6 Things Daycare Workers Wish Parents Knew About Hand, Foot, & Mouth Disease

When you put your little one in day care, it feels like you have to go through all these hard rites of passage: the tearful drop-offs until they adjust, missing them during the day, and of course, all of the sicknesses. Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD), caused by Coxsackievirus, is one illness most kids catch some time in their first few years of life. So, naturally, there are a few things daycare workers wish parents knew about hand, foot, and mouth that would help everyone navigate this specific illness a little bit better.

Daycare teachers have dealt with it all — every virus, infection, lice, you name it. When it comes to HFMD, which can be very contagious in childcare settings, early childhood educators have also seen every possible parent reaction, from immediately taking their child home or to the doctor, to trying to sneak their little one into school each day with the sickness. As you might expect, they have some requests of parents everywhere (and some insights to share about how hard they try to prevent outbreaks).

1. If your child has hand, foot, and mouth, you can’t hide it.

Hand, foot, and mouth is pretty easy to spot (pun intended), as are the signs of most other contagious illnesses. It’s frustrating to have to keep your child home and miss work, but day cares have their sick policies in place for a reason — to prevent larger outbreaks among all the kids.

“We had a child out for a day who then came back with no doctor’s note. Parents claimed they took the child in to check on some bumps on her hands and feet, but the doctor was not worried about it,” says Allison, a toddler teacher in Oregon. “A week later the child’s bumps crusted over and her toenails started falling off, which is a telltale sign that HFM is no longer contagious. Thankfully we only had a couple of cases contained to my classroom, and it didn’t spread far. We see this behavior all the time, especially with fevers. When a child magically gets a fever when they wake up from afternoon nap, we know their parent most likely gave them ibuprofen or Tylenol in the morning to hide it.”

2. Be mindful of where you let your kids go barefoot during HFMD season.

Since HFM can spread if your child comes in contact with the fluid from another kid’s blisters, it’s wise to always keep your kids in footwear out in public. “It is very contagious in water parks in the summer. In 17 years, I’ve had hand, foot, and mouth come through three times, and one of the parents actually traced it to being at a water park,” says Sabrina Bellarmine, a daycare owner in Jacksonville, FL.

3. Hand, foot, and mouth looks different for every child.

“It can look different for different kids. It’s typically showing up on their hands, their feet, and in the mouth. It can also show up on their bottoms like a diaper rash, but bumpy, and down the legs. I’ve had some kids with a rash on their backside. My own child had just one spot on their tongue while other kids have the typical blisters on their fingers.” Ms. Bell

4. Some years, HFMD is harder for teachers to detect before it spreads.

When you’re a parent and you find out there has been a hand, foot, and mouth outbreak at day care, just know that the teachers are always trying to catch illnesses early before they can spread. But there are times where sicknesses sneak past their watchful eyes.

“It is incredibly challenging to prevent its occurrence because of the varying symptoms that manifest each time it resurfaces,” says Debbie Quiñonez, a daycare owner in Brooklyn, New York. “Last year, the symptoms were relatively mild, with less visible blisters compared to previous years. However, this year, the children presented with either a mild fever or none at all, along with a reduced appetite due to throat blisters, making it even harder for our staff to detect the virus.”

5. They disinfect as much as they possibly can.

“Childcare settings are not at fault when children come in contact with the [HFMD] virus. No matter how much we clean, disinfect, once a child comes in with any virus without our knowledge, there’s not much we can do,” Quiñonez says.

6. And they wish parents would all take sicknesses more seriously.

Just like other viral illnesses, HFM (and anything that causes your kid to feel feverish and crummy) is a reason to stay home from school.

“I genuinely wish that parents would show more concern when their children fall ill, especially when they exhibit symptoms like fever or reduced appetite. These signs, which we also observe in the childcare setting, are apparent to parents at home as well, yet they often disregard them. Ideally, I hope parents would take their children to the pediatrician during the fall season to rule out HFMD,” says Quiñonez.

So, just know that if your child winds up with HFMD, it’s not that your daycare workers aren’t trying their best to prevent illnesses from spreading. Keeping the whole class well depends just as much on parents heeding the sick policy.