Sick Kid I Babysit!

It's been my experience that a child like this is either exposed chronically to smoke or they have a habit of sticking things up their nose. Don't let anyone say it's allergies. Allergies are clear, not bright green.

Relatives or not I'd give him an ultimatum. A) He never uses you again. B) He takes the child to the doctor. C) If he does neither A or B you will call child protective services.

I know it's hard. But someone needs to look out for the little guy.

You've got to protect your own children first. Tell BIL you are sorry, but you have tried, and will not watch his child anymore when he is sick with thick mucus continually in his nose because your own kids have and will continue to get sick from being exposed to their cousin when he has these symptoms. Does he bring him over when the regular child care won't take him because of the illness symptoms? They likely saw the green snot and told BIL he could not leave him there. He needs not only to take his child to the doctor, but to find other back up child care plans. Not fair to ask you when your nephew is sick and you've got other small children to care for. Not fair of him to even ask. He may not be motivated to take him in, not believing he could have anything more serious than a cold, but he may GET motivated when he needs him healthy enough for ANY kind of child care or babysitter with other children to have him.

Tell your jerk of a brother in law that chronic sinus infections in children wind up being asthma. He can go on the net and find out. IF he doesn't mind having a chronically sick child okay. But hospital trips in the middle of the night and the potential of death await him.
If he doesn't like doctors I was cured of asthma by a homeopath. He can take the child there for his sinus infection. When the child is with you you can give him echinacea tincture 4x a day and it will clear the infection. Most likely not permanently as that would take two or three weeks on constantly giving him the remedy.

Don't watch him. Have the same policy that daycares and schools have keep your sick child at home. If he's not there your kids won't catch it from him. Tell him that if he comes over sick again that you won't be able to watch him any more.

I would stop watching him. You can either tell the truth as to why or make up an excuse but you do need to stop if it is making your own kids sick.

Ask your brother in law if you can take your nephew to the doctor. Sometimes men don't see what we see. I hope he's not one of those men who thinks he's a boy and needs to tough it out. They sometimes forget that things are different when they are just kids. Good luck!!!

If the "nephew" is feeling fine other than the snot, it's probably not a sinus infection. Yellow green snot is typical at the end of a cold. Is the nephew lethargic, have a headache, fever, ...? If not, I wouldn't assume it's a bacterial infection. My second had a cold for what seemed like her entire first year of her life and was always snotty. Sometimes it was clear and sometimes not. But there was no indication she had a sinus infection. When she had something other than a cold (e.g., an ear infection) there were other more obvious signs and we took her to the doc.

Excerpt from a medical site: "Clear, watery nasal discharge can herald the start of a cold. As the body begins to combat the illness, white blood cells rush to defend the injured tissues. This immune response turns the clear secretions cloudy and colors them green and yellow. It’s the natural progression of the illness, and the colors indicate only that the body is mounting an immune response."

That said, if your babies get sick every time you watch your nephew, then you have a good reason not to watch him. If it makes you feel better, the more your kids are sick now, the stronger their immune system will be and soon (probably within a year) they will be getting sick a lot less often. But, small babies being sick are the worst, so you might want to save that experience for later and just not watch your nephew.

my niece & nephew always had green snot.....& it was allergies triggering it. Both were allergic to the multiple allergens in their home....the dogs & the cigarette smoke.

Neither ran fevers, sometimes they had occasional coughs.....& that was it. Request that they use an allergy med for him....because you don't want snot on your toys!

I don't know what other people said here, i just wanted to weigh in with something - my son always has thick-gluey snot, often green. He has since he was born. He is otherwise healthy, and we've been in multiple discussions with the doctor who agrees that our doing nothing (except incessant nose blowing), and still going out with him, is ok. It seems like this may not apply in your case, but, i just wanted to point out that this symptom is not the most important aspect to keep your eye on - it might not mean as much as you might think.