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!

Parenting???

Parenting is probably one of the hardest jobs out there. It is such a delicate balance between being the teacher and being the friend. Someone they can learn from and feel boundries from but also someone they trust and have fun with.

Right now I have 4 kids. Girl age 7, Boy age 5, Girl age 2 and Boy age 9 months. And yes, I am busy! I also work with a youth group of girls ages 16-18 and on occasion a larger group of boys and girls ages 12-18. Hopefully some of the tidbits I have learned will be helpful to someone out there.

Most of my ideas will pertain to the younger age, as that is who I am dealing with mostly. As for my most recient adventure, I have started a summer camp at our house. It goes for one week. During this camp my kids will practice routines like making their bed everyday and getting dressed everyday. (I don't know why it is such a hard concept to put clothes on each day) They will also learn new life skills. For example my 7 year old is going to learn how to make phone calls. Yes I am crazy to start my GIRL making phone calls at age 7, but it is a good life skill I want her to have if I am dying and need her to call 911!

We will also be doing some fun things. We will make a craft each day, and also do a camp activity like roasting marshmallows and making s'mores. Hopefully this will be a week where I can teach them some important things while having some fun so the important stuff doesn't seem so boring!

One other idea I just came across pertaining to camp is to do it with a group of people and have one assigned day that you are in charge of. That way the kids will have friends to be with and you only have one or two days of work!

Bits O' Wisdom

I feel like I have learned lots of things in the past 15 years that are floating around in my head. I would like to share them with the world! I think I am going to put a bit o' wisdom on my site everyday. Check back often to get new great ideas and thoughts!

Testing

I am just testing out blogger to see if I like it better than 360. So far, I have loved all of googles products and feel they outdo yahoo, but I am not sure I like that this blog is avaliable to find on the internet... I will see how it goes