Children and signs of being ill

We’ve been fairly lurgied up the last week, although N seemed to get over his pretty quickly, and instead, mine’s the cold that’s been lingering.  However, he did have a real mix hit him.

Two days running I was rung by nursery saying that he had a temperature and needed calpol, which brought the temperature down straight away.  The first day he was fine afterwards, but having had the same two days on the trot, I had to pick him up and he had to be clear of a temperature by 24 hours to go back.

When I picked him up he was really lethargic and dozy, which definitely wasn’t like him at all, so I snuggled him back home in the hope that I’d be able to let him sleep on the sofa while I worked.  Nope, of course not, as soon as he was home he spotted his dad on the farm, and off he went to follow him around for a bit.

This is largely what happens when N’s off colour – downhill at nursery, get him home and he’s back on form (although sometimes muted).  We do get various symptoms:

• Being off his food.  Not all food (he’ll still want potato and yoghurt – these seem to be his comfort foods), but off his meat which is highly unusual.
• Wanting lots of cuddles.  Not just from family but all the staff at nursery.  It’s great that he’s comfortable enough going to staff (even those he’s not known for long) when he needs comfort and we’re not around).
• Refusing to walk when we’re out and about outside.  In town he’s never keen on walking a long way, but when we went to Warwick Castle, he didn’t want to get out there despite that being lots of green space he’d usually have loved (LINK)
• Dribbling.  Last week, his dribbling came back with force.  After him having stopped dribbling at long last, it was a bit of a surprise to see him dribbling again.

But he always seems worse when he’s at nursery or somewhere he can’t be outside.  I don’t think it helps that he’s quite a hot child anyway, he quite often feels hot to touch but his temperature is usually normal.  Given how much more awake he was on the Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday he was off nursery with me working at home, I was surprised to pick him up on Friday from nursery to find him asleep on the nursery school manager’s lap.

He doesn’t sleep at nursery school because he gets too distracted by all the other children, so by the end of the week he does need it although he tends to try and hold on.  But being a bit off colour obviously meant he had no choice.

But I got him in the car, he perked up, started chatting away and by the time we got home five minutes later, he was keen to stay outside and play.

He’s also been telling us when he wants to go up to bed, with a ‘no bath mummy’ as he’s just too tired.

It’s so hard to tell when toddlers are ill as they can’t necessarily explain when something hurts (an ache rather than actually bumping something), and they might seem better as they can be fairly easily distracted.  N does seem to be back to normal – back asking for more food, back to eating breakfast, and all his normal meals, and back to sleeping normally again…and no more dribbly tops!