How many times has my kid been sick since he was born three and a half years ago? UPDATED
My son has been in day care since he was six weeks old. The first year he was there 3 days a week. The second year, 4 days a week. The third year, 5 days a week. This year, 3 days a week and 2 with grandma. He's now four and I started to wonder - just how many colds has he had already? And I think I caught most of them, yet my husband doesn't seem to catch them all (then again, I am a teacher and also exposed to kids at school).
Some months it seems we've been sick the majority of days, often fighting two colds in the same month. And then there are the wonderful teacher summer months of (close to) NO COLDS. Yippee!
I want to know just how many colds he has had and also how many days he has had cold symptoms. Luckily, I have kept record of my son's sick days and symptoms using a Google calendar. I mark over the days he has runny nose, fever, coughing, etc. as well as things like "fell asleep w/o binky!" and other baby or toddler milestones.
Now, I don't know where I stand on the "get the colds when they're young so they don't get sick in the elementary years and miss precious school days" debate. But I DO know that when your kid is a baby, toddler, or pre-schooler, dealing with colds is probably MUCH harder and more likely to send you to the ER or urgent care. It is down right SCARY for your baby to have a fever and cold, and just plain TERRIBLE to deal with a goopey, snotty, whiney and wheezy toddler. We have visited the urgent care many times and also went to ER once for severe wheezing. I think my son is pre-asthma due to all these colds, but then again they can't test him yet. Is it that bad when they're school aged? I'll let you know in a couple years...
Anyway, back to my own research. Looking back over the 4 years of data (and we are currently in a "cold")...
My son was born in July 2012, and started daycare in mid-August 2012. The colds started in January 2013...and I'm counting here those with runny nose, cough, and/or fever (there are other things that I didn't count such as isolated hives event or just a day of diarrhea) and in parenthesis the number of days the cold lasted:
Some months it seems we've been sick the majority of days, often fighting two colds in the same month. And then there are the wonderful teacher summer months of (close to) NO COLDS. Yippee!
I want to know just how many colds he has had and also how many days he has had cold symptoms. Luckily, I have kept record of my son's sick days and symptoms using a Google calendar. I mark over the days he has runny nose, fever, coughing, etc. as well as things like "fell asleep w/o binky!" and other baby or toddler milestones.
Now, I don't know where I stand on the "get the colds when they're young so they don't get sick in the elementary years and miss precious school days" debate. But I DO know that when your kid is a baby, toddler, or pre-schooler, dealing with colds is probably MUCH harder and more likely to send you to the ER or urgent care. It is down right SCARY for your baby to have a fever and cold, and just plain TERRIBLE to deal with a goopey, snotty, whiney and wheezy toddler. We have visited the urgent care many times and also went to ER once for severe wheezing. I think my son is pre-asthma due to all these colds, but then again they can't test him yet. Is it that bad when they're school aged? I'll let you know in a couple years...
Anyway, back to my own research. Looking back over the 4 years of data (and we are currently in a "cold")...
My son was born in July 2012, and started daycare in mid-August 2012. The colds started in January 2013...and I'm counting here those with runny nose, cough, and/or fever (there are other things that I didn't count such as isolated hives event or just a day of diarrhea) and in parenthesis the number of days the cold lasted:
- January 5-15 (11)
- February 7-25 (9)
- March 14-April 13 (31)
- April 18-May 4 (17)
- June 21-July 6 (16)
- August 19-22 (4)
- September 20-October 20 (I know!) (32)
- November 8-December 6 (poor thing!) (29)
- December 27-January 7 (12)
- Jan 11-24 (14)
- Feb 9-15 (7)
- Feb 27-March 13 (15)
- March 20-30 (11)
- April 11-15 (5)
- May 3-12 (10)
- May 30-June 6 (8)
- September 7-11 (5)
- October 4-14 (11)
- October 18-31 (14)
- November 13-16 (5)
- December 19-25 (7)
- January 16-26 (11)
- February 6-19 (8)
- March 5-8 (4)
- April 3-25 (23)
- October 29-November 1 (4)
- December 1-12 (12)
- March 11-30 (20)
- April 6-13 (8)
- June 22-July 24 (33) *birthday is July 10th, turned 4, so if counting up until birthday, just (19)
Comments
Adults have an average of 2-3 colds per year, and children have even more. Most people get colds in the winter and spring, but it is possible to get a cold any time of the year. Symptoms usually include sore throat, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, watery eyes, headaches and body aches.