Handling sick days

This may seem like a stupid question but what happens when your own children get a major illness, like chicken pox? Do you close the daycare until they are well enough to resume group care?

Aside from some colds we haven't had any big illnesses in my daycare yet (only open 6months). None of the kids in care have had any of the major illnesses yet as they are all under 2yrs (including my daughter).

I have had all parents sign a sick child policy stating when they can and cannot come to daycare so I know when to send the dc kids home. I have closed twice when my daughter was sick enough to just need some recovery time. But...it seems different to close for 5+ days!!

What have you all done for such illnesses? I have the feeling it would come to the daycare from another child (as all the colds seem to) and I would expect to send that child home, send out a notice to the other families and I would like to know if I should give them a heads up to have back up care on hand for if their child gets sick and for if my child gets sick due to the daycare needing to be closed x number of days. Is that a legit plan?

I have 5 kids ages 14-20months I feel like if one gets it there is a very, very good chance they all would have it shortly there after. Which sucks!

For myself I also have backup care for my own daughter. If my daughter is too sick to be at daycare I send her to a family member's house for the day or if it isn't anything too major I will leave her upstairs for the day (while I am downstairs with daycare) and check on her frequently (chances are if she isn't feeling well then she just sleeps/watching tv all day). My sick policy states that if my daughter has anything major and I don't have alternate care that I will close. We did have whooping cough go through once and my husband ended up staying home with her and kept her upstairs.

My daughter had a slight fever this morning. I didn't have any family members who were able to watch her today and with my basement being under construction there was no choice but to have her in the same space as the daycare kids. I informed all parents when they dropped off their kids this morning that she had a low grade fever and unfortunately will be interacting with the kids today. It ended up after her one dose of Tylenol and an hour relaxing on the couch watching cartoons was all she needed. She began playing with the other kids and bounced right back to herself. Fever never returned.

I have it written into my contract that if my kids come down with something major, I will close with as much notice given as possible. That's only happened once, when my son came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. Usually, when one of my kids is sick (which happens a lot with 3!) they are isolated on the couch in the living room with the tv, a bucket, juice, etc, and I am downstairs with the daycare kids, able to hear them and come up if needed. My older 2 are 5 and 6 and pretty stoic when they're sick, so if they can just veg out for a while, they're generally ok. Whenever possible my husband changes his days so he can stay home with them, but he can't always do that. We have no family closer than 1 1/2 hours away, so we've only ever used them to watch our other 2 when my son was in the hospital - I can't just call them on a whim, unfortunately. You learn to multi-task, I guess, and generally it works out ok.

My most difficult times have been when I came down with a stomach bug after all the kids were dropped off. I didn't want to call parents unless I really needed to, and was able to push through, but let's just say they got to watch a movie that day, which NEVER happens, lol. I've also had a call from the school right in the middle of naptime saying that my son was sick and I had to go pick him up. We live right next door to the school, but I did NOT want to have to wake up 4 sleeping little ones to go and pick him up. My husband was able to use his lunch break to come and get him and drop him off at home, otherwise that would not have been fun!

My husband uses his sick days to stay home when our own children are really sick, as he gets paid sick days and I don't. I rarely close the daycare and will just cope with caring for my own sick kids along with the daycare kids. I have only really closed due to my own illness, as it was impossible to care for kids while I had the flu.

If it is something contagious I will close as long as I would require the daycare parents to keep their own children home, and then I would be open and it would be the daycare parents's choice to send their kids. If I am open, then fees are charged. I don't have family to send my own children to as they either work full time or live far away, so I don't have the option to send them somewhere else. My daughter had strep throat last summer and one family kept their child home, while others sent theirs anyway.

I have had to close for several days at a time due to the hospitalization of my younger daughter and I just notified parents that I had to be closed and they understood. In that situation there is no other option, and if they weren't understanding then they would be finding a different daycare.

A couple of years ago, my son had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. He was diagnosed and started treatment on the Sunday, I closed Monday and my parent graciously picked him up and cared for him for the week. I bleached everything in the the house on the Monday, and most of the kids returned Tuedsay. One parent chose to keep her child out of my care for the week (time period suggested for my son to be away from other children.