Nurseries - Salvation or Curse?

Sofia has missed her two days at nursery this week due to raging tonsillitis. Three weeks ago she missed a week due to fever and tummy upset. That's 50% of missed days due to illness last month. And where does she catch these illnesses? Yep: The Nursery. The GP is making sarcastic comments about how often he sees us at the surgery (I suppose we do look quaint: always an inseparable threesome as M. has to take us there). She's had raging midnight fevers requiring radical action: putting her in a cool bath to prevent febrile convulsions at 2am; taking it in turns to stay awake and watch her to make sure she's not going unconscious. M and I are both exhausted and in need of respite but instead life gets doubly harder because, of course, she can't go to nursery so we need to find the resources to cope without it.

My mum has stepped in to help cope with the emergency. Thank God. But it's making me think there's something wrong in the equation if we're using the nursery as a coping strategy and it's actually adding to our stress and exhaustion. The other factor is that last year, every time Sofia got a cold or vomiting bug, I got it too. This time I've so far been saved. My good patch is still just about holding out. But we're now in October. The viruses will be multiplying by the minute and usually, every year, by the end of October, I've sunk into relapse. I'm just dreading this winter.

To top it off we're now paying £40 per day for the privilege of Sofia encountering this multitude of germs. They've decided to phase out the subsidies and go private. We are bankrupt!