When the Kids Are Sick

By Amy W.

 

Earlier this month, I had a 3-year-old with pneumonia and an almost 1-year-old with a double ear infection and RSV. Both were out of daycare for an entire week. Juggling sick kids is something I just have to deal with as a working mom. But the week my kids were sick was a horrible week to be absent from work for both my husband and me.

We shared a couple of days at home and then desperation hit. For starters, we were exhausted. Neither child was sleeping at night. Getting the 3-year-old to take her medicine was a mental challenge each and every time. By the time I spoke to my mom on Wednesday of that week, she knew she had to come help. So took leave from her job, drove three hours from Virginia to North Carolina, and kept two sick kids at home for two days. She even got up at night with them. We don’t know what we would have done without her.

 

Which got me thinking, what do others Moms do that don’t have family that can come to the rescue and have to work? One option would be (if their employer allowed it) to take the sick kids to work. My husband has done this on one occasion with my 3-year-old. He was in the office for a brief amount of time. She had a cold and a slight fever. But what about the kids who are much sicker? I would not want to drag them to an office all day.

 

Another option is the daycare centers that actually allow sick children. A quick search of the Internet found that there are about 300 of these centers across the U.S., and most are connected to hospitals. They staff nurses that take temperatures and let the kids do quiet activities. I work for a health system, and we don’t have one of these centers.

 

A third option is having back-up childcare, such as a neighbor or friend that is willing to take the kids when they are sick. That person would have to be willing to take a child on short notice and clear their schedule as well.

 

I know there are single moms out there with no options available to them. My heart goes out to them. For me, I am lucky enough to have an employer who understands families and a husband with a flexible work schedule.

 

What do you do when you have sick kids at home?

Comments

[Penny Higgins]

This is totally the dilemma that my husband and I face. Grammy (my husband's mom) can help a bit, but due to her own health couldn't care for a super-sick kid for a whole day. While my job is flexible about my hours and allows me to occasionally bring my son in, I can't do that regularly, and certainly not for a full day of work. And to compound things, we live about an hour away from where we work (our son is in daycare near our house) so on mornings he wakes up sick, we'd need to recruit help at 6AM to stay with our son until 6PM. Ugh! And when our son gets sent home during the day, we can't be there for at least an hour. This problem has made me cry more than once.

We're looking for someone who can care for our son with a day's notice and have accepted that it's up to us to care for him on days he wakes up sick or gets sent home. Sometimes we juggle our hours, when one of us goes to work ridiculously early and comes home at mid-day, then the other goes to work and works ridiculously late. Sometimes that works, but not always.

It's a mess and it's unfortunate that the cultural infrastructure to help people in our situation is only weakly developed (and really non-existant in our town). I'm just glad to have an employer that gives me some flexibility, or I'd have lost this job long ago!

[JennM]

I haven't used it yet, but at my new job, there's a service you can use up to 8 days a year that will send someone to care for a mildly sick child (a registered person, through the service, often with some basic nurse training and childcare experience). Mildly sick is, well, I'm not entirely sure, but one requirement is fever under 102.1 degrees. There's a nominal charge for the parent of $4 an hour, the company contracts/pays for the rest.

But, before this, and before we moved closer to family, one of us would have to take the day off. What we would usually do is split the day--my husband would go in an hour early (7am vs. 8am) and be home by 12:30pm. I'd go to work and be home by 7pm. But, like you said, it's hard to do when you're not sleeping and are busy at work.

I'm not sure where you live, but I wonder if your company would consider the sick child care as a perk--it would benefit them, I bet, since parents would potentially be out less. My new company has a contract with this care provider that will send someone as far as 2 hours away (I work in NYC, so the suburbs can be far). I know two parents who have used it and say it's a life saver... one lives nearly 90 minutes away. She was pleased. I've yet to use it... but if I had no way to stay home, get my father-in-law to come into the city from an hour+ away, I would. And I would have used it if offered at my old job, which was far from family.

[CPA Mom]

We just suck it up and take sick days. If it is tax season, HP takes it. If it is not tax season, I take it. It's not perfect but luckily we both have employers and jobs that this works with. Thank goodness. Because when our kids are sick, they want US not strangers.

[amy]

We have the same "tax season" schedule since my husband is a CPA. If it's tax season, I cover all day, if not, we usually split the sick day in half. Of course, about 75% of all sick days are during tax season because that's the heart of winter and Olivia's sick days/asthma issues. I have the flexibility to work at home on those days, as does my husband, which helps a lot. I only involve other people in watching her while sick if it drags on - there was one time when she was sick an entire week and we did ask my sister to help.

[Joy]

I feel the pain of this situation. My husband and I laughing have discovered that we both can't have the "good boss/schedule". Up till 2 years ago, I worked for a very understanding boss and so was able to accomodate sick days and emergencies. Now it's my husband who has the flexible work schedule, group and boss. We're just happy that one of us has the opportunity.

[MomOfTwo]

Last time when my 5 month old was sick for a week, I had three projects having deadlines. one of my friends offered her babysitter to me in case I was desperate. Luckily my baby was good enough to go back to daycare before I had to take her offer. So I guess if it really came down to that, I could use the help of a friend's baby sitter. My friend also told me that a local nanny agency also does these emergency help works when they do have people on hand. So it's good to check those out.