Monday, February 18, 2008

A sick baby

Yes yet again I have a sick baby; and I have come to understand that every bout of flu he has it drives me to my maximum capacity and tests me in every way possible. Not only do I have to keep up the nutrition intake, add some more nutrition, help all those medications go down the at-times reluctant throat, keep him cheerful, let him watch his favourite movies...make sure he gets all his sleep, and rest, stay up all day and wake up at night to check on him and the much dreaded fever, .....it is just endless. That's why I say that it tests me to the maximum possible limit and every time I think I cannot take it anymore the limit increases on its own & I again seem to have limit-less patience in me. But honestly at the end of the day it all tires me down. This time we're batteling flu for almost 2 weeks now, now ofcourse things are much better with only a dry cough and a runny nose. Optimistic am I not !!!
One thing that I do is make him soups, more than solid food, as soups provide fast nutrition, they are easily absorbed and we can add all the necessary vegetables or meat into them. The taste also makes them more appealing than solid food, a bit of salt, pepper, a dash of lemon..roasted groud jeera.
I also stock up on chocolates as they are another way to give the kids that much needed energy and calories to help tide over the weakness that accompanies sickness.
Fruits is another major thing that needs stocking up. I must say here that I have found that bananas are extremely useful to supress that last bit of nasty dry cough after a cough bout. But before trying it out do remember that I live in a hot climate. So anyone in a cold climate should not indulge in banana-treatment unless you have a bright sunny day.
Tea also helps in a cold, cough. In making tea we can add a bit of crushed ginger, a pod of cardamom (elaichi), black pepper and a cinnamon stick-piece. Add in very little milk as milk makes the throat itchy and makes the cough worse. But yet again nothing beats a warm glass of milk with tumeric in it. I boil the milk with the tumeric and then cool it off till the drinkable-temperature.
All the medicines that need to be given are given to my son just before serving the meal, this way the medicines do not make him want to throw up. What I do is give him his medication, then help him to a glass of his favourite juice, then after 5-7 minutes the meal is served.
I found this way to be much better as he used to throw up if I gave him his medication post-meal. Although the doctors tell me that the medication should be given only post-meal; but I do it this way as it saves me a lot of cleaning up and my baby has no trouble.
Another thing I have realised is that we are not getting enough of sunlight on ourselves, I mean we are not getting vitamin D, and I read somewhere that if we expose ourselves to sunlight for 15 minutes our body makes 1000 IU (or was it 10,000 IU??) of Vitamin D and this surpasses all the external forms of Vitamin D that you can take. So now we have a time in our sun-window where we sit and play in the sun. I must mention here that Vitmain D is the most important of all the vitamins our body needs after all we are here only because the sun shines, and life began that way.
I do want to know what the other mommies do to treat a sick baby, so mommies do drop in your experiences and tricks of the trade so that we all help one another in being better care-givers during those frighful times that our babies are sick.

4 comments:

Malina said...

Neelum, I agree with you completely. When a young child is sick it is a very difficult time for the mum.During illnesses, I read stories to Zunairah....that seems to soothe her.I try to feed her as much as possible as she is more cranky when she is hungry.I give her what she likes while trying to keep the meal healthy.

Ketaki said...

Hi N, whats happening?
no new posts? Busy?

Parag Sawaikar said...

Hi,

That's interesting info abt Vitamin D. The 500mg shellcal tablet contains 250 IU of Vitamin D3. So it seems taking sunlight is a must :)

-Parag

Nilgiri said...

Wow, nice blog. so very true.. agree with you completely. Keep up the good work !
-Asawari