What do you do when your children are sick? Colds, flus, snots, sniffles, and throwing up—these are all things that happen often, which I know as a parent to three little ones.
In a world full of cough medicines and over-the-counter medications, and overuse of drugs, it can be hard to make the right decisions for your child.
Those medicines can have side effects and can destroy their gut in the long term, creating more health issues down the road.
I’m going to show you how all three of my kids have never had any medication, antibiotics, or cough syrup, even though they’ve had colds, flus, body aches, sore throats, nausea, runny noses, headaches, and fatigue issues.
1. Healthy Diet
If your child’s diet consists of Cheerios, goldfish, and milk, you’re asking for sickness. The body’s going to stop and respond to whatever they get exposed to.
If they get exposed to microbes, and bacteria, their bodies can’t overcome those things while also trying to process foods that we put inside their body.
What Not to Eat:
- Carbs & sugars (Gummies, granola bars, cereals and high sugar juices)
- Dairy (Milk and cheese)
What to Eat:
- Clean meats (grass-fed beef and free-range chicken)
- Fruits and veggies (blueberries, strawberries, cucumbers, and broccoli)
- Low-carb green smoothies
As a family, we immediately eliminate or cut down on carbohydrates and sugars when a kid gets sick.
That means no special treats, and no gummies, granola bars, and cereals. All of those things have to be cut down for at least a short period of time.
We also need to clean up the meat that they’re eating.
If they are having lunch meat, salami, or a burger, we need to try and make sure that it’s grass-fed or free-range.
Next, and very important, is dairy. Milk and cheese have to go for this period of time.
Dairy stimulates more sinus congestion and snot. Who needs that as a parent?
We also want to make sure they’re drinking lots of fluids. We want to up their intake of water, because juice comes with a lot of sugar.
A lot of times, juice is counterproductive, unless it’s something like a green juice that is low in carbohydrates.
We could give them that in the form of a smoothie, but still increase water intake.
Fruits and vegetables are also very important.
I love blueberries and strawberries during this time for the amount of vitamin C and antioxidants they provide.
Broccoli and cucumbers are very hydrating, which makes them another good choice.
2. Sleep
Hopefully, you have a specific bedtime for your child.
Sometimes after a weekend of being with grandpa and grandma, playing or something, your kid will stay up too late.
Then we get to Monday or Tuesday, and that’s when some of these symptoms show up because of the later bedtimes they got over the weekend.
Skipping a nap, especially if the children are under 3, 4, 5 years old, can be really hard on them.
Once they start to get above that age, they can go without naps, unless they’re just tired and their body naturally goes to sleep.
A bedtime of around 7-8 o’clock is pretty solid for a child.
If they’re sleeping in later, a slightly-later bedtime should be fine, but they should be getting around 10 hours of sleep.
If they’ve been woken up earlier, or they’ve been kept up late for fun activities, you’re paying the price when they start throwing up or have snot, sniffles, and coughs.
When they’re not feeling well and they’re uncomfortable and can’t sleep the way they’re supposed to, we need to increase that period of time.
You can also allow some technology time for them to rest in bed all day long and just allow their body to recover.
3. Nutrients to Prioritize
Now, there are some specific nutrients that we do want to give to the kiddos.
Vitamins C & D and zinc are prioritized in our house to make sure we get their immune-boosting properties.
Vitamin C is a very powerful antioxidant and one of the most important vitamins in the body, especially for children.
It’s especially necessary for fighting off conditions like ear and respiratory issues.
For kids aged 1-3, I recommend around 400 milligrams of vitamin C. Kids 4-8 years old should be taking 650 milligrams of vitamin C on a daily basis.
Vitamin D is another very essential immune-boosting nutrient. For children, I recommend taking 500-1000 milligrams a day.
You could go up to 2000 mg depending on their condition, but only for a short amount of time, not long-term.
Zinc is another one that’s important to take with vitamin D because it kills illness.
Anywhere from 2-10 milligrams would be a safe dose for a child.
The vitamin D that I make has vitamin D and zinc already in there together.
The vitamin C supplement that we use is a powder form, so we can use a quarter of a scoop and give that to them so they’re getting 400 to 800 milligrams of vitamin C.
The vitamin C powder can also be nebulized if there’s a significant sinus issue or breathing problem.
You can get a nebulizer that is usually used with water, or that comes with little pads that can be used to nebulize essential oils into the lungs and open up the breathing pathways.
One of our other favorite treatments is colloidal silver.
We use a silver serum that is a spray that can go right into the throat to help with any congestion, sinuses, or swollen throats.
It can also be put on the skin for any kind of irritation.
You can spray anywhere from 5-10 sprays of that serum into water and then nebulize it, which will let your child breathe it in as steam.
Summary
Those are my household’s methods for treating our kids’ colds and flus.
Focus on food. Get extra rest. Get those nutrients in, with a focus on vitamin D, vitamin C and zinc. If there is a respiration issue, nebulize or spray in colloidal silver. If you need a place to start cleaning up your nutrition and make the kitchen a friendlier place so that your kids don’t get sick as often, check out a copy of my free book.
