My mom's a nurse and she was stuffing articles in my inbox about how kids in daycare, even though they might get sick more often, are not less healthy overall. They just get exposed to more earlier.

I was working at the time and he was going to two daycares, one near our home and the other near my husband's work. He had it all! Nothing was very serious. A few ear infections, a few colds, a lot of nose running... Then, I took off to have my second and never went back.

He still continued to get various bugs from daycare, preschool and our our int'l travel. We were going between California and Europe every 6 months plus other trips, since I thought, at the time I was going back and wanted to take advantage of maternity leave.

Then it stopped. Just like that. The kid went on to be very healthy, hardly ever sick and is now 5'10" 14 year old.

For the record, the younger two, who did attend a part time daycare but not to the extent that their brother did, got sick a lot less. Because they were girls? Who knows. They're fine too.

Anyone with a contagious disease can be denied boarding. If your child has anything we could call "intestinal" or involving a rash, keep that in mind. The biggest concern I had was flying with an ear infection. I purposely schedule well-baby visits a few days before leaving, so they could be checked out. One one visit, we did nab one, just in time to load him up with anti-biotics before flying. Another time, the ped was seeing a nasty intestinal thing going around, including our daycare and told me outright, keep him home if I can, and I did.

I should also mention that I've had many very sick passengers on my flights, all traveling for specific reasons. There are children traveling by plane for treatment of various conditions all the time. I also had some adopted children, who were not in top shape, coming home for the first time. They all did fine on the flights and I have never heard of anything dire being blamed specifically on air travel.

Airplanes are not the cleanest places to be, and travel does involve a certain risk of exposure to bugs. Maybe someone can find proof that winter is worse than summer but it's never been obvious to me, as either a Flight Attendant nor as a mom.