How to Take Care of Your Sick Toddler 101
Caring for a sick toddler? I feel for you, dear parent. With so many people meeting up due to the Holiday season, not to mention the rainy (and oftentimes) cold weather, it’s easy for our little ones to catch some of these nasty viruses. My toddler himself had just gone through one of the longest fever spells in his (approximately 20 months of) existence.
It can be really scary for us new parents. Hence, from one learning parent to another, here are some tips for you to navigate this nasty flu season with a sick toddler:
1. Remember that the enemy is not the actual fever itself. But the virus.
Our kids’ bodies are usually healthier than most adults. They’ve basically mouthed and licked everything that’s probably in a 1km radius. Hence, their immune system must then be stronger than the average adult (don’t take it for my word, though, this is just my humble opinion as a mum).
A fever is just our body’s way of battling this virus/ bacteria. Our bodies spike up to a higher temperature to kill said virus/bacteria. So hold off the paracetamols/ibuprofen until the fever has spiked up to dangerous levels. Or limit it to when your baby is expressing discomfort and is unable to fully rest well due to the fever.
2. Be creative in keeping them hydrated.
When your kid is sick, they would understandably lose their appetites. But don’t go into town with worry about that, focus instead on keeping them hydrated. Keep on a lookout for these signs of dehydration: cracked lips, little or no urine for eight hours, and dark-colored urine. Focus on replenishing all those lost fluids and pack up some more good stuff in those fluids.
Soups, breastmilk, formula, lime-infused water with chia seeds help to keep them hydrated. I let my kid have full reign on how often he wanted to nurse without paying attention to schedules and routines. it gave him the fluids AND comfort he needed. Keep your baby’s water bottle beside them and gently coax them to drink whenever they wake up from a nap.
3. Try to opt for a virtual check-up before bringing your kid into the clinic.
It’s hard enough bringing your kid to a clinic without us being in the middle of a pandemic. But now that there are even more nasty viruses out there, bringing our kids to a clinic can be a nerve-wracking experience. Hence, I discovered recently about virtual doctors that you might want to opt for if you just need a professional’s consultation without traveling to a clinic.
Depending on where you’re located, you may have the option of having your kid’s prescription medicine delivered to your doorstep. However, one thing to take note of is that your child may need to go for some tests to see if your kid has a viral or bacterial infection. In which case you do need to go to the clinic.
As with everything, please do not use my words as a replacement for medical health experts’ advice.
4. Prep your kid for drinking medicine.
Got to love those intense battles of giving our kid medicine where they just spit it out (not). I feel that I missed the boat to prepare them for drinking medicine. But on one occasion, I took two of my kid’s stuffed toys, made one the doctor, and another the patient. I prepared an extra syringe and water bottle.
Then I roleplayed the doctor-patient role. I let the Rhino stuff toy feed the teddy bear medicine with the syringe, the teddy bear coughed, then gave it water, and repeated the process all over again. It made him not so averse to seeing the syringe. Although fighting me was still intense.
But I just continued to repeat my words, kept my words neutral, and empathized with him not liking the medicine.
“Medicine will help you feel better”
“I know it tastes different”
“Just a little bit more”
“We’re all done”
Sooner or later, they’re bound to not dislike it so much (hopefully).
5. Prepare a fever basket.
I love easy-to-carry around baskets. They just make life easier. I place (almost) everything I need there and bring it around with me whenever I move around the house with my sick kid. Because let’s face it, we still need to run the house even when our kids are sick.
And here are my essentials fever kit checklist with the hopes that it benefits you, dear parent:
- tissue (for those inevitable battles with medicine feeding and they just spit everything out)
- 6 ml syringe (to feed the kid)
- fever cooling patches
- normal thermometer
- Infrared thermometer
- Extra sets of cooling clothes
- Small towel for sponge baths
- Basin for the sponge baths
- Your sick kid’s water bottle
- Some easy bite-sized healthy snacks (for when your kid’s appetite decides to occasionally resurface)
- Snacks for you as well
- Socks (my kid’s feet were always so cold, even when his temperature was burning, hence this was a must for us)
- Paracetamol/ Ibuprofen (please seek medical’s advise when administering the amounts)
And that is it dear friends. Hopefully, this will help you all on your kid’s path to getting better. It’s an exhausting experience, yes. But the end is hopefully near. Sending everyone strength who has a sick kid!
But most importantly, remember that you’re in survival mode. You will most likely not get the laundry folded and kept, meals may not be that healthy, the house may be turned upside down but remember that you’ll eventually get the hang of your routines/rhythms back to normal!
If you need any more tips and tricks in this parenting journey? You might want to consider reading other posts in this blog:
10 Tips to Encourage Your Baby to Love Reading
Things I Wish I Knew about Breastfeeding Before I Actually Started
5 Ways To Get Your Child To Listen to You
Cheering for you in this parenting journey we have together!
Kristine🌸🤍
