Ugh, I absolutely hated it when my oldest got croup.  I spent two days convinced he was going to suffocate at any given moment.  The fact that you work on top of the sleep deprivation from that many back-to-back illnesses is pretty awesome.

I have stayed at home, but our children still get sick because my husband as well as most of our friends who are here on a weekly basis have jobs that require a great deal of public interaction.  However, my oldest, who is three, only averages about one serious illness a year.  He and the youngest, who is almost one, usually get nothing more than a light cold every six months or so.

How they manage to get nothing more than the sniffles when the same cold has me useless for several days never ceases to amaze me. 

When I had my daughter, I went back to work 2 months later. She was in a daycare only 1 day a week, and from week one, she got sicker and sicker. We took her out after a few months, and a 3 day hospital admission, and arranged alternative childcare with a friend of ours. She was never as sick as she was at daycare.

My son has very very rarely gotten sick. He's 2 and a half now. I stayed at home with him and he never stepped foot in daycare or any other childcare situation (other than a relative or close babysitter for me and daddy to go on a date). The only other difference is that he breastfed a lot longer than my daughter (who weaned herself around 10 mo, he weaned around 18 months).

Every pediatrician I have ever seen (and it's been a lot since we're in the military and have moved) asks about daycare or any other childcare, and whether I stay at home with them. It's a risk factor. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing to work outside of the home or put your children in daycare. But yes, it does increase illness (particularly if not breastfed, getting pumped full of mom's antibodies).

I worry a little about your experience with projectile vomiting. When I worked in radiology, we did scans on babies who were doing the same thing (although most were not gaining weight very well) looking, and often finding pyloric stenosis. It's where the muscle joining the stomach and small intestine is abnormally tight, which causes difficulty in digestion and projectile vomiting. But since you said you're been in and out of his dr's office, I'm assuming your doc doesn't see that as the case. (It requires a surgical fix.)

If he has pneumonia now, is he on medication for that? It makes me shudder because I just supposedly had pneumonia last month, and it ended up giving me pleurisy which is PAINFUL and miserable. For 2 weeks. And nothing to do for it but take pain medication. Ugh. Still aches but not like it was...

The other thing? Once my daughter was put on zyrtec, her snotty nose stopped within a week. And that cleared up her coughing etc. Something to ask his doc about at his next appt, maybe. My daughter was about 10 months when she started it. Not sure how young it can be administered (at the advice of a pediatrician).

I remember having croup a few times when i was really little. My daddy would wrap me in a blanket and hold me outside in the cold at night, just to help me breath and get a little relief from the coughing.  For hours he would just stand on the porch rocking me.  I also had astma on top of it and it was much worse when i was little only a few things set my lungs off now.  Dad always took care of me at night so mom could sleep since she had to be up with me and my brothers during the day.

@LadyGwenivere@xanga - D3 is a good idea, we get about 6 hours of sunlight right now and it will go down to 3 in another month. He only gets sunlight when he is in the car on the weekends!

@sarahsmurfette@xanga - I was a little concerned about pyloric stenosis at first, but the projectile vomiting has stopped thankfully!

@DarkMeru@xanga - My parents suggested going outside as well, but that first night it was almost 20 degress below 0 so I figured a steamy bathroom would be better!

@LupusInvictus@xanga - just make sure that its D3, thats the good VitD that is absorbed when we are out in the sun. I started taking it because i get seasonal affective disorder and it really really helps. I also like the "Ddrops" because there is nothing extra added to them.
Also, I had a little one who had sever reflux and he would projectile puke a whole bottle right after drinking it... the thing that worked so well is about a quarter teaspoon of baking soda in half a cup of warm water, and get them to drink some before feeding. No more vomiting! Its also great for little ones who have colds because it helps their cough and soothes sore throats.

@LupusInvictus@xanga  It probably was not quite that cold but it was winter so under 20 the cold helps calm the inflamation in the air ways.  A steam would be good for a sinus infection to help loosen everything and get it out.

I refuse to use a daycare ill find a personal sitter if i really need one.  Its not so much the fear of my baby getting sick, its not wanting to deal with lice, bed bugs, and a bad rash on a baby in diapers since they seem to let them sit in it all day.  My mom switched my twin sisters daycare three times before she found one she could tolerate then she gave up when they changed management a couple months later.  In the time they were in daycare it seemed as though one of the girls was sick every other week with some sort of bug and we had to deal with two outbreaks of lice which me and my brothers never had to deal with.  My mom worked but we went to a baby sitter not a daycare or my parents would make sure their work schedlues made it so one of them could be home to watch us.  I was always cating stuff tho i just had a weak immune system i cant tell you how many times i had pink eye, ear infections, phnemonia, along with the common colds and bugs.

One of the benefits of pre-school activities, whether it be daycare or some other group activity, is that kids are exposed to most infections before becoming school aged. I remember reading a study that demonstrated that kindergartners who had attended pre-school missed significantly fewer days from school, but that in first grade the difference was null. This suggests that exposure prior to school lead to fewer missed days that first year.

I got pink eye and a cold when I was less than one month old. Kids get colds and viruses a lot when they're younger. It's nothing that abnormal. I do wish I was sick like I was a child though. Now even the slightest fever makes me bedridden.