You just know when your child isn't feeling well, but how can you know when coughs and sniffles mean it's time to keep your child home from school? Or when to call the doctor? Since school-aged children get up to 10 colds a year, it can be a puzzle for many parents.

That's why the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) and Triaminic® have partnered to create "Sick Day Guidelines: Making the Right Call When Your Child Has a Cold." Some 22 million school days are missed each year in the U.S. due to colds, which are also the leading cause of doctor visits and missed school and work days.

Read on for useful information to help you make the right call on your child's next sick day.

Should I keep my child at home or send them to school?

Consider keeping your child home if he or she:

Has a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher
Has been vomiting
Has symptoms that prevent him or her from participating in school, such as:

I guess it was only going to be a matter of time until our little man got his first cold. He's just got over it and I thought it would be useful to summarise my experiences. It did indeed start with a cough. As coughing is not unusual for our baby I didn't even notice ... later that night it became obvious that he's got a cold as he clearly struggled with a blocked nose and also seemed very quiet.

The nights were quite tough because he just couldn't breathe easily or had to cough / sneeze constantly. So he woke up very frequently and was also quite difficult to settle. Amazingly during the day he was almost his usual self though a bit less energetic than usual. So we checked with friends, midwives, doctors and a pharmacist how we could make life easier for him. Here is what we got: