When You can Send Your Child Back to Daycare, Nursery, or School

When You Can Send Your Child Back to Daycare, Nursery, or School

From the library of

Frank Barnhill M.D.

Moms and dads ask Family Doctors this question millions of times every week. While there are no absolutely correct answers, pediatric publications do offer some rough guidelines as to when a parent can safely return their “once sick” child to school or daycare without harming the child or placing other children at risk.

Once again, you as the parent are the best judge of how sick or well your child is at a given time in an illness. Therefore, it is really essential that you make good common sense decisions about your child’s well being and whether you will expose other children to a contagious disease as a result of your decision. A responsible parent must think about the health and welfare of not only their child, but also all the other children in that school, and adults such as teachers and support staff.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some rough guidelines for sending kids back to school after an illness.

Your child may return to school or daycare:

With an ear infection once antibiotics have been given for 24 hours and fever has resolved
With bronchitis treated with or without antibiotics, once his or her cough is dry, there is no wheezing and child has been fever free for 24 hours
After pink eye has been treated with antibiotics for a full 24 hours and there is no pus
After impetigo has been treated with antibiotics for minimum 24 hours and there are no oozing sores
With strep throat once antibiotics have been given regularly for over 24 hours and the child is not drooling
With a nose infection when the drainage turns clear or is only light yellow in color and the child has not had a fever for over 12 hours
With head lice after the first night’s treatment with prescription shampoos and child’s hair has been washed thoroughly and rinsed clear. Nits may be seen for two weeks, but are usually dead.
With scabies after the first night’s treatment with a prescription lotion and child has been thoroughly showered with warm soapy water and rinsed clear
When there were infected sores on the skin, sores must all be dry or at least it must be possible to cover them completely with triple antibiotic, Telfa and gauze dressings
After chickenpox, once sores have been present six days and are scabbed
With cold sores once all have scabbed and the child is not drooling
When your child has not vomited in over 12 hours, does not complain of stomach pain, and is tolerating foods and liquids like those served at school or daycare
When there has only been one non-bloody diarrhea stool in the past 24 hours, none in the last eight hours, there is no abdominal pain, and your child is tolerating foods and drink well.
After a viral illness when there has been no fever, croupy cough, vomiting or diarrhea for over 12 hours
When your child’s behavior appears to have “returned to normal”

There are many other illnesses that are not considered common, and we will not cover in this short summary. Of course as always, you should ask your doctor if you have any concerns about your child’s health and ability to return to school or daycare. Your family doctor is still your best partner in health care.

You may wish to read these related articles:
“ When to keep your sick child home from school or daycare ” and
“How to pick a daycare for your preschooler” (coming soon).

Have a great life!

Dr. Frank

These health tips are offered for your common sense use and are not intended to take the place of a visit to your doctor. Your use of the materials implies your understanding that nothing herein contained represents individual medical advice.

drhuggiebear, drhuggiebear.com and contained materials are the copyrighted and/or registered properties of Frank Barnhill, M.D. and may not be reproduced for profit without the express written permission of the author. All materials may be photocopied in whole for educational use. For information please contact us at drfrank@drhuggiebear.com.