The Daycare Germ Season Survival Guide
Nobody warns you properly about the first term of daycare.
Your child starts. Within a fortnight there is a runny nose. Then it is yours. Then it goes round again and you find yourself doing mental arithmetic about how many days of work you have left.
This time of year always hits. If you are feeling it, you are not alone 💜
First, the reassuring bit
A run of minor illnesses in the first year of care is completely normal. Small children in a room together share everything, including the things you would rather they did not, and their immune systems are meeting a lot of new things at once.
It does settle. Most families find the second year looks nothing like the first.
That does not make the first year less exhausting, and you are allowed to find it hard.
The things that genuinely help
Sleep, protected fiercely. The single most useful thing in the house is an early bedtime through the cold months, for everyone. It is also the first thing to slip.
Handwashing at the door. Not a lecture, just a habit. Shoes off, hands washed, before anything else happens. Kids take to it faster when it is a routine rather than a rule.
Food they will actually eat. A tired three year old is not going to eat a rainbow. Aim for something colourful once a day and let the rest go.
Water, more than you think. Especially in heated houses through winter.
A daily ritual that takes ten seconds. Anything that requires effort at 7am will not survive the term. Whatever you choose, it has to be quick.
Where a daily purple sip fits
Drink Purple® is a wholefood elderberry and raw honey syrup, made in small batches in Brisbane. One teaspoon a day for children 1 year and over, one tablespoon for adults.
It works in this context because it is fast and because kids ask for it. It tastes like berries, so it does not become another morning battle. Most families keep the 350ml in the fridge and a 60ml Mini in the bag for the days you are out the door before you have thought about it.
Elderberries, raw honey and gentle herbs. No weird stuff, no Googling required. The full ingredient list is here if you want to read it properly.
The bit nobody says out loud
You will feel guilty. About sending them in with a slightly runny nose, about taking a day off, about not taking a day off, about the fact that the house has been sick since March.
None of that is a reflection of how you are doing. Every family with a child in care goes through this, and most of them are quietly having exactly the same term you are.
Fewer sniffles, more giggles. It does come.
Read more about Drink Purple for kids, or find your closest stockist.
