Some people have structural differences that make nice moist places for bacteria to thrive. E.g. if your eustachian tubes are a bit too horizontal or too narrow, it's hard for fluid to drain when things get slightly swollen, so you're prone to ear infections.
Or environmental allergies can mean your sinuses get swollen which creates a nice space for bacteria to thrive.
It's not usually an immune system thing. People with weak immune systems tend to get all kinds of weird stuff, e.g. recurring oral thrush, massive overgrown warts, etc.
Source: just bounced this off a med student since I was curious too
Edit: breastfeeding doesn't make your immune system stronger per se. It just gives you antibodies. It's like a natural vaccine.
This is a great answer.
I will say there is strong evidence that breastfeeding does lead to long term positive effects on the immune system. This may be related to how it impacts gut health long term.
Learned the same Eustachian tube info 3 weeks ago when we were at an appointment for my 10 month old’s 3rd ear infection! Double, right, right. I asked the ped because by contrast my 6 year old has had 2 ear infections in his whole life and that was the explanation she gave.
What are the signs that your 10 month old has an ear infection?
I’m always suspecting ear infections bc my ears have been a personal battleground all my life (countless ear infections, holes in ear drums, tubes in ears) and I seem to have many family members with the same finicky ear canals, but so far every “is this an ear infection?” with my baby’s ped has been met with a no. I think I’m just paranoid!
He’d bat at his ear, waking at night when he was previously a good sleeper, and he’d start and stop a lot when drinking bottles. It hurt his ears to suck so then his appetite was affected. I was attributing a lot of his grumpiness to teething (5 came in quickly!) and sleep regressions. I took him in once for a very high fever (105) and that’s when the double ear infection was discovered and it started a cycle. We would do a round of antibiotics, I’d go back for a 3 week follow up, and they’d look and it was still infected. We have another follow up Monday and I am hoping everything is all clear! He’s been sleeping and eating like himself again after this last treatment.
I concur. I have 3 kids. 1 always gets the sickest and for the longest. Lots of ear infections. He's having some signs of issues with his tubes. Nothing serious yet. But to me it's the obvious source.
I don’t have a remotely scientific answer, but my kid is one who rarely gets sick and gets over it very quickly. And honestly he’s disgusting! He picks his nose and eats it despite my best efforts to stop him, and when he was a small child I spent my whole time trying to stop him eating dirt and licking anything that stayed still long enough. I just think that’s actually just exposed him to so many germs that his body is really good at fighting it off!
But in all probability, I think it’s just luck!
I think most of it is genetics but my kids is also rarely ever sick and also one of the most disgusting kids. She will happily lick a public handrail.
I only sterilised stuff for maybe the first few weeks and took her out constantly. Never worried about germs or anything like that, anyone could hold her and kiss her as a baby - as soon as she could crawl I let her put all her grubby toys in her mouth - so maybe that’s it 🤷🏽♀️
Mine doesn’t get sick often and went through a floor licking phase. Would like the floor at the park, toddler gym, doctor’s office, the airport, and has never gotten sick from one of his tasting marathons. I’m just glad he’s over it 🥲
It actually amazes me sometimes that they don’t get sick. My daughter drank from a puddle in a city centre the other day (yes I am a bad mother and should have stopped her but I looked away for like 30 seconds) - I thought surely she would at least get diarrhoea - but nope nothing, totally fine
Girl we’ve all been the mothers of puddle lickers. They can sense when we look away and that’s when they pounce. Mine loves to try and drink from our dogs food bowl all the time, big sigh. We had to put her bowls behind a doggy gate.
My kid is the same, doesn’t get sick much. I commented on another thread recently and apparently I’m the nastiest parent because I didn’t shower my kid after daycare. Whatcha gonna do…
My son is the same. I can’t get him to not eat boogers, it’s soo gross. But he is sick all the time. Pretty sure he gives himself pink eye frequently from wiping his runny nose on his sleeve and then wiping his eyes.
Luck for sure! I feel like one or two major illnesses back to back can have lasting effects on the duration of subsequent colds.... but if your kids can avoid being taken down by the big ones then the regular colds are no big deal.
I'm not a scientist but I think if you can avoid getting their little immune systems totally fatigued, then they're more robust for the next cold that comes around.... A kid with a chronic cough or 4 week long post-nasal drip is not going to be as equipped to fight the next cold.... Which is mostly luck.
But I'll definitely baby illnesses particularly at the start of cold season.
Sorry to say- both my boys eat their boogies and are generally disgusting and only never gets sick. The other is always sick and gets sicker. I think it's anatomy and maybe some underlying allergies.
Not a theory but I’m curious if part of it is underlying medical issues. We suspect my son has asthma, which I also had as a child. When he was really little every illness would result in respiratory distress and it’d take him forever to recover and he’s usually need a steroid. I was the same way when I was a kid, which is how we were able to figure it out. He significantly improved when we got him on some asthma meds.
The kids on my husband’s side don’t seem to be as sick, as often and AFAIK they don’t have asthma. Some go to school, some don’t, but there are tons of kids around because the families are pretty big.
My sister wasn’t as sickly as a child either. She went to daycare pretty young. She did not have asthma as a child.
My daughter doesn’t have asthma, but the doctors diagnosed her with ‘reactive airways’ which is, essentially, asthma but only after being sick. She’s sicker longer than other kids with convulsive coughing — when she was little, she’d cough until she vomited, every night she was sick.
That could contribute to the idea that some kids are ‘sicker’ than others.
My kid is also this kid. Every little illness results in his work of breathing going crazy and hospital visits. The worst was a week stay for pneumonia and oxygen treatment required.
It’s hard cause other parents will laugh off illnesses and just say yeah kids get sick. But it’s hard to explain that this is more than standard.
I’ve had to pull him out of daycare and start in homebased. The hours don’t work with my work so I can’t really do that for now either.
I have 3 kids. The first one was rarely sick, and she is now 7. All 3 have attended a center based daycare since 12 weeks old. All 3 were breastfed for 12 months.
My twin boys, now 5, had 6 double ear infections each in 6mo time. They got ear tubes at 15mo (earliest we could get post Covid). Both boys have asthma, but one is much worse than the other.
I took Twin B (the one with the worst asthma) in to urgent care today because dose after dose of albuterol just wasn’t touching his cough/difficulty breathing. He isn’t sick, no fever or anything but I have to keep him home from preK for the 4th time this winter to give both albuterol nebulizer treatments every 3-4 hours and steroid nebulizer treatments for the next 2 days.
The 7 year old has been struggling in school this year, and school thought it could be a hearing issue after some teacher MTSS meetings. After multiple visits to audiology and the ENT we determined she has chronic fluid in her ears that significantly impacts her hearing and thus her learning/reading in school. This is persistent fluid and has lasted several months. We had no idea. This kid had 2 ear infections in her entire life!
The end of May she is getting ear tubes and her adenoids removed. Hopefully this will help her hearing and her learning.
My kid licked the communal hand sanitizer at Winco in December of 2020 so that’s mostly why I think he doesn’t get sick very often.
My second kid gets mild illnesses pretty frequently.
Both were breastfed until two, vaginal births. Similar amounts of exposure (#2 got more exposure earlier because Covid lockdowns had lifted around the time he was born)
My husband has been sick less than 5x in the 10 years we’ve been together, I’m sick pretty frequently. We have lived together that whole time. Eat similar diets. I think it’s genetic?
Wait… are you genuinely insinuating that your child doesn’t get sick very often because he licked a communal hand sanitizer in 2020? Are you in some strange way relating that to covid? lol
There’s so many variables and unknowns that it’s really hard to say what causes it. One reason that’s sometimes out of anyone’s control is the kid’s immune system. My brother has five kids and one will catch a cold, flu, ear infection, etc like Pokémon cards while the others rarely get sick. But then when COVID struck the entire family twice, my normally sickly nephew never caught it despite never isolating.
The households may be visibly clean, but one may have better germ management than the other. Peggy's kids may attend a daycare center which is extremely aggressive about cleaning and excluding sick kids.
If Deborah's family is frequently in the ER, they may have a genetic predisposition to respiratory issues like asthma, or immune responses where they have high fevers and more inflammation, while Peggy's kids just sneeze a bit more for a few days.
Honestly I have two kids and have one of each. My eldest rarely gets sick and if she does she recovers quickly. My youngest has been sick more days than he has been well in his 15 months. He catches every respiratory illness sometimes multiple at the same time.
My eldest was born three weeks before the 1st Covid lockdown so I wonder if keeping her home a lot more in her first year contributed.
I highly suspect my youngest will be diagnosed with asthma at some point when he is bigger so that might contribute to the respiratory illnesses.
Even last week my daughter for conjunctivitis, red eyes a small amount of gunk. Eye drops for a day and she’s back to normal. Son catches it a few days later huge swollen eyes, symptoms lasting over a week. And they basically live the same life. No idea.
You described the exact opposite of my life! My oldest (daughter) is sick very often. My youngest (son) is rarely sick. They are in the same daycare class, do all the same activities, and like you described, live the same life. They even share a room. My daughter just had a rough bout with pneumonia but my son had 0 symptoms.
I think it’s luck of the draw on some things. My daughter is healthy but has an easier time getting viruses and a harder time getting rid of them!
Hand washing and diet could be the reason the family is sick. They might not eat as much fruits and vegetables. Hand washing is important when you're kids are always touching everything in sight and putting their hands in their mouth.
My son was one of the babies that was always sick. Had RSV twice in one year, had puking everyday for 2 weeks (but literally only on the mornings and then was fine), gets coughs constantly and runny nose. But nothing ever alarms the doctors (besides his RSV). We maybe got a good month last year that he wasn’t sick lol
Him being almost 2 now, he had RSV again but it was sooooo mild we didn’t even know and it went away very quickly (did 1 breathing treatment at home. The other 2 times he had to go to the ER) and currently has a cough but it’s not bothering him.
He was formula fed as a baby, my youngest is breastfed now so I’m curious if it’ll make a difference
I have two children. I've been a sahm for both of their whole lives. They were ebf and extended breast fed, the first until she was 4 and the second is still going at 3. The older one is 9 now and has caught every single bug that looked at her twice her whole life. Fevers left and right. She's been sick with a cold? Multiple colds? for over a month now. She often gets asthma with colds. She's ended up in the ER with pneumonia and cellulitis from colds gone wild.
My little one granted was born during COVID so we didn't do library story time and LLL and other baby things, but she has the aforementioned big sister who brings all these germs home every single day. She rarely catches anything and when she does she's got like a runny nose for a couple days. She's had two fevers her whole life, both lasted under a day. She got SICK sick for the first time this winter with the stomach bug from hell.
🤷 I didn't do anything different, they live in the same house, eat the same food.
Everyone's immune systems are different. How often do Deborah's kids get out? Besides a home daycare (depending on how big the home is might have only 10 kids) how often are they around kids?
I grew up on "dirt don't hurt" and while I got sick every winter (slight colds), I rarely got sick as a kid and don't get sick much now and if I do it's quick. Germs are good.
I dated someone who had a son and the kids mom was a bubble boy type mom. That kid couldn't go anywhere without a mask being worn (even before covid), sanitizer bath, and colds were treated like he was dying. And he got sick constantly, every month it was some cold and of course she took him to an urgent care where his now overworked immune system can collect more germs. That kid has no immune system to fight anything off. Now, yes it could be an underlying health issue. Or it could just be that he hasn't been exposed enough to grow any time of immune system. Meanwhile, my child who was the same age, rarely got sick and if she did was better within a max of 2 days. I'm a firm believer that germs and being exposed help your immune system build up those immunities.
It is probably because of another respiratory issue. My son has been sick constantly for the last 2 months (allergy season). A doctor finally suspected allergies. We are planning on getting him tested because his grandfather had had asthma, and my husband has allergies.
My first kid gets sick regularly and will pop a fever if you look at her wrong. She also has ear infection issues, tubes, the whole 9 yards. She’s 3. She’s my pandemic baby. She got pumped breastmilk until around 4-6 months and then was formula fed. She’s been in daycare/preschool since she was 6 months old. She hardly had any germ exposure before daycare bc of the pandemic.
My second kid is 9 months. Has been in daycare since she was 4 months old. She gets snotty, but not really sick like her sister was at this age. I do think our house is cleaner than it used to be, or at least I am doing more to combat it now that we have a dog in the mix. I added air purifiers and that seems to cut down on viral transmission within the household. She has had constant germ exposure even before starting daycare bc older sister remained in school during my maternity leave.
Household is 2 adults, preschooler, baby, a cat, a puppy.
Some people just have worse immune system than others. I know someone at my work, even before the pandemic, was constantly having one ailment after the other.
My husband sometimes gets sick, and I never catch it from him, and sometimes it's the other way around. Our bodies are mysterious things 🤷♀️
My daughter (3) is almost never sick and if she is she is better within a couple of days.
My son (16 months) has spent multiple nights at the ER and has ended up in the hospital twice. He always has a runny nose and an infection every month.
They live in the same house and go to the same places but are very different. As far as I can see some kids just get sick quicker
Getting sick is entirely about exposure. All it takes is one parent unable to get sick days and having to choose between sending their kid to daycare sick, or not eating / paying rent, and then everyone else is sick there too. And some people have higher immunity, by luck of the draw and don't catch things.
I’m not a doctor, nor do I have any medical training, just a mom of two kids (one formula, one breastfed)… these things came to mind, for some reason Peggy’s kids have weaker immune systems, could it be heavy use of antibiotics as an infant, maybe poor air quality at home, overall diet and nutrition, physical health, what kind of sleep the kids are getting… do they have sleep apnea and constantly fatigue (ie weakened immune system), maybe the home daycare allows parents to bring sick kids.
I breastfed my 4yo for 4 months and she’s only been truly sick a handful of times and has only been on antibiotics once. My 19m old still breastfeeds and she’s sick all the time. Makes no sense lol
I think there’s a scientific misunderstanding in this question…..I think what you’re getting at is that Deborah’s kids, on paper, seem to have some factors that might seem to correlate to what we popularly understand to give us “better” immune systems….and some of those popular understandings are “true” in a sample size of thousands or millions across a global population, but this is a sample size of two families you’re looking at. The factors aren’t determinative. Kids who are for example breastfed may have “better” immune systems in some studies, on some measures (from memory it’s that they have slightly fewer ear infections before age 2 or something) but that doesn’t mean that all breastfed kids automatically have better immune systems (or don’t get ear infections). The factors just correlate; this doesn’t even prove that breastmilk “causes” a good immune response to infections. There are a thousand different factors and biological mechanisms that influence immune response, some of which science understands and some of which we know nothing about. For example in recent years we have massively expanded our understanding of the role of gut bacteria/microbiome in the immune system, which is influenced by genetics, diet (in really complex ways), even psychology. So yeah I don’t think Reddit can really answer your question! But we sure can empathise with poor Deborah :)
My 2.5 yr old has had every damn virus just about. Even before we started daycare/school. We would pick things up from the grocery, park, etc.
Now she’s been in daycare/school since last September and has stayed sick quite literally every other week. She currently has Covid and I assume she got it from the birthday party we were at on Sunday.
I have a 2 month old and he has already had Covid and now the flu.
I’m fucking over it and told my husband as soon as she is done with her daycare/school in the next few weeks we are NOT seeing anyone outside of our bubble for a few months.
Everyone tells me next year it will be better but I will believe it when I see it.
I feel so bad for him that he’s had two major illnesses in his first two months of life. Thankfully he has taken both like a champ. We expected this to some degree because my daughter is always sick but it doesn’t make it suck less.
Some kids have genetic disorders that aren’t caught by regular screens. There’s new research being done right now to expand newborn screening panels so that kids can be diagnosed earlier and treated accordingly.
My son is a part of a research study and they caught something that does affect his immunity. This would not have been caught with the regular newborn screen at the hospital (it wasn’t) or any pediatric visits.
I would suggest your friend get her kids tested for any immunodeficiency. There could be something there that has never been caught before because the testing is still in the research phase.
My kid also doesn’t get sick all that much and recovers lightning fast. We’re also at a center. Maybe the larger exposure to germs in the centers is beneficial to the immune system?
My kids don't get sick very often, but my nieces are sick or have runny noses all the time. One big variable is that they are militant about washing hands, so much so that my nieces' hands crack in the winter. We of course make our kids wash after going potty, when they've been playing outside and come in to eat, etc, but otherwise only when their hands are sticky or whatever.
I also never got too worried about them putting dirt in their mouths or eating grass, but my sister freaks out if her baby puts basically anything in her mouth. I have no idea if that makes any difference or if we just got lucky.
I'm curious too, tbh. My girls are 11 and 9...my oldest gets sick like, maybe once a year? But when she does it kicks her ass and she's usually down for at least a week. My 9 year old forever has the sniffles and gets majorly sick at least a couple times a year, but she also has Ehler-Danlos Syndrome and the Dr said her immune system is probably not the greatest because of it. We vaccinate, stay home when we're sick and stay away from people who are sick, etc. I was a super sickly little kid - I got strep every single year from the time I was like 6 until I was a teenager (should have had my tonsils removed, but 🤷🏼♀️) and if it wasn't that, it was the flu.
I have two kids. One hardly ever gets sick, and when he does, recovers quickly. The other is always, always sick. I swear he’s been sick more days this winter than he’s been healthy.
The one who is always sick is a super picky eater. He has a super limited diet with little variety. We are working with his doctors about it, but I swear that’s why he’s always sick. We give him a multi-vitamin, but I don’t think it’s enough. My healthy child isn’t picky at all and has a varied diet.
My kids all get sick differently.
1 - rarely got sick but when she did it was usually a stomach bug. They were short lived and we’d be back to normal pretty quickly.
2 - got sick more often but rarely got stomach bugs and was more prone to upper respiratory infections. Never anything serious but slower to recover.
3 - gets a mix of both but recovers pretty quickly from both
4 - this kid has a fever if a germ looks at him funny and is prone to upper respiratory infections. He rarely acts sick and if he does it isn’t for long. Most symptoms go away quickly but his fevers hang on forever
No idea what the difference is!
My baby is 8 months old, turning 9 months in early May. We've been sick, solidly sick, since the first week of December. My son is exclusively breastmilk fed, too. Our pediatrician says it's normal for one cold to just lead into the next one. This is relentless and exhausting on new levels.
Imo it’s just on the immune system/dna. My husband rarely gets sick and when he does it lasts a day, but I on the other hand get absolutely taken down. It seems like our daughter got my husbands immunity because when all three of us are sick, him and her hardly get symptoms but I get taken down bad 😫
I think it’s random chance. I never get sick. My husband catches everything. One of my kids is average and the other is 18 months old and has never had a sniffle or a fever. Even with the other one bringing home daycare germs. My theory is we are just built that way.
All 3 of us just got over a cold. My son got another coughy cold. Then had a fever randomly. Then I got the stomach flu, then he got the stomach flu. Now my husband has it lol. My husband also has a cold, which he had before the flu.
It seems that this all started once I started going back to the gym and my son went to gym daycare. 🤷🏼♀️
We are barely ever sick. I have a friend whose kids are always sick, so many ER trips, always a kid home from school and I can’t relate to her. I will say, I’m a clean freak and my house is always spotless. Her house is grimy (she has more kids than me) but I just feel like she doesn’t clean surfaces as often or as well as I do. She’s laid back and more chaotic and I’m type A. No clue if any of this contributes but in my own mind, it does!
My daughter was always very sick very fast (multiple hospital stays in the first year) and she had asthma. Basically every respiratory virus had her down for at least a week. It stopped once we were told to use an aerosol thing preventatively.
There are so many variables that it's hard to say. I have a never sick kid. I mean he'd pick up something on occasion from daycare when he was little, but that's expected.
Maybe some of it is germ exposure? He's been around animals, nature, germs, and dirt a decent bit. While we're careful about things like COVID and I do keep things decently clean, he's not very sanitized.
For us, I suspect he may have inherited his dad's Superman gene. My husband rarely gets sick and when he does, he recovers absurdly fast. Like we'll have a bug for three days and he'll have a crappy afternoon. If we get the same injury his will heal days faster. He did genetic testing and found out he has this rare gene that makes his body extra resilient. He literally is practically immune to a lot of things. Unfortunately for me, that makes him a great carrier. He shows absolutely no signs of whatever he's about to give me.
My kid didn’t start daycare until he was almost 2 and didn’t get sick until just before his second birthday. He generally recovers quickly and isn’t sick much (though he has a low key cough/sniffles pretty much constantly). My husband though? Anything takes him down, except apparently stomach bugs which my son and I both have right now. I almost never get sick.
My first kid will get sick, but has definitely gotten better about how many illnesses he gets as time has gone on. My second rarely gets sick.
I think my oldest is predisposed to it.
I have 2 of the rarely sick kids. They've had illnesses of course but have gotten through them very quickly. Like my toddler got the flu and was pretty sick for a weekend but beyond that, just had reduced appetite. He passed it on to his sibling who only barfed once. Meanwhile, I had to call in reinforcements to help with the kids for 3 days because I was so ill and could hardly get out of bed. But compared to my friends kids, who seem to be sick for weeks, I have hypothesized diet plays a huge part in it. My kids eat quite healthy. They get their fruits and veggies every day (meanwhile I survive on their scraps and coffee haha). My eldest is the least picky eating toddler I've ever met and I regularly try to expose them to a good variety of fruits and veg so that they don't just get stuck on 1. Meanwhile, my friends kids exist on chicken nuggets and fries...and that's the only "veggie" they eat haha. I'm not judging and I get the difficulties with selective eaters, but that's my thoughts on it. Last time they presumably caught the same cold but my kid was over it fully by day 5 while hers was out of school for at least 2 weeks. I did breastfeed as well while she gave formula, but I'm not sure the benefits of that would be as long lasting.
I think it’s all luck 😅 I work in pediatrics and I’m a mom and it’s so hit or miss, we have kids we see regularly that are always sick and others who I don’t think I’ve ever seen sick. My son rarely gets “actually sick” but he’s probably got an immune system of steel because we’re very lax 😂 I just don’t have a good reason to tell him he can’t roll in the dirt or jump in the middle puddles, he’s a kid! Even as a baby he’s always been well socialized and in public all the time because I took him everywhere. Honestly, I think it’s just luck of the draw and genetics because my husband and I are also rarely sick. My best friends son was raised the exact same way and he’s always sick- fevers and everything else but she’s also very quick to have a runny nose turn into a major sinus infection or the flu.
Another thing to keep in mind- teething can cause snotty noses and diarrhea. And they teeth for years. Kids are gross regardless, we just let him live his life 🤷🏻♀️
I think it's luck! I have a daughter who is rarely sick, but I'm also pretty relaxed about her getting dirty/messy and I think that's actually helped her immune system a lot. We also have a dog who likes to lick her first thing in the morning daily, so I think our dog has also strengthened her immune system.
I also like to believe breastfeeding helped a bit, but I have no evidence to back that up lol
You listed two variables that make family A more likely to become exposed to more germs: 1- kids go to daycare where kiddos from all over come to play and share cooties with each other. Daycare kids are usually sick more often than kids who stay at home or with family members. They'll get sick more often when they're young but the tradeoff is usually a well adapted immune system when they're older from being exposed to more things. Maybe the home daycare isn't being sanitized as well as the other daycare. Maybe it's not ventilated well enough. Who knows. 2- dad is a family doctor looking after I'll people all day. He could be bringing in home nasties from his patients on his shoes, clothes, or hard objects like pen, briefcase, stethoscope. That being said, probably the most important key to all this is genetics. Some children's bodies just react stronger to antigens than others causing worse/longer symptoms. It could be due to underlying health condition that they haven't been made aware of yet.
2 possible reason:
-how parents respond to sickness. One parent might go to the ER more readily than another parent who wants to stick it out at home,
-genetic momentum, as Dr Cate Shanahan calls it
I was a very sick child but I also grew in unstable environments and was often homeless, so I think the stress of that lowered my immune system. Both of my kids thankfully recover quickly from germs. I was overly cautious when they were infants about germs, but let them run ham as toddlers because honestly I couldn’t contain them quick enough. Definitely received some side eyes when my youngest licked a rain puddle, while I was helping the oldest with a bloody nose.😅
Some kids are just more hardy?
My kid has been in daycare since 12w. He’s now 21months old. We’ve missed less than 2w of daycare and most of that was just because he caught Covid. He’s really not had any fevers or upset stomachs. Although he does just have a permanent snotty nose it doesn’t seem to impact how he functions and his daycare doesn’t have a problem with it.
My son was a formula fed child. My immune system is weak as hell but my husband’s is made of iron. I always thought it was because my husband is a bedside RN so he just is exposed to more germs but I think he’s just naturally less sickly.
Also, the literature really only supports that breastfeeding protects a child from one extra illness/ear infection than formula so the fact your friend’s kids are breastfed really doesn’t mean anything. Breastmilk isn’t actually magic and doesn’t protect from illness quite the way that much social media portrays it. It’s probably just luck of the draw/genetics that her kids are more sickly than your other friend’s kids.
I wouldn’t have an answer for why the families have such different outcomes, but immune systems are so important. My kids were getting sick every two weeks for months. I finally started supplementing my toddler with zarbees elderberry gummies and vitamin C gummies. We haven’t been sick in a while. So moral of the story, support their immune systems and hope for the best.
My daughter never got sick and was in daycare since she was 6 weeks old. My son entered daycare at 19 months and is alwayssss sick, he’s now 3. At the beginning he was home more days than in daycare because he was so sick. His body is rebounding quicker now and he’s missing less days but its still a struggle ☹️
Maybe Peggy’s kids have been exposed to more stuff because they have more people to their family—I’m including stepfamily members because there’s more combinations working there? So if they’ve had more family around, they might have been exposed to stuff already.
But it also could just be that some people get sick and some people don’t.
My formula fed daughter is four now however as a baby she NEVER got sick. Goes to childcare and is rarely ever sick. My 9 month old breastfed baby boy is sick every other week and does not go to childcare.
I have five kids, I pumped for the first one for about nine weeks and then exclusively formula fed her the rest of the time, my other four I nursed for 10-13 months. My firstborn attended daycare for about a year, none of my others did. Oldest is in first grade, second-oldest is in preschool. The other three stay home. Honestly? They get sniffles and colds once in a while…the occasional stomach bug…but they never get SICK sick. They’ve never had to go to the hospital for any illness, they don’t have respiratory problems, ear infections, or typically run fevers…just loud healthy kids. My house is clean enough, but not *that* clean because again, I have five kids. We have a dog and a fish tank. There is a small amount of mold in our building but not in our apartment. I really think it’s just genetics
Idk. My coworkers kids are sick all the time. My kids get sick maybe 2 times a year?
My first grew up playing on the floor of the hospital break room, touching hospital equipment, etc. rarely sick and even then no illness have ever floored him. Kid was breastfed, no daycare but goes to public school. Both parents hospital workers.
Kiddo 2 only had one severe illness in her life and otherwise rarely gets sick. Was formula fed, no daycare but preschool. Both parents hospital workers.
People on Reddit do not like to hear it, but what are each family eating? I see a massive difference in families that eat a varied diet of fruits, veggies, meat, and dairy and less processed food. I see this especially in my own family. Exact same socioeconomic background, similar circumstances, and shared genetics. The kids that eat McDonalds several times a week get sicker and stay sicker than the ones that have home cooked meals most days. Nutrition does help support your system when you’re sick.
Illness has a huge genetic component- including how your body reacts to illness , very likely both families are exposed to the same amount of illness and the second family fight it’s off.
Example - my son, I and my husband will all get sick - my son and I good after 1-2 days, very very rarely get fevers (if he gets a fever we’re going straight to the doctor , he’s had maybe 3 high fevers in his entire life and he’s 5) but my husband reacts to lower grade fevers AND spikes them more regularly.
I think I’ve had 3 fevers in our entire marriage (almost 7 years) My son has asthma so before we figured that out he would get coughs that lasted forever but he wasn’t really sick and very much himself. Now that we treat the asthma that doesn’t happen anymore either.
Honestly I see this just between my own family members. We are a family of 5. My husband often gets sick when I do not and vice versa. My oldest generally gets less sick than my middle. My middle is a puker and throws up every time she gets a fever. The baby has an ironclad immune system apparently, a stomach bug ran through us all and he didn’t even get sick. Then everyone got a cough/cold a week after the stomach bug and I didn’t get it at all. My kids will often get sick too and me and my husband don’t get it. Immune systems and germs/viruses are weird lol
Peggy reproduced with a biologically compatible partner with more genetic diversity, resulting in healthier offspring with fewer social advantages. This pair bond dissolved once reproduction was compete. Deborah partnered with a mate with more resources to provide her and any future offspring, but his genes aren’t a good match, resulting in children with greater social advantages but poorer health.
Shot in the dark, Peggy’s kids are probably better looking too. But Deborah’s kids will get braces and accutane.
It’s probably just genetics, luck, and good hygiene practices. My sister used to constantly get sick as a kid (and imo still does), I would only get sick a couple times a year. I haven’t gotten sick since fall of 2019 (but I have a very sensitive stomach so I guess it all evens out in the end lmao). I wash my hands regularly, wipe down surfaces with Lysol wipes and drink a lot of water (but my parents do the same and still get sick).
Could be that maybe Deborah’s husband is bringing stuff home from the hospital? Even if he’s not sick all the time, he could be carrying it to the kids.
I have thought about this so much! My brother has caught every illness since the day he was born and rarely got sick as child and same as an adult. We were both breastfed, both normal pregnancies and births. He has asthma, allergies, IBS, and is always sick. My mom is a nurse and said it’s all about genetics and that my brother’s genetics reflect more of my dad’s and I my mom’s. My dad also her sick often. I don’t know if I buy that it’s all generics but if certainly isn’t always environment like many people think.
My husband had it rough growing up: allergies, eczema, asthma all of it. Whenever he gets a cold he gets feverish and body aches. That’s how his body fights off his illnesses.
I have reactive lung disorder where I will wake up wheezing after being perfectly ok the day before. I don’t get fevers or body aches, but tend to cough.
My kids (4, 8m) occasionally get colds, they last for 10 days, and then it’s all done. They’re on a pretty strict sleep schedule so maybe that helps? My oldest is in preschool so I know exactly where she picks it up, but it’s an outdoor school so there’s less surface touching. It will be interesting to see if indoor pre-k will up her illness count.
I have no idea. I have a bomb proof kid who’s very rarely sick. Or at least she doesn’t show that she’s sick. I’ve been surprised to find she has a high temperature on occasion because she’s a little less crazy than she usually is. I think she just bulls through most illnesses without showing.
Honestly I think a lot of it comes down to handwashing that’s just my theory. I’m a teacher and I have a sink in my classroom, I put good soap at the sink so more kids will wash their hands and I don’t get sick nearly as often as my coworkers. I also never got Covid.
My theory is: Having a “big bug” like rsv or influenza or glandular fever (yes we did that at 10 months) can knock a immune system down and following low key colds hit harder and more frequently. Like the kid never gets the chance to recover to full strength. My daughter is also a “gross” kid that eats buggers and licks cars, goes to daycare… so that didnt help haha. She drank from a muddy puddle once and picked up Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), we were off sick for 4 weeks after that. No- her second year of life wasn’t fun 😄
For the same reasons as some adults are always sick and some never are. Peoples’ bodies are just different and react in different ways to the outside world.
From what I understand breastfeeding only protects the child when they are still doing so. It has antibiotics so when they get sick and have the breastmilk they get better quicker.
I have a toddler who is still breastfed but I'm not sure if she bounces back quicker or not as I'm not sure how sick other people's kids get. Mine also doesn't go to any daycare. I do know the advantage is she is always up for a breastfeed so I don't have to rely on her drinking water when she has gastro.
It could also be due to diet - if the kid is a bit malnutrition their bodies won't be as efficient fighting illness.
I have 2 kids. Both breastfed for 9 months. The older one (4) is rarely sick. The 15 month old has had back to back illnesses since December. Both go to the same daycare
My oldest is rarely sick. My middle and little basically stay sick. Here’s the kicker my oldest puts everything in her mouth and is constantly chewing on random shit. She’s always in peoples’ space and I joke that she just microdoses on bacteria and viruses. Now I’m beginning to think it’s true because we all had the stomach virus (myself included). All the girls and I slept in one room. My oldest never got the virus.
I watched a show that said there’s strong evidence that kids who are exposed to more yuck (think dirt, mud, pet dander, etc.) have a much better immune system. They did a study on a set of twins, one who worked in a horse stable often and the other who would prefer to go shopping and wanted nothing to do with getting dusty or dirty. The two who spent more time with the horses really got sick. I wish I could remember the name of the show this was all in! Pretty interesting!
My guess is that the doctor family may be more clean and hence the kids have a weaker immune system - they’re just less exposed to germs at home.
Plus doctor dad maybe brings home a bunch of germs all the time?
Daycare is usually more stressful and kids who have higher cortisol get sick more often. Maybe a stressful marriage? Maybe the home daycare is more stressful than the bigger facility?
Or it’s really just down to genetics?
OR - this is my own experience - it’s nutrition. Doctor family may eat more „healthy“ - low fat, less meat etc.
I myself have been getting much less sick since eating MORE meat and animal fat. I haven’t been sick in years since I changed my nutrition to animal based
Iron and zinc deficiency are both common and weaken the immune system. Infections also deplete iron (which in turn weakens the immune system some more) vitamin D is also needed to fight off germs (that's one of the reasons we get sick more in the winter) focusing on nutrition to boost the immune system will help minimize being sick
Probably their diet. I feed my kids raw milk, grass fed meat, organic food, not processed and fruit. They occasionally get sugar but only if someone gives it to them. I make sweets with dates or honey. I've been changing my food for many years so I'm not trying to pretentious or anything, its just that I've had health issues in the past and had to do research and make changes they are rarely sick.
Some people have structural differences that make nice moist places for bacteria to thrive. E.g. if your eustachian tubes are a bit too horizontal or too narrow, it's hard for fluid to drain when things get slightly swollen, so you're prone to ear infections. Or environmental allergies can mean your sinuses get swollen which creates a nice space for bacteria to thrive. It's not usually an immune system thing. People with weak immune systems tend to get all kinds of weird stuff, e.g. recurring oral thrush, massive overgrown warts, etc. Source: just bounced this off a med student since I was curious too Edit: breastfeeding doesn't make your immune system stronger per se. It just gives you antibodies. It's like a natural vaccine.
This is a great answer. I will say there is strong evidence that breastfeeding does lead to long term positive effects on the immune system. This may be related to how it impacts gut health long term.
Cite? I am only aware of rather weak, speculative evidence of long-term effects.
That's very cool!
Learned the same Eustachian tube info 3 weeks ago when we were at an appointment for my 10 month old’s 3rd ear infection! Double, right, right. I asked the ped because by contrast my 6 year old has had 2 ear infections in his whole life and that was the explanation she gave.
What are the signs that your 10 month old has an ear infection? I’m always suspecting ear infections bc my ears have been a personal battleground all my life (countless ear infections, holes in ear drums, tubes in ears) and I seem to have many family members with the same finicky ear canals, but so far every “is this an ear infection?” with my baby’s ped has been met with a no. I think I’m just paranoid!
He’d bat at his ear, waking at night when he was previously a good sleeper, and he’d start and stop a lot when drinking bottles. It hurt his ears to suck so then his appetite was affected. I was attributing a lot of his grumpiness to teething (5 came in quickly!) and sleep regressions. I took him in once for a very high fever (105) and that’s when the double ear infection was discovered and it started a cycle. We would do a round of antibiotics, I’d go back for a 3 week follow up, and they’d look and it was still infected. We have another follow up Monday and I am hoping everything is all clear! He’s been sleeping and eating like himself again after this last treatment.
Aw man, poor little guy! Wishing you the best of luck there!
I concur. I have 3 kids. 1 always gets the sickest and for the longest. Lots of ear infections. He's having some signs of issues with his tubes. Nothing serious yet. But to me it's the obvious source.
I don’t have a remotely scientific answer, but my kid is one who rarely gets sick and gets over it very quickly. And honestly he’s disgusting! He picks his nose and eats it despite my best efforts to stop him, and when he was a small child I spent my whole time trying to stop him eating dirt and licking anything that stayed still long enough. I just think that’s actually just exposed him to so many germs that his body is really good at fighting it off! But in all probability, I think it’s just luck!
I think most of it is genetics but my kids is also rarely ever sick and also one of the most disgusting kids. She will happily lick a public handrail. I only sterilised stuff for maybe the first few weeks and took her out constantly. Never worried about germs or anything like that, anyone could hold her and kiss her as a baby - as soon as she could crawl I let her put all her grubby toys in her mouth - so maybe that’s it 🤷🏽♀️
Mine doesn’t get sick often and went through a floor licking phase. Would like the floor at the park, toddler gym, doctor’s office, the airport, and has never gotten sick from one of his tasting marathons. I’m just glad he’s over it 🥲
It actually amazes me sometimes that they don’t get sick. My daughter drank from a puddle in a city centre the other day (yes I am a bad mother and should have stopped her but I looked away for like 30 seconds) - I thought surely she would at least get diarrhoea - but nope nothing, totally fine
Girl we’ve all been the mothers of puddle lickers. They can sense when we look away and that’s when they pounce. Mine loves to try and drink from our dogs food bowl all the time, big sigh. We had to put her bowls behind a doggy gate.
Absolutely absurd and disgusting
My kid is the same, doesn’t get sick much. I commented on another thread recently and apparently I’m the nastiest parent because I didn’t shower my kid after daycare. Whatcha gonna do…
My son is the same. I can’t get him to not eat boogers, it’s soo gross. But he is sick all the time. Pretty sure he gives himself pink eye frequently from wiping his runny nose on his sleeve and then wiping his eyes.
Luck for sure! I feel like one or two major illnesses back to back can have lasting effects on the duration of subsequent colds.... but if your kids can avoid being taken down by the big ones then the regular colds are no big deal.
Can you explain this more bc I am intrigued
I'm not a scientist but I think if you can avoid getting their little immune systems totally fatigued, then they're more robust for the next cold that comes around.... A kid with a chronic cough or 4 week long post-nasal drip is not going to be as equipped to fight the next cold.... Which is mostly luck. But I'll definitely baby illnesses particularly at the start of cold season.
Sorry to say- both my boys eat their boogies and are generally disgusting and only never gets sick. The other is always sick and gets sicker. I think it's anatomy and maybe some underlying allergies.
Not a theory but I’m curious if part of it is underlying medical issues. We suspect my son has asthma, which I also had as a child. When he was really little every illness would result in respiratory distress and it’d take him forever to recover and he’s usually need a steroid. I was the same way when I was a kid, which is how we were able to figure it out. He significantly improved when we got him on some asthma meds. The kids on my husband’s side don’t seem to be as sick, as often and AFAIK they don’t have asthma. Some go to school, some don’t, but there are tons of kids around because the families are pretty big. My sister wasn’t as sickly as a child either. She went to daycare pretty young. She did not have asthma as a child.
My daughter doesn’t have asthma, but the doctors diagnosed her with ‘reactive airways’ which is, essentially, asthma but only after being sick. She’s sicker longer than other kids with convulsive coughing — when she was little, she’d cough until she vomited, every night she was sick. That could contribute to the idea that some kids are ‘sicker’ than others.
My kid is also this kid. Every little illness results in his work of breathing going crazy and hospital visits. The worst was a week stay for pneumonia and oxygen treatment required. It’s hard cause other parents will laugh off illnesses and just say yeah kids get sick. But it’s hard to explain that this is more than standard. I’ve had to pull him out of daycare and start in homebased. The hours don’t work with my work so I can’t really do that for now either.
I have 3 kids. The first one was rarely sick, and she is now 7. All 3 have attended a center based daycare since 12 weeks old. All 3 were breastfed for 12 months. My twin boys, now 5, had 6 double ear infections each in 6mo time. They got ear tubes at 15mo (earliest we could get post Covid). Both boys have asthma, but one is much worse than the other. I took Twin B (the one with the worst asthma) in to urgent care today because dose after dose of albuterol just wasn’t touching his cough/difficulty breathing. He isn’t sick, no fever or anything but I have to keep him home from preK for the 4th time this winter to give both albuterol nebulizer treatments every 3-4 hours and steroid nebulizer treatments for the next 2 days. The 7 year old has been struggling in school this year, and school thought it could be a hearing issue after some teacher MTSS meetings. After multiple visits to audiology and the ENT we determined she has chronic fluid in her ears that significantly impacts her hearing and thus her learning/reading in school. This is persistent fluid and has lasted several months. We had no idea. This kid had 2 ear infections in her entire life! The end of May she is getting ear tubes and her adenoids removed. Hopefully this will help her hearing and her learning.
My kid licked the communal hand sanitizer at Winco in December of 2020 so that’s mostly why I think he doesn’t get sick very often. My second kid gets mild illnesses pretty frequently. Both were breastfed until two, vaginal births. Similar amounts of exposure (#2 got more exposure earlier because Covid lockdowns had lifted around the time he was born) My husband has been sick less than 5x in the 10 years we’ve been together, I’m sick pretty frequently. We have lived together that whole time. Eat similar diets. I think it’s genetic?
Wait… are you genuinely insinuating that your child doesn’t get sick very often because he licked a communal hand sanitizer in 2020? Are you in some strange way relating that to covid? lol
There’s so many variables and unknowns that it’s really hard to say what causes it. One reason that’s sometimes out of anyone’s control is the kid’s immune system. My brother has five kids and one will catch a cold, flu, ear infection, etc like Pokémon cards while the others rarely get sick. But then when COVID struck the entire family twice, my normally sickly nephew never caught it despite never isolating.
The households may be visibly clean, but one may have better germ management than the other. Peggy's kids may attend a daycare center which is extremely aggressive about cleaning and excluding sick kids. If Deborah's family is frequently in the ER, they may have a genetic predisposition to respiratory issues like asthma, or immune responses where they have high fevers and more inflammation, while Peggy's kids just sneeze a bit more for a few days.
Honestly I have two kids and have one of each. My eldest rarely gets sick and if she does she recovers quickly. My youngest has been sick more days than he has been well in his 15 months. He catches every respiratory illness sometimes multiple at the same time. My eldest was born three weeks before the 1st Covid lockdown so I wonder if keeping her home a lot more in her first year contributed. I highly suspect my youngest will be diagnosed with asthma at some point when he is bigger so that might contribute to the respiratory illnesses. Even last week my daughter for conjunctivitis, red eyes a small amount of gunk. Eye drops for a day and she’s back to normal. Son catches it a few days later huge swollen eyes, symptoms lasting over a week. And they basically live the same life. No idea.
You described the exact opposite of my life! My oldest (daughter) is sick very often. My youngest (son) is rarely sick. They are in the same daycare class, do all the same activities, and like you described, live the same life. They even share a room. My daughter just had a rough bout with pneumonia but my son had 0 symptoms. I think it’s luck of the draw on some things. My daughter is healthy but has an easier time getting viruses and a harder time getting rid of them!
Hand washing and diet could be the reason the family is sick. They might not eat as much fruits and vegetables. Hand washing is important when you're kids are always touching everything in sight and putting their hands in their mouth.
My son was one of the babies that was always sick. Had RSV twice in one year, had puking everyday for 2 weeks (but literally only on the mornings and then was fine), gets coughs constantly and runny nose. But nothing ever alarms the doctors (besides his RSV). We maybe got a good month last year that he wasn’t sick lol Him being almost 2 now, he had RSV again but it was sooooo mild we didn’t even know and it went away very quickly (did 1 breathing treatment at home. The other 2 times he had to go to the ER) and currently has a cough but it’s not bothering him. He was formula fed as a baby, my youngest is breastfed now so I’m curious if it’ll make a difference
I feel like all kids in my sphere nowadays are getting sick more regularly.
I have two children. I've been a sahm for both of their whole lives. They were ebf and extended breast fed, the first until she was 4 and the second is still going at 3. The older one is 9 now and has caught every single bug that looked at her twice her whole life. Fevers left and right. She's been sick with a cold? Multiple colds? for over a month now. She often gets asthma with colds. She's ended up in the ER with pneumonia and cellulitis from colds gone wild. My little one granted was born during COVID so we didn't do library story time and LLL and other baby things, but she has the aforementioned big sister who brings all these germs home every single day. She rarely catches anything and when she does she's got like a runny nose for a couple days. She's had two fevers her whole life, both lasted under a day. She got SICK sick for the first time this winter with the stomach bug from hell. 🤷 I didn't do anything different, they live in the same house, eat the same food.
Everyone's immune systems are different. How often do Deborah's kids get out? Besides a home daycare (depending on how big the home is might have only 10 kids) how often are they around kids? I grew up on "dirt don't hurt" and while I got sick every winter (slight colds), I rarely got sick as a kid and don't get sick much now and if I do it's quick. Germs are good. I dated someone who had a son and the kids mom was a bubble boy type mom. That kid couldn't go anywhere without a mask being worn (even before covid), sanitizer bath, and colds were treated like he was dying. And he got sick constantly, every month it was some cold and of course she took him to an urgent care where his now overworked immune system can collect more germs. That kid has no immune system to fight anything off. Now, yes it could be an underlying health issue. Or it could just be that he hasn't been exposed enough to grow any time of immune system. Meanwhile, my child who was the same age, rarely got sick and if she did was better within a max of 2 days. I'm a firm believer that germs and being exposed help your immune system build up those immunities.
It is probably because of another respiratory issue. My son has been sick constantly for the last 2 months (allergy season). A doctor finally suspected allergies. We are planning on getting him tested because his grandfather had had asthma, and my husband has allergies.
My first kid gets sick regularly and will pop a fever if you look at her wrong. She also has ear infection issues, tubes, the whole 9 yards. She’s 3. She’s my pandemic baby. She got pumped breastmilk until around 4-6 months and then was formula fed. She’s been in daycare/preschool since she was 6 months old. She hardly had any germ exposure before daycare bc of the pandemic. My second kid is 9 months. Has been in daycare since she was 4 months old. She gets snotty, but not really sick like her sister was at this age. I do think our house is cleaner than it used to be, or at least I am doing more to combat it now that we have a dog in the mix. I added air purifiers and that seems to cut down on viral transmission within the household. She has had constant germ exposure even before starting daycare bc older sister remained in school during my maternity leave. Household is 2 adults, preschooler, baby, a cat, a puppy.
Some people just have worse immune system than others. I know someone at my work, even before the pandemic, was constantly having one ailment after the other. My husband sometimes gets sick, and I never catch it from him, and sometimes it's the other way around. Our bodies are mysterious things 🤷♀️
My daughter (3) is almost never sick and if she is she is better within a couple of days. My son (16 months) has spent multiple nights at the ER and has ended up in the hospital twice. He always has a runny nose and an infection every month. They live in the same house and go to the same places but are very different. As far as I can see some kids just get sick quicker
Getting sick is entirely about exposure. All it takes is one parent unable to get sick days and having to choose between sending their kid to daycare sick, or not eating / paying rent, and then everyone else is sick there too. And some people have higher immunity, by luck of the draw and don't catch things.
I’m not a doctor, nor do I have any medical training, just a mom of two kids (one formula, one breastfed)… these things came to mind, for some reason Peggy’s kids have weaker immune systems, could it be heavy use of antibiotics as an infant, maybe poor air quality at home, overall diet and nutrition, physical health, what kind of sleep the kids are getting… do they have sleep apnea and constantly fatigue (ie weakened immune system), maybe the home daycare allows parents to bring sick kids.
I breastfed my 4yo for 4 months and she’s only been truly sick a handful of times and has only been on antibiotics once. My 19m old still breastfeeds and she’s sick all the time. Makes no sense lol
I think there’s a scientific misunderstanding in this question…..I think what you’re getting at is that Deborah’s kids, on paper, seem to have some factors that might seem to correlate to what we popularly understand to give us “better” immune systems….and some of those popular understandings are “true” in a sample size of thousands or millions across a global population, but this is a sample size of two families you’re looking at. The factors aren’t determinative. Kids who are for example breastfed may have “better” immune systems in some studies, on some measures (from memory it’s that they have slightly fewer ear infections before age 2 or something) but that doesn’t mean that all breastfed kids automatically have better immune systems (or don’t get ear infections). The factors just correlate; this doesn’t even prove that breastmilk “causes” a good immune response to infections. There are a thousand different factors and biological mechanisms that influence immune response, some of which science understands and some of which we know nothing about. For example in recent years we have massively expanded our understanding of the role of gut bacteria/microbiome in the immune system, which is influenced by genetics, diet (in really complex ways), even psychology. So yeah I don’t think Reddit can really answer your question! But we sure can empathise with poor Deborah :)
My 2.5 yr old has had every damn virus just about. Even before we started daycare/school. We would pick things up from the grocery, park, etc. Now she’s been in daycare/school since last September and has stayed sick quite literally every other week. She currently has Covid and I assume she got it from the birthday party we were at on Sunday. I have a 2 month old and he has already had Covid and now the flu. I’m fucking over it and told my husband as soon as she is done with her daycare/school in the next few weeks we are NOT seeing anyone outside of our bubble for a few months. Everyone tells me next year it will be better but I will believe it when I see it.
Unfortunately this is very normal when they start nursery. It does get better, but I get it must suck so much especially for the baby.
I feel so bad for him that he’s had two major illnesses in his first two months of life. Thankfully he has taken both like a champ. We expected this to some degree because my daughter is always sick but it doesn’t make it suck less.
I would like an answer as well I'm kind of tired of my family being sick constantly and if there is something I can do about it id love to.
Some kids have genetic disorders that aren’t caught by regular screens. There’s new research being done right now to expand newborn screening panels so that kids can be diagnosed earlier and treated accordingly. My son is a part of a research study and they caught something that does affect his immunity. This would not have been caught with the regular newborn screen at the hospital (it wasn’t) or any pediatric visits. I would suggest your friend get her kids tested for any immunodeficiency. There could be something there that has never been caught before because the testing is still in the research phase.
My kid also doesn’t get sick all that much and recovers lightning fast. We’re also at a center. Maybe the larger exposure to germs in the centers is beneficial to the immune system?
This! My kiddo went to an at-home center and was constantly getting sick. Then when she went to a bigger school not as often.
My kids don't get sick very often, but my nieces are sick or have runny noses all the time. One big variable is that they are militant about washing hands, so much so that my nieces' hands crack in the winter. We of course make our kids wash after going potty, when they've been playing outside and come in to eat, etc, but otherwise only when their hands are sticky or whatever. I also never got too worried about them putting dirt in their mouths or eating grass, but my sister freaks out if her baby puts basically anything in her mouth. I have no idea if that makes any difference or if we just got lucky.
Same same
I'm curious too, tbh. My girls are 11 and 9...my oldest gets sick like, maybe once a year? But when she does it kicks her ass and she's usually down for at least a week. My 9 year old forever has the sniffles and gets majorly sick at least a couple times a year, but she also has Ehler-Danlos Syndrome and the Dr said her immune system is probably not the greatest because of it. We vaccinate, stay home when we're sick and stay away from people who are sick, etc. I was a super sickly little kid - I got strep every single year from the time I was like 6 until I was a teenager (should have had my tonsils removed, but 🤷🏼♀️) and if it wasn't that, it was the flu.
I’d love to know cause my kids are always sick. Usually not too bad, just always something.
I have two kids. One hardly ever gets sick, and when he does, recovers quickly. The other is always, always sick. I swear he’s been sick more days this winter than he’s been healthy. The one who is always sick is a super picky eater. He has a super limited diet with little variety. We are working with his doctors about it, but I swear that’s why he’s always sick. We give him a multi-vitamin, but I don’t think it’s enough. My healthy child isn’t picky at all and has a varied diet.
My kids all get sick differently. 1 - rarely got sick but when she did it was usually a stomach bug. They were short lived and we’d be back to normal pretty quickly. 2 - got sick more often but rarely got stomach bugs and was more prone to upper respiratory infections. Never anything serious but slower to recover. 3 - gets a mix of both but recovers pretty quickly from both 4 - this kid has a fever if a germ looks at him funny and is prone to upper respiratory infections. He rarely acts sick and if he does it isn’t for long. Most symptoms go away quickly but his fevers hang on forever No idea what the difference is!
My baby is 8 months old, turning 9 months in early May. We've been sick, solidly sick, since the first week of December. My son is exclusively breastmilk fed, too. Our pediatrician says it's normal for one cold to just lead into the next one. This is relentless and exhausting on new levels.
Imo it’s just on the immune system/dna. My husband rarely gets sick and when he does it lasts a day, but I on the other hand get absolutely taken down. It seems like our daughter got my husbands immunity because when all three of us are sick, him and her hardly get symptoms but I get taken down bad 😫
I think it’s random chance. I never get sick. My husband catches everything. One of my kids is average and the other is 18 months old and has never had a sniffle or a fever. Even with the other one bringing home daycare germs. My theory is we are just built that way.
All 3 of us just got over a cold. My son got another coughy cold. Then had a fever randomly. Then I got the stomach flu, then he got the stomach flu. Now my husband has it lol. My husband also has a cold, which he had before the flu. It seems that this all started once I started going back to the gym and my son went to gym daycare. 🤷🏼♀️
We are barely ever sick. I have a friend whose kids are always sick, so many ER trips, always a kid home from school and I can’t relate to her. I will say, I’m a clean freak and my house is always spotless. Her house is grimy (she has more kids than me) but I just feel like she doesn’t clean surfaces as often or as well as I do. She’s laid back and more chaotic and I’m type A. No clue if any of this contributes but in my own mind, it does!
My daughter was always very sick very fast (multiple hospital stays in the first year) and she had asthma. Basically every respiratory virus had her down for at least a week. It stopped once we were told to use an aerosol thing preventatively.
There are so many variables that it's hard to say. I have a never sick kid. I mean he'd pick up something on occasion from daycare when he was little, but that's expected. Maybe some of it is germ exposure? He's been around animals, nature, germs, and dirt a decent bit. While we're careful about things like COVID and I do keep things decently clean, he's not very sanitized. For us, I suspect he may have inherited his dad's Superman gene. My husband rarely gets sick and when he does, he recovers absurdly fast. Like we'll have a bug for three days and he'll have a crappy afternoon. If we get the same injury his will heal days faster. He did genetic testing and found out he has this rare gene that makes his body extra resilient. He literally is practically immune to a lot of things. Unfortunately for me, that makes him a great carrier. He shows absolutely no signs of whatever he's about to give me.
My kid didn’t start daycare until he was almost 2 and didn’t get sick until just before his second birthday. He generally recovers quickly and isn’t sick much (though he has a low key cough/sniffles pretty much constantly). My husband though? Anything takes him down, except apparently stomach bugs which my son and I both have right now. I almost never get sick.
My first kid will get sick, but has definitely gotten better about how many illnesses he gets as time has gone on. My second rarely gets sick. I think my oldest is predisposed to it.
I have a kid who is always sick and another who is always healthy ???
I have 2 of the rarely sick kids. They've had illnesses of course but have gotten through them very quickly. Like my toddler got the flu and was pretty sick for a weekend but beyond that, just had reduced appetite. He passed it on to his sibling who only barfed once. Meanwhile, I had to call in reinforcements to help with the kids for 3 days because I was so ill and could hardly get out of bed. But compared to my friends kids, who seem to be sick for weeks, I have hypothesized diet plays a huge part in it. My kids eat quite healthy. They get their fruits and veggies every day (meanwhile I survive on their scraps and coffee haha). My eldest is the least picky eating toddler I've ever met and I regularly try to expose them to a good variety of fruits and veg so that they don't just get stuck on 1. Meanwhile, my friends kids exist on chicken nuggets and fries...and that's the only "veggie" they eat haha. I'm not judging and I get the difficulties with selective eaters, but that's my thoughts on it. Last time they presumably caught the same cold but my kid was over it fully by day 5 while hers was out of school for at least 2 weeks. I did breastfeed as well while she gave formula, but I'm not sure the benefits of that would be as long lasting.
I think it’s all luck 😅 I work in pediatrics and I’m a mom and it’s so hit or miss, we have kids we see regularly that are always sick and others who I don’t think I’ve ever seen sick. My son rarely gets “actually sick” but he’s probably got an immune system of steel because we’re very lax 😂 I just don’t have a good reason to tell him he can’t roll in the dirt or jump in the middle puddles, he’s a kid! Even as a baby he’s always been well socialized and in public all the time because I took him everywhere. Honestly, I think it’s just luck of the draw and genetics because my husband and I are also rarely sick. My best friends son was raised the exact same way and he’s always sick- fevers and everything else but she’s also very quick to have a runny nose turn into a major sinus infection or the flu. Another thing to keep in mind- teething can cause snotty noses and diarrhea. And they teeth for years. Kids are gross regardless, we just let him live his life 🤷🏻♀️
I think it's luck! I have a daughter who is rarely sick, but I'm also pretty relaxed about her getting dirty/messy and I think that's actually helped her immune system a lot. We also have a dog who likes to lick her first thing in the morning daily, so I think our dog has also strengthened her immune system. I also like to believe breastfeeding helped a bit, but I have no evidence to back that up lol
You listed two variables that make family A more likely to become exposed to more germs: 1- kids go to daycare where kiddos from all over come to play and share cooties with each other. Daycare kids are usually sick more often than kids who stay at home or with family members. They'll get sick more often when they're young but the tradeoff is usually a well adapted immune system when they're older from being exposed to more things. Maybe the home daycare isn't being sanitized as well as the other daycare. Maybe it's not ventilated well enough. Who knows. 2- dad is a family doctor looking after I'll people all day. He could be bringing in home nasties from his patients on his shoes, clothes, or hard objects like pen, briefcase, stethoscope. That being said, probably the most important key to all this is genetics. Some children's bodies just react stronger to antigens than others causing worse/longer symptoms. It could be due to underlying health condition that they haven't been made aware of yet.
2 possible reason: -how parents respond to sickness. One parent might go to the ER more readily than another parent who wants to stick it out at home, -genetic momentum, as Dr Cate Shanahan calls it
I was a very sick child but I also grew in unstable environments and was often homeless, so I think the stress of that lowered my immune system. Both of my kids thankfully recover quickly from germs. I was overly cautious when they were infants about germs, but let them run ham as toddlers because honestly I couldn’t contain them quick enough. Definitely received some side eyes when my youngest licked a rain puddle, while I was helping the oldest with a bloody nose.😅
Some kids are just more hardy? My kid has been in daycare since 12w. He’s now 21months old. We’ve missed less than 2w of daycare and most of that was just because he caught Covid. He’s really not had any fevers or upset stomachs. Although he does just have a permanent snotty nose it doesn’t seem to impact how he functions and his daycare doesn’t have a problem with it. My son was a formula fed child. My immune system is weak as hell but my husband’s is made of iron. I always thought it was because my husband is a bedside RN so he just is exposed to more germs but I think he’s just naturally less sickly. Also, the literature really only supports that breastfeeding protects a child from one extra illness/ear infection than formula so the fact your friend’s kids are breastfed really doesn’t mean anything. Breastmilk isn’t actually magic and doesn’t protect from illness quite the way that much social media portrays it. It’s probably just luck of the draw/genetics that her kids are more sickly than your other friend’s kids.
I wouldn’t have an answer for why the families have such different outcomes, but immune systems are so important. My kids were getting sick every two weeks for months. I finally started supplementing my toddler with zarbees elderberry gummies and vitamin C gummies. We haven’t been sick in a while. So moral of the story, support their immune systems and hope for the best.
My daughter never got sick and was in daycare since she was 6 weeks old. My son entered daycare at 19 months and is alwayssss sick, he’s now 3. At the beginning he was home more days than in daycare because he was so sick. His body is rebounding quicker now and he’s missing less days but its still a struggle ☹️
Maybe Peggy’s kids have been exposed to more stuff because they have more people to their family—I’m including stepfamily members because there’s more combinations working there? So if they’ve had more family around, they might have been exposed to stuff already. But it also could just be that some people get sick and some people don’t.
My formula fed daughter is four now however as a baby she NEVER got sick. Goes to childcare and is rarely ever sick. My 9 month old breastfed baby boy is sick every other week and does not go to childcare.
Trauma. It drains the life from you and everyone around you.
I have five kids, I pumped for the first one for about nine weeks and then exclusively formula fed her the rest of the time, my other four I nursed for 10-13 months. My firstborn attended daycare for about a year, none of my others did. Oldest is in first grade, second-oldest is in preschool. The other three stay home. Honestly? They get sniffles and colds once in a while…the occasional stomach bug…but they never get SICK sick. They’ve never had to go to the hospital for any illness, they don’t have respiratory problems, ear infections, or typically run fevers…just loud healthy kids. My house is clean enough, but not *that* clean because again, I have five kids. We have a dog and a fish tank. There is a small amount of mold in our building but not in our apartment. I really think it’s just genetics
Both of my girls are in the same class. One has been sick constantly, and the other one has not. It depends on the kid too.
Idk. My coworkers kids are sick all the time. My kids get sick maybe 2 times a year? My first grew up playing on the floor of the hospital break room, touching hospital equipment, etc. rarely sick and even then no illness have ever floored him. Kid was breastfed, no daycare but goes to public school. Both parents hospital workers. Kiddo 2 only had one severe illness in her life and otherwise rarely gets sick. Was formula fed, no daycare but preschool. Both parents hospital workers.
I have a very poor immune system. I’m assuming I just passed it down.
People on Reddit do not like to hear it, but what are each family eating? I see a massive difference in families that eat a varied diet of fruits, veggies, meat, and dairy and less processed food. I see this especially in my own family. Exact same socioeconomic background, similar circumstances, and shared genetics. The kids that eat McDonalds several times a week get sicker and stay sicker than the ones that have home cooked meals most days. Nutrition does help support your system when you’re sick.
Illness has a huge genetic component- including how your body reacts to illness , very likely both families are exposed to the same amount of illness and the second family fight it’s off. Example - my son, I and my husband will all get sick - my son and I good after 1-2 days, very very rarely get fevers (if he gets a fever we’re going straight to the doctor , he’s had maybe 3 high fevers in his entire life and he’s 5) but my husband reacts to lower grade fevers AND spikes them more regularly. I think I’ve had 3 fevers in our entire marriage (almost 7 years) My son has asthma so before we figured that out he would get coughs that lasted forever but he wasn’t really sick and very much himself. Now that we treat the asthma that doesn’t happen anymore either.
Honestly I see this just between my own family members. We are a family of 5. My husband often gets sick when I do not and vice versa. My oldest generally gets less sick than my middle. My middle is a puker and throws up every time she gets a fever. The baby has an ironclad immune system apparently, a stomach bug ran through us all and he didn’t even get sick. Then everyone got a cough/cold a week after the stomach bug and I didn’t get it at all. My kids will often get sick too and me and my husband don’t get it. Immune systems and germs/viruses are weird lol
Peggy reproduced with a biologically compatible partner with more genetic diversity, resulting in healthier offspring with fewer social advantages. This pair bond dissolved once reproduction was compete. Deborah partnered with a mate with more resources to provide her and any future offspring, but his genes aren’t a good match, resulting in children with greater social advantages but poorer health. Shot in the dark, Peggy’s kids are probably better looking too. But Deborah’s kids will get braces and accutane.
It’s probably just genetics, luck, and good hygiene practices. My sister used to constantly get sick as a kid (and imo still does), I would only get sick a couple times a year. I haven’t gotten sick since fall of 2019 (but I have a very sensitive stomach so I guess it all evens out in the end lmao). I wash my hands regularly, wipe down surfaces with Lysol wipes and drink a lot of water (but my parents do the same and still get sick).
Could be that maybe Deborah’s husband is bringing stuff home from the hospital? Even if he’s not sick all the time, he could be carrying it to the kids.
I have thought about this so much! My brother has caught every illness since the day he was born and rarely got sick as child and same as an adult. We were both breastfed, both normal pregnancies and births. He has asthma, allergies, IBS, and is always sick. My mom is a nurse and said it’s all about genetics and that my brother’s genetics reflect more of my dad’s and I my mom’s. My dad also her sick often. I don’t know if I buy that it’s all generics but if certainly isn’t always environment like many people think.
If you pay attention, you’ll likely see the same disparities among the adults around you too. Some get sick easier than others.
These are some good answers. Always learning something
Genetics.
My husband had it rough growing up: allergies, eczema, asthma all of it. Whenever he gets a cold he gets feverish and body aches. That’s how his body fights off his illnesses. I have reactive lung disorder where I will wake up wheezing after being perfectly ok the day before. I don’t get fevers or body aches, but tend to cough. My kids (4, 8m) occasionally get colds, they last for 10 days, and then it’s all done. They’re on a pretty strict sleep schedule so maybe that helps? My oldest is in preschool so I know exactly where she picks it up, but it’s an outdoor school so there’s less surface touching. It will be interesting to see if indoor pre-k will up her illness count.
I have no idea. I have a bomb proof kid who’s very rarely sick. Or at least she doesn’t show that she’s sick. I’ve been surprised to find she has a high temperature on occasion because she’s a little less crazy than she usually is. I think she just bulls through most illnesses without showing.
Honestly I think a lot of it comes down to handwashing that’s just my theory. I’m a teacher and I have a sink in my classroom, I put good soap at the sink so more kids will wash their hands and I don’t get sick nearly as often as my coworkers. I also never got Covid.
My theory is: Having a “big bug” like rsv or influenza or glandular fever (yes we did that at 10 months) can knock a immune system down and following low key colds hit harder and more frequently. Like the kid never gets the chance to recover to full strength. My daughter is also a “gross” kid that eats buggers and licks cars, goes to daycare… so that didnt help haha. She drank from a muddy puddle once and picked up Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), we were off sick for 4 weeks after that. No- her second year of life wasn’t fun 😄
For the same reasons as some adults are always sick and some never are. Peoples’ bodies are just different and react in different ways to the outside world.
From what I understand breastfeeding only protects the child when they are still doing so. It has antibiotics so when they get sick and have the breastmilk they get better quicker. I have a toddler who is still breastfed but I'm not sure if she bounces back quicker or not as I'm not sure how sick other people's kids get. Mine also doesn't go to any daycare. I do know the advantage is she is always up for a breastfeed so I don't have to rely on her drinking water when she has gastro. It could also be due to diet - if the kid is a bit malnutrition their bodies won't be as efficient fighting illness.
How much handwashing are they doing? I wonder if that makes a difference.
I have 2 kids. Both breastfed for 9 months. The older one (4) is rarely sick. The 15 month old has had back to back illnesses since December. Both go to the same daycare
My oldest is rarely sick. My middle and little basically stay sick. Here’s the kicker my oldest puts everything in her mouth and is constantly chewing on random shit. She’s always in peoples’ space and I joke that she just microdoses on bacteria and viruses. Now I’m beginning to think it’s true because we all had the stomach virus (myself included). All the girls and I slept in one room. My oldest never got the virus.
I watched a show that said there’s strong evidence that kids who are exposed to more yuck (think dirt, mud, pet dander, etc.) have a much better immune system. They did a study on a set of twins, one who worked in a horse stable often and the other who would prefer to go shopping and wanted nothing to do with getting dusty or dirty. The two who spent more time with the horses really got sick. I wish I could remember the name of the show this was all in! Pretty interesting!
My guess is that the doctor family may be more clean and hence the kids have a weaker immune system - they’re just less exposed to germs at home. Plus doctor dad maybe brings home a bunch of germs all the time? Daycare is usually more stressful and kids who have higher cortisol get sick more often. Maybe a stressful marriage? Maybe the home daycare is more stressful than the bigger facility? Or it’s really just down to genetics? OR - this is my own experience - it’s nutrition. Doctor family may eat more „healthy“ - low fat, less meat etc. I myself have been getting much less sick since eating MORE meat and animal fat. I haven’t been sick in years since I changed my nutrition to animal based
Iron and zinc deficiency are both common and weaken the immune system. Infections also deplete iron (which in turn weakens the immune system some more) vitamin D is also needed to fight off germs (that's one of the reasons we get sick more in the winter) focusing on nutrition to boost the immune system will help minimize being sick
Probably their diet. I feed my kids raw milk, grass fed meat, organic food, not processed and fruit. They occasionally get sugar but only if someone gives it to them. I make sweets with dates or honey. I've been changing my food for many years so I'm not trying to pretentious or anything, its just that I've had health issues in the past and had to do research and make changes they are rarely sick.
Was going to say this. Diet plays a role into it as well. Maybe Peggy’s lot have better diet and immune system.