Nursery bugs
Also called nursery bug, nursery germs, nursery illnesses
Nursery bugs are the coughs, colds and tummy bugs a baby or toddler keeps catching after starting nursery. Parents use the phrase for that run of illness, often heaviest in the first year, and for the germs that reach the rest of the family.
How it's said
How bad can I expect nursery bugs to be in those first few weeks, lol?
The nursery bug phase is awful. We've had it this winter with my eldest, and it's been absolutely relentless.
...DH commented that he'd forgotten what it was like to feel well until that point as we'd had so many nursery bugs.
Who says it
In the US, where nursery is day care, hospitals write about day care illnesses, and one calls the run of them day care syndrome.
Where it came from
Bug is an everyday word for an illness that usually isn't serious and is caused by bacteria or a virus, as in a stomach bug. Nursery is the British word for a place where babies and young children are looked after while their parents work.
In March 2026 a review led by UCL researchers put numbers to it. In their first year of formal childcare, children can expect about 12 respiratory illnesses such as coughs and colds, two bouts of diarrhea or vomiting, and at least one illness with a rash.