Yesterday at the end of the day, I had 2 kids showing signs of possibly getting sick, one was playing normal, ate fine but his cheeks were rosy and he was starting to feel warm, the other boy appeared more ill, seemed very tired, wasn't playing and felt very warm, both parents were to arrive in 45 min so I just told them upon arrival. Well last night both parents called to tell me their child was running a fever so they were out today.
Last night I came out here and wiped everything down and cleaned the toys I knew they were playing with.
Well all day has gone by today and a parent of one of the boys said she's pretty sure he has hand, foot mouth? She said he had it back in July (he was not with me then) severely and the way it's coming on is the same, fever, lack of appetite and now the rash is starting to appear.
So here's my question/concern. For one I've never dealt with this before don't really even know what or how you get it (she explained to me and will be sending me some stuff) for 2 all the kids that were here yesterday are here today, well the ones that weren't sick, so if that's what it is and it takes 3 -6 days for it to appear how do I keep this cycle from going around. Now that I cleaned everything from yesterday, now everything these kids touched today could be infected.
Or do I treat this the same as any other virus?? Help please..

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You will hear lots of conflicting information and advice.

Google, read up, and come to your own conclusions.


I personally exclude for it until all sores are healed.

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Ugh. Good luck! Of all the illnnesses my son has ever gotten this was the worst! He had it mainly in his throat with no sores on his skin(lucky I guess). But, the throat. And the high fever. He would not eat or drink for days. I was able to get him to take applesauce so he got a bit of both at once but, he was miserable. I would disinfect everything. It is very contagious.:eek

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When we got it here I closed for the week and the only children who ended up getting it were my son and two other children. Daycare girl was gone on a Monday because of a fever. She came on Tuesday and mom said she was fine. On Friday my son started getting sick as did another child. On Sunday my child and the other child developed blisters. I closed for the week and no one else got sick. So out of 10 kids, 3 (including the probable original infectious one) came down with it. When I called parents to say I was closing for the week the daycare girls mom made the comment of, "maybe that's what she had since she was sick for three days", I wanted to shout at her because daycare girl had only been gone from daycare for one of those 3 days so she must have been dosed. The daycare girl had every other symptom just no blisters. I would be careful, the little boy that got it with my son became very ill and almost had to be hospitalized. He had it so bad in his mouth he wouldn't eat or drink and his mom said he was doing horrible for 3 days straight.

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Here are some inof sheet about Hand Foot & Mouth

Fact sheet
http://www.hennepin.us/files/Hennepi...AND%20FOOT.pdf

Parent Handout:

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

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Thank you, the mom said that everyones opinion differs greatly on when a child can return, I read as long as they don't have a fever, if there is no rash, if there is no drooling or open oozing lesions. I ended up looking up info at our County health department, so I'll probably go by this. I called another family I have that wasn't here when this broke out and told her he probablly shouldn't come today because they have a newborn, so she's going to keep him out. So far no one else has symptoms,,,,yet......

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I have a a book called "Managing infectious diseases in child care and schools"
its says...
Incubation period: 3 to 6 days/
Contagious period: Virus ma be shed for several weeks after the infection starts; respiratory shedding of the virus is usually limited to a week or less.

It goes into more details about how to control it and what are the roles of caregivers/family.

Then it has a headline that says
Exclude from group setting?
No, unless
- Teh child is unable to participate andstaff determine that they cannot care for the child without compromising their ability to care for the health and safety of the other children in the group. Excessive drooling from mouth sores might be a problem that staff will find difficult to manage for some children with the disease.
-The child meets other exclusion criteria

It then refers me to another page
and temporary exclusion it says fever over 101 F, child appears severely ill-including lethargy/lack of responsiveness, irritability, persistent crying, difficult breathing, or having a quickly spreading rash.


In the end I think it really depends on what you are comfortable with.
Let me know what you decide to do, I have yet to encounter HFMD...Probably because I just started.

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Thank you for the info. For now only because the 2 kids I have today were already exposed Monday, I'm staying open, however the family with the baby, I told her I didn't think it was a good idea to come today and probably the rest of the week because he hasn't been here this week yet. I've sterilized everything and I'm only putting out a limited amount of toys (just because its too much to sterilize), because my concern is that one of these 2 could get it.
So I'm hoping no one else does.
I think I'll follow what the health department says
Exclude :no
Restriction: Yes, for open draining lesions or drooling in childcare or daycare settings.

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The symptoms for HFMD is fever, rash (or spots/blisters) on the hands, feet and/or mouth but not all kids get all of the symptoms all at once. My DS got HFM and he had no fever, only a couple of the spots, no sores in his mouth whatsoever and my nephew still got it. My nephew had only a few spots (never turned to sores or blisters), no fever, no sores in his mouth and he still gave it to his little brother.

In my case I informed all of the DCP's, I disinfected everything, my DH stayed home for a week to care for both my DS and DD upstairs while I did DC downstairs (I even slept downstairs) and continued to disinfect everything daily for a week. One other DCB got it too but my nephew, DCB and my DS all got it from the same place at my DS's birthday party (they all started to get symptoms on the same day 5 days after the party). The rest of the kids that came to DC were also at the party and none of them got sick but I disinfected everything that they all played with every day. I just reduced the number of toys that I put out so that I wouldn't have to clean a lot of things everyday. Hope that helps.

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So I have another little girl who is now running a fever, how long before she gets the blisters and IF she doesn't get the rash/blisters, when can she return as soon as her fever is gone??? I'm getting conflicting info. My sons pediatrician wouldn't give me any information because it wasn't pertaining to my son. Sounds to me like she may not get a rash or blisters for a couple days????? geez what a mess. Since one of the kids hasn't been here all week, do you think I should just tell them not to come at all until next week? (they have a baby that starts mon).

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Some kids don't get all of the symptoms. Older children (4 or 5 years and up) may not even show any symptoms and can still give it to other kids. I recommend that you continue to care for the children that don't have obvious signs of HFM and if they do start showing signs then you keep them out of your DC for at least one week or until a Dr clears them of transmitting to other children.

If you have another child starting on Monday I would strongly urge you to notify the baby's parent of the HFM and leave it up to them to decide whether or not to bring their child. The first signs of HFM can take up to 5 days to appear and even within those first symptom free days the children are still contageous.

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Ds has had this twice. He has never had any blisters other than in his throat. His fever was 103.8 the first time and probably pretty high the second. He laid on me for days & we watched a lot of spongebob that week!

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It's so strange to me that BOTH of these boys got sick right about the same time, one for sure has HFMD but the other boy, his doctor doesn't think that's what it is (she called them after his appt to let her know the other boy had it). 2 1/2 weeks ago I had a boy out with the same thing the boy who's doctor doesn't think has it, just fever, sore throat, no one else got that.
Yesterday one of the girls went home displaying the fever, I looked in her throat but couldn't really see, and from what I saw it didn't look red. I'm just so confused.
The boy who's doctor doesn't think he has it, she asked if he could come back today, it would have been 24 hr since he had the fever, I told her that since there was a for sure case of HFMD that I had to kind treat it as such, I asked if he was eating ok and if his throat was still red, she said he had not been eating still so I said I think he needs to stay home another day.

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This is not a fun disease, my kids got it and my son ended up in the hospital from febrile seizure...my kids only had sores in their throat and fever, the other child had 2 blisters and one child didn't get it...i would close for the week if I could afford that because I would probably offer parents a partial refund ....

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