It is my understanding that stress doses should only be given under stress and only for 24 hours...generally. If my son spikes a fever of over 101*, we stress for 24 hours (or three doses that is). When he broke his leg and had rotavirus...we were instructed to do the same. We did that and had few problems. I don't think that stress doses are supposed to be given to prevent illness. In fact, in the early days....when my son had a runny nose, I stressed him (not relly understanding why and what stress doses were for and his face got all puffy and the endo explaiend things a little better to me. While the occasional stress dose dose not hurt...consistent higher doses does effect growth. CAH kids tolerate regular colds without stress doses. It is the diarhea, vomitting and fever that we need to be weary of. I would love to hear more aobut herbal remedies to help out. Hopefully a few others will respond here and stress doses and you can get a better feel for what is the norm for stress doses and can ask your endo about it. Good luck though. The first year can be tough. Luckily after the first year, we were pretty healthy. Kyle picked all the bugs from his sister. Perhaps a private sitter might work out better for now. I know my parents had to pull me out of a regular day care situation 30 year ago after lots of colds and finally pneumonia. And I don't have CAH! It made a difference for me. All kids are a bit different.