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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Hand Foot & Mouth Disease In My Own Kids - Close?
MG&Lsmom 12:31 PM 07-22-2011
So DD2 was diagnosed with Hand, Foot & Mouth disease today. She's been running high fevers (103+) since Tuesday. I have not had any DCKs this week. She was in camp last week and one DCK had been here for 2 hours Thurs and Fri last week. Dr. says she's contagious until her fever is gone for 24 hours and she needs to be seen immediately if it's not gone on Monday. My question, should I plan to close on Monday? My house isn't really big enough to keep her isolated. And while I plan on sanitizing all the toys, it would mean she can't play with anything Sunday morning through whenever she's better. I won't have time to sanitize everything Sunday night after bedtime. My daycare space is practically my whole house. I also have 2 other kids of my own, whom I'm suspecting will start up with the fever soon too given how contagious it is. UGH!

And sorry, I did a search on 'hand foot mouth disease' and it returned almost 2000 threads, most of them from today??? Wierd.
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daycare 12:40 PM 07-22-2011
how severe is her case? If its not a bad case of it, I would keep playing it by ear until saturday. At least you still have some time to decide if it would be wise or not to open. I would say that if she still has fever on Saturday afternoon, that you should inform all of the parents By Saturday night or Sunday morn to give them time to find alternate care.
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SilverSabre25 12:43 PM 07-22-2011
I like what daycare said
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MG&Lsmom 12:43 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by daycare:
how severe is her case? If its not a bad case of it, I would keep playing it by ear until saturday. At least you still have some time to decide if it would be wise or not to open. I would say that if she still has fever on Saturday afternoon, that you should inform all of the parents By Saturday night or Sunday morn to give them time to find alternate care.
the Dr said her throat is covered in blisters, but she only has one sore on her hand, none on her feet. I'm still hoping the strep test comes back positive.
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daycare 12:52 PM 07-22-2011
I had only one child have this at my DC. she came here with it and I sent her home. She was the yongest one in my DC at age 19mo. She was covered all over the place. The parents were just CLUELESS!! She put everything in her mouth all the time. When mom called me to confirm that it was HFM I freaked out. I cleaned everything and srubbed for a full day. Lucky for my DC no one else got it. Including her own sister.

For the rest of the weekend can you possibly put most of the DC toys away that should could posisbly infect? I was so in over my head with toys that I had to put some in my garage in buckets of bleach for a few days.
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sharlan 01:00 PM 07-22-2011
I've had it go through my daycare 3 or 4 times now. I just tell all the parents and leave it up to them. I've never had a parent keep their kids home.
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MG&Lsmom 01:00 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by daycare:
I was so in over my head with toys that I had to put some in my garage in buckets of bleach for a few days.
This is where I'm at right now. I will have to have buckets and buckets and buckets soaking. She's been playing with everything in the house this past week since its so hot we haven't been outside barely at all.
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MG&Lsmom 01:07 PM 07-22-2011
My daughter is almost 5, she doesn't mouth toys at all. I'm sure she could have touched her mouth and then the toys. And obviously there's spittle from talking. Still wash everything?
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daycare 01:10 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by MG&Lsmom:
This is where I'm at right now. I will have to have buckets and buckets and buckets soaking. She's been playing with everything in the house this past week since its so hot we haven't been outside barely at all.
Yup same here! Lucky I had these huge buckets from a party we had that held drinks in.
I filled them with 1/3 water and The rest bleach.

Every night after DC was over I went out and cleaned one full bucket.
They all sat for at least two plus days.
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TBird 01:14 PM 07-22-2011
My girls had that at the same time but I wasn't doing daycare at the time. They had the sores and were miserable....I would have had to close.
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nannyde 01:22 PM 07-22-2011
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/han...ION=prevention

Isolate contagious people. Because hand-foot-and-mouth disease is highly contagious, people with the illness should limit their exposure to others while they have active signs and symptoms. Keep children with hand-foot-and-mouth disease out of child care or school until fever is gone and mouth sores have healed. If you have the illness, stay home from work.

Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is usually a minor illness causing only a few days of fever and relatively mild signs and symptoms. However, a rare and sometimes serious form of the coxsackievirus can involve the brain and cause other complications:

Viral meningitis. This is an infection and inflammation of the membranes (meninges) and cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Viral meningitis is usually mild and often clears on its own.Encephalitis. This severe and potentially life-threatening disease involves brain inflammation caused by a virus. Encephalitis is rare.

Children usually develop immunity to hand-foot-and-mouth disease as they get older by building antibodies after exposure to the virus that causes the disease. However, it's possible for adolescents and adults to get the disease.
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MG&Lsmom 01:45 PM 07-22-2011
Thanks Nan, I had already been on the Mayo Clinic site. I'm guessing I can't be open, since I can't isolate her enough, if she still has a fever come Sunday morning. We had a very busy weekend of birthday parties and a water park trip with our Autism Resource Center. Poor kiddo.

I have toy soup in the bath tub right now. It's quite a sight. And not even a 1/4 of it.

Does anyone know if Barbie hair will melt in bleach? That is my biggest problem, the Barbie collection. Ugh!
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daycare 01:52 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by MG&Lsmom:
Thanks Nan, I had already been on the Mayo Clinic site. I'm guessing I can't be open, since I can't isolate her enough, if she still has a fever come Sunday morning. We had a very busy weekend of birthday parties and a water park trip with our Autism Resource Center. Poor kiddo.

I have toy soup in the bath tub right now. It's quite a sight. And not even a 1/4 of it.

Does anyone know if Barbie hair will melt in bleach? That is my biggest problem, the Barbie collection. Ugh!
lol..... sorry your barbie comment made me laugh... Thats a google question.....I am interested to know too, but we don't have any barbies... I might start a collection next year....
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Unregistered 02:00 PM 07-22-2011
I'm sorry kiddo is sick. I would close though and stock up on ice cream. Maybe a craft weekend? Movies?
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nannyde 02:03 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by MG&Lsmom:
Thanks Nan, I had already been on the Mayo Clinic site. I'm guessing I can't be open, since I can't isolate her enough, if she still has a fever come Sunday morning. We had a very busy weekend of birthday parties and a water park trip with our Autism Resource Center. Poor kiddo.

I have toy soup in the bath tub right now. It's quite a sight. And not even a 1/4 of it.

Does anyone know if Barbie hair will melt in bleach? That is my biggest problem, the Barbie collection. Ugh!
Bag em and store them for a month. I've heard of people putting them in the deep freeze too. Can't verify that works... just an idea.
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MG&Lsmom 03:47 PM 07-22-2011
Thankfully the Barbie collection is one that is not available to DCKs. She's chosen that and her tiny Disney Princess collection not to share and I don't blame her. It stays in her room. I'm going to let her play with them until she's fever free and then I'll bleach them all for a couple of days. Google says it won't melt it but might make it crunchy. Her birthday is in 2 weeks so maybe some new Barbies are in order.
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daycare 04:00 PM 07-22-2011
Originally Posted by MG&Lsmom:
Thankfully the Barbie collection is one that is not available to DCKs. She's chosen that and her tiny Disney Princess collection not to share and I don't blame her. It stays in her room. I'm going to let her play with them until she's fever free and then I'll bleach them all for a couple of days. Google says it won't melt it but might make it crunchy. Her birthday is in 2 weeks so maybe some new Barbies are in order.
poor thing I feel so bad for her... I have a sunburn on my lips from our camping trip last weekend and I can only imagine how horrible she must feel. I can't put anything but a nice cold cucumber up to them............

I hope that things get better soon.....

lol thats funny about the barbies... I always wanted to look like a barbie when I was little and I asked my mom why don't I look like a barbie....she took the head off and said see daughter in her head....I looked in the little hole and I said yes there is nothing in there...She said that is why you won't look like a barbie..... I was too little to understand what she meant at the time....but now find it super funny..
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Blackcat31 09:37 PM 07-22-2011
here are the fact sheets I have for this.

http://hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/...t%20parent.pdf

http://hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/...AND%20FOOT.pdf

I hope she feels better soon!
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broncomom1973 09:55 PM 07-22-2011
My oldest daughter picked it up at daycare days before her 4th birthday. It was the last week of October 2008 and I was due to have my son the first week of December 2008. At that time I was the lab nurse at a family practice clinic and even though I wasnt working out on the floor bringing patients back, I had heard other nurses talk about a few cases that had come in. On a Sunday my daughter told me she had a sore throat and when I looked in her mouth, I about fell off of the couch. She had soooo many ulcers in her mouth. I tried to push fluids and got her in first thing on Monday a.m. The Dr told me to keep doing what I was doing with the fluids but by around 3 p.m. I called back for an order to have her go in for IV fluids if we needed it (didnt want to go through the ER). She took 1 oz from the time of her appt until that night. We took her in and she ended up being in the hospital for 5 days. She had the most severe case that many of those nurses had ever seen. She didnt eat for almost 2 weeks because of the pain in her mouth and she did not drink until Friday of that week. The criteria for her to come home was for her to drink 8 oz and she did it with much encouragement (her IV had also infiltrated so they were going to have to put a new one in if she didnt drink). We got home and almost had to take her back because she hurt so bad she still wouldnt drink. It was awful. I spent that entire week (34 weeks pregnant) in a hospital bed with her. Come to find out, one of her good friends from daycare had it the week before but "had such a mild case" that she was back at daycare within 2 days. I was lucky because my younger daughter who was 1 at the time ended up with what I think was a real mild case of it- she had a few blisters on her fingers and a low grade fever but never stopped taking fluids. After going through that whole ordeal (and a nice hospital bill), I always try to take into consideration that in illnesses such as Hand, Foot and Mouth it doesnt affect all children the same and just because one case may be mild doesnt mean that the person they pass it on to will have a mild case, as was the case with my daughter. When my son turned 1, he came down with a case of it and I closed my daycare for a week while he recuperated. No hospital for him, but he did have high fevers and was lethargic at times. There was no way I was going to expose the other kids at my daycare to that. As much as it sucked for them to have to find alternative care, they were all grateful after they found out what we went through with dd and how serious it can be in some children. Good luck, I hope no one else gets ill with it, it's not a fun illness.
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broncomom1973 10:04 PM 07-22-2011
My daughter did not "mouth" things either when she contracted it. I do also know that it can be passed not only from saliva and coughing/sneezing but from contamination from BM and improper handwashing after using the bathroom. If a child has a BM and doesnt wash their hands good and then touches toys or door knobs or whatever and another child touches those toys, they've just contracted the germs. I dont know how my daughter got it but I did quite a bit of research on it at that time and that was one of the things that I was not aware of- that it could be passed through BM- gross, I know.
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MG&Lsmom 01:44 PM 07-24-2011
Thanks Broncomom.

I don't have dcks scheduled until Thurs due to their retail work schedule. For one family it's their first week. However this child has already been exposed because they were here for an interview just at the beginning of the fever before I knew what it was. DD is still running 103+ if I let her motrin lapse even 20 mins. She'll be back at the doctor tomorrow. And DS is showing signs of coughing, hoarseness, and feels warm but the thermometer is reading normal. UGH!
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MG&Lsmom 01:54 PM 07-24-2011
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
here are the fact sheets I have for this.

http://hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/...t%20parent.pdf

http://hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/...AND%20FOOT.pdf

I hope she feels better soon!
Thanks for these sheets! Where did you get them? Our school always hands out ones similar to the first one you posted and I asked licensing for a resource to them so I could also send them out (for things like strep that we have to report to parents) but they don't have them.
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Blackcat31 06:19 PM 07-24-2011
Originally Posted by MG&Lsmom:
Thanks for these sheets! Where did you get them? Our school always hands out ones similar to the first one you posted and I asked licensing for a resource to them so I could also send them out (for things like strep that we have to report to parents) but they don't have them.
I PM'ed you the link for all the illnesses/diseases in daycare that we need to be aware of. The site has fact sheets for daycare providers and parents. I ONLY use the info on these sheets to make my decisions. I print out which ever one I need for the parents to have also. That way we are both on the same page.
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Tags:foot and mouth!, provider - own child, provider children
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