My baby is 16 weeks and exclusively breastfed, although I may wean her to a bottle at 6 months. She has never been even remotely sick. She also has never been in child care and has only limited contact with other babies. However, I am considering placing her in childcare for the occasional day or two to get some exposure to illnesses while she has the protection of my antibodies in my breast milk.

Is this madness or am I preparing her for the inevitable childhood illnesses?

I think that is a really interesting point and one I had not thought of. My DD hasnt' really been sick other than the occasional runny nose (teething) and conjunctivitis (blocked tear duct from birth). We do go to a play group once a week and at least one other play date with one other bub the same age.

When we left hospital (April) we were told to keep baby inside for a few months and try not to socialse or go to public places like shopping plazas. The PED said that will give your baby the best chance to build a stronger immune system. That seems to have worked well for us as other babies that socialised a lot seemed to get sick easily.

I've been very sick twice (tonsilitis, chest infection) and DD didn't get any-thing. The DH has been crook a couple of times too. We could be lucky though as you never really know with these things.

I would be really interested to see what responses you get to this thread and to hear what you decide to do and any thoughts you have along the way.

Good one Sarah !!!

hi
just wondering isnt the only way to build up the immune system they need to be exposed to something first??
for instance......chicken pox......you need to be exposed to it, get it and you are then immuned...
flu......there are so many different kinds of flus out there and i suppose its a bit hard to run away from all of them, but usually the severity is less if you pick up the same germ.

just a thought..... you cant protect your kids from every illness there is out there, yes if you know that someone is sick or infected with some kind of illness you dont purposely expose your child to it, but you cant go crazy trying to stop everything.....

take care

Hi,

Unfortunately, my little one has been bottle fed from around 5 days old (breast reduction surgery, I could produce milk but couldn't get it out!!). I thought that would mean she'd get sick easier than the breastfed baby but that doesn't seem to have been the case. She's 7 1/2 mths now and hasn't even had the sniffles.

We go out almost everyday, she plays with my friend's kids and I go to the gym and put her in the childcare center there for 90mins 4 days a week.......ok, maybe one 1-4 days a week....hehe....but still she socialises! It's much cheaper too, only costs me $2 a pop and she loves it.

Anyway, I don't think it's madness as you put it, at the very least, even if she doesn't get sick it's good to socialise them, they love it. AND you'll get a break too!! I think our shopping centre also has a short time daycare, might be worth investigating that, you could put her in for a couple of hours 2 or 3 days a week?

smile