,
and it's more dangerous to the very young, the very old, and those
with certain health issues, so vaccinating preschoolers is a good
way to intervene in the spread of diseases from a public health
point of view, but from an individual family point of view I don't
think it makes a hill of beans of difference.

Best wishes,
Ericka