Coping with Child Illness

We recently went through a bout of the kids being sick.  Stomach illness.  We've gone on to just having colds...not so bad!  Warning: This post may contain too much information followed by what helped us.

E, age 1, vomited twice. Thankfully both times we were on the couch cuddling and I had a blanket on my lap which collected much of the mess. Though there was lots of laundry, and some of it needed to be washed twice, it wasn't too awful.

M, was a little different. God saw it possible to have M wake up with a bellyache. Now she often tells us she is sick (and that her toe or cheek hurts), but since she dry-heaved, I promptly took her to the toilet where she produced nothing.

I decided that she needed to stay home from school, but we still did all of our usual morning routines. She got dressed and then had breakfast. While she was eating her Cheerios, I went upstairs to get E up for the day.

I was about to change E's dirty diaper, when M came upstairs and told me she needed to go potty. I asked if she could do it by herself, and she assured me that she could. However, I immediately heard some bad stuff happening. She had thrown up, too. I was amazed that she mostly hit the toilet! I was so thankful that she had awakened not feeling well and she knew what to do and where to do it.

E was still desperate for a diaper change. M was desperate for a bath. I put her in the tub and got E changed.

And it was only 7:30 in the morning.

What I learned:

1. Put little girl's hair in a bun. A ponytail isn't going to cut it...it could still get, um, messy.

2. Just because a 3 year old has vomited and has a bit of a fever doesn't mean they will be content with clear fluids. My mother-in-law reminded me of the BRAT diet.

B-Bananas

R- Rice

A-Applesauce

T-Toast

M was satisfied with a banana and applesauce, though she had a bit of a freak out that she didn't get to have milk.

3. Pedialyte has freezer pops! I had no idea until December when we got them. M really enjoyed them, complete with mittens. (Mittens only make sense to me. Derek laughs at me.)

4. Little girls do not like the idea of a sick bucket. However, both little boys and little girls like to turn buckets into helmets and become a robot. I was glad she didn't need the bucket for anything but a toy.

I just wanted to share what worked for us in case it can help you. We're fully recovered now, but it's still pretty fresh in my memory. :)