There is nothing more difficult than when our children are constantly unwell. If you think about the time it takes for you to recover from an illness with your robust immune system when your kids are sick all the time, it can easily make you dread every time they start having a sniffle or a cough. Common colds, fevers, and ear infections can easily upend our routines, making it difficult to work or even to get a meal together. So what are the things we need to remember when our children get sick?
Know the Numbers
It might not be music to your ears, but if you are barely making it 3 weeks without a child getting ill, this works out to the average amount of times they could get sick in the space of a year. There are many common questions about ENT specialists, specifically in relation to ear infections, and if your child has 8 or more ear infections within the space of 12 months, this poses a major problem. The reality is that when it comes to ear infections, anything less than 3 is fine, and if your child is getting up to 10 colds a year, this is still in the normal range. It’s when a cold lasts more than 10 days, fever lasts more than 5 days, and difficulty breathing beyond a stuffy nose is when it becomes a problem and you need to seek medical advice.
Ensuring You Get the Balance Right
The fact is your children are going to be exposed to a variety of germs and bugs when they are in school or in daycare, but it’s essential for you to make sure that they have the right tools to fight off these things more effectively. When you have your first child, the number of bugs that you will catch from your children is incredibly surprising and can wage war on your own immune system you will find you are in a better place to help your children fight these things. The best thing you can help your children with include some of the following:
- Making sure your children get lots of sleep. It can be difficult, especially if they are waking up a lot at night, but ensuring that they feel as rested as possible makes a big difference.
- Increasing their vitamin intake. Vitamin C is incredibly important, and low levels have been linked to more severe colds.
- Improving their gut bacteria. If you have taken your child to the doctor a few times this year resulting in a number of courses of antibiotics, this could have an impact on their immune system. Improving gut bacteria is one of the best ways to improve the immune system overall.
It is incredibly difficult when our children are unwell, but it’s important to recognize that their being sick is more common than you think. If your children are unwell every few weeks, this is par for the course. The best thing you can do is to make sure you and your children are more comfortable so they can ride it out.