Sick Kids

My kids have been sick the past few days. That has gotten me thinking about all the remedies that I have learned through the years. I thought I would post a few, but just so everyone knows, I am not a doctor, or a nurse and this is information that happens to work in my family and is by no means intended to be a cure all!

When my oldest daughter was a baby, she had trouble with constipation... it is so sad to see a little one struggle with this. A friend of mine who was a nurse told me to mix 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1 oz of water and give it to her in her bottle. Amazing! Worked like a charm!!

This same daughter got very sick when she was around a year old. She had the rota virus which is a VERY nasty bug. It is similar in seriousness as RSV, in fact she ended up in the hospital because of dehydration and had to be there for 2 days. I feel like I made some mistakes and possibly could have prevented her going to the hospital if I had not made them. Here is what I learned.

When your child is throwing up and can't keep anything down the best thing to do is give them 1 tsp. of fluid (like water or pedialyte) every 15 minutes. This is very critical. This is where I made my mistake. When a body starts to get nausious and then throws up, it gets into a pattern and unless you break that pattern dehydration sets in. When my daughter first started vometing I should have taken the doctors advice and just gave her the 1 tsp. of fluid every 15 minutes. The problem is that my daughter was STARVING! She was crying and begging for food. I gave in. Then she threw up. I kept giving in (and I even only gave in like one or 1.5 ounces at a time) till it was too late and she couldn't even keep the 1 tsp. every 15 minutes down. This is how she ended up in the hospital. Now, because of the fact she had the rota virus, she may have ended up in the hospital anyway, although I am sure that if I had not given in to her crying and just gave her a little bit of fluid at a time, it might have helped. Also, a good rule to go by with little kids is that any time they throw up you should wait 30-60 minutes before giving them any fluid. Then start with clear liquids. Go slowly. It is amazing how fast dehydration can happen and how scary it is when it does happen.

My oldest son gets croup all the time. In fact, I don't think he ever gets a normal cough, at least when he was younger. The things that have helped the most with that are: A humidifyer at night and then the childrens vicks vapor rub on the chest. The vapor rub is so amazing!! It works way better than any cough medicine for my kids crouppy cough. The reason it works so well is because it opens up the air way so they can breath. When my son gets croup, he has a hard time breathing and especially when he works himself up and is crying.. bad news. At that point, we take him into the bathroom and run a pure hot shower and sit in the steamy room and hold him. The steam helps open the airway and he usually calms down. Then we do the vicks and humidifyer. Once he got a little older he would also take a bath when he got that way. He loved to float on top of the water and when he was worked up, having him relax his body enough to float is what helped him to be able to breath and the coughing subsided.

During the winter when they would get croupy, especially when they were babies, I would bundle them up and sit on the porch and let them breath the cool crisp air. This also helped with opening up the airway. It also helped the little babies to get their attention on something else and they usually stopped crying if they were crying.

I am sure these aren't the only remedies that I have learned, but that is all I can think of right now. Hope this information helps someone out there!