My Four Favorite Fixes For Sick Kids

With so many opinions out there as to what one can do when the kids get sick, I’m sure you aren’t hurting for advice.  And since I’m just a Mom, not a Doctor, I wouldn’t be qualified to give advice even if you did want it.  You should contact your healthcare provider for that.  But I’m an over-sharer, so I’m going to tell you how we handle sickness on the Half Acre anyway.

We’re pretty laid back about sickness here. We’ve had the benefit of a Pediatrician with a soothing voice, and air of calm, who walked me through the first few colds/fevers with our oldest.  As a result I’m now the one with the soothing voice and air of calm.

So here are my four favorite ways to treat sick kids.

1) Do nothing.   I usually don’t treat anything, even fever, unless the kid is miserable to the point of being unable to rest, unable or unwilling to hydrate, or not improving for several days.

2) Snuggle.  Okay, I guess the above really can’t count as doing nothing because I will, and do, leap on any opportunity to snuggle.  I can usually gauge how ill the kid is by her willingness to snuggle.

3) Push fluids.  I usually stick with water, unless there is a reason to suspect dehydration, such as vomiting.  In that case I try to replace electrolytes by offering broth, ginger tea, or sometimes electrolyte replacing drink mixes.  When my oldest was around a year old, she had a miserable flu, and wouldn’t drink anything for me, so I used an oral syringe to carefully and slowly drizzle an ounce of Pedialyte in her cheek pocket once every hour until she would drink willingly. She was MAD!  But she didn’t get dehydrated.

4) On Guard.  With especially nasty bugs I use doTerra’s On Guard protective blend.  I usually use a few drops rubbed on the bottom of the feet.  For a sore throat, I mix it with raw honey and a little water and use as a cough syrup. We grownups have been known to take it in veggie caps, or in our tea.  In my experience it will fix up a sore throat in about a day when sipped in tea.  I’m not making claims here, just sharing my experience.  Also, I don’t sell doTerra, I’m just a really happy customer.  (If you’d like to learn more, visit my friend, Eve here)

Although we’ve been blessed with generally healthy kiddos, I haven’t always treated illness the way I do now.  It’s taken me seven years to cultivate my current attitude regarding what is or isn’t a serious medical issue, and I expect experience will change my views many more times over the course of motherhood.  We do not hesitate to avail ourselves of modern medicine when we feel it’s warranted.  We even keep a few “real” OTC meds around, but thankfully we rarely need to use them.

Obviously, we love our children, and don’t want them to suffer any more than they have to. We also don’t want to deprive them of an opportunity to develop a stronger immune system on their own.  Is this the only way to approach children’s health?  Nope.  It’s just our way.

What do you do when your babies are ailing?