Not what you want to hear at drop-off

[Inspired by Reggio]

I am with Mimi and Playfelt ... my illness policy is also 24 hours free of vomiting/diarrhea however I do not necessarily define ONE vomit or ONE loose bowel movement as falling into this exclusion requirement as for me there are other factors I consider such as age and what is going on over all with their health and life ... IME some infants and young toddlers often have isolated incidence of puke or loose stools and are not sick but rather teething or just eating something new that did not agree with them or anxiety/stress over something causes additional stomach acid on them ~ so I would discuss all the factors and ask lots of questions with the parents and make individual judgement calls if they could stay or not.

So if it was one vomit hours prior to daycare and they were up and in good spirits had eaten breakfast and it stayed down and they had no other symptoms and there were no other cases of stomach bug in play in the program to consider I would allow the child into care giving the first client the benefit of the doubt that it could just be 'something did not agree with them' ... if someone else starts with the puking than I consider it an 'outbreak' and one vomit = exclusion moving forward for everyone else!

99% of the time the benefit of the doubt was warranted as it was just that isolated incident and that 1% you learn from that THAT kid is prone to long periods between puking with the flu so next time you suggest perhaps they stay home just in case I had one client like that when their kid had the flu they would never puke lots in a row they would yo yo between puking and than would want to eat seem fine running around normal so you'd feed them and wham they'd puke again so THAT client learned to keep their kid home and not attempt to call me and try and get the benefit of the doubt ruling

In my years I have had kids in care who if they got in trouble for something they would puke shortly after from the emotional impact or if they got hurt and cried too hard they would gag on their snot and puke ~ just really 'nervous stomach' kids ... if that poor client had to take 24 hours off of work every time their child got in trouble or tripped and bumped themselves they might as well quit work and stay home ... now if they puked outside of those precursor scenarios than I would certainly have given the parent a call and thankfully by about 18 months they out grew it! To be honest I was one of 'those' kids who puked when stressed which is why I might be more empathetic to parents dealing with such kids!

IMO we learn to 'know' our daycare children and what is normal for them through open honest communication with parents ~ I totally agree with Playfelt that if we use their open communication and honesty against parents to enforce a black and white policy you promote a culture where they will 'tell you what you want to hear' or aka lie by omission if they truly think their kid is 'fine' .... I saw this all the time in centre care and to be honest I often took the parents side in those scenarios cause I worked with staff who would blatantly strive to send home children who were not 'truly' too sick as per the public health guidelines but just not 100% but otherwise 'coping' and so they would embellish symptoms because they wanted the kid sent home so they could have a quieter ratio and not have to deal with the ... so the kid with a minor common cold who put to much in their mouth and gagged on their mucus trying to swallow it during lunch and spit the food out would be deemed to have 'vomited all over the place' and than sent home for 24 hours as the parent watched their kid running around 'normal' with nothing but a little bit of winter snot nose and a weak gag reflux ...when that happens to parents often enough and they start looking for ways to 'hide' those symptoms so their kid can cope at daycare and they are not taking too much time off work!