Natural remedies for babies and children

As I have said already Bella and James have both had bad coughs and colds this week. The house, infused with garlic or cloves depending on which room you are in, is strewn with little pots and jars, each containing olive oil and some combination of essential oils. I have broken the lemon squeezer and grated my fingers in with the ginger. And we are out of honey. I thought I may as well share a few natural remedies I am using. I do not have very many so would love to hear your ideas as well. And, for those of you reading from Cambodia, I have to tell you about PP’s only and most wonderful homeopath, Sally Anne Matthews, who also gave me many of the ideas below.

Ok, here is a (rather hurried, sorry) description of what poor Bella’s has been made to endure every day this week. Thanks to all this and the wonders of homeopathy, we have managed to avoid antibiotics or drugs. Hope you find some of it useful and look forward to your ideas!

Eye
Bella had fluorescent green and yellow gunge oozing from her eyes for seven days. I managed to get rid of it eventually by cleaning her eye every few hours with cooled boiled salt water and cotton wool, followed by dropping or squirting (!) breast milk in her eye.

Snot
Each morning Bella has woken full of green mucus and snot, which is making her cough a lot. I have held her over a steaming sink full of boiling water and cloves. I would add eucalyptus and lavender if I had not used them all up in another remedy, but cloves works brilliantly on its own actually. I have held her in a towel so that she does not put her hands in, lying face down in my arms, with her head over the sink. She does not exactly enjoy this experience but it works wonders and is a lot less stressful for her than the nose sucker which she hates. Doing this once a day has got all the night’s build up of snot out of her system.

At her next feed I then drop or squirt breast milk up her nose. They say to do this at the beginning of a feed because they sniff it right up. Not sure why, perhaps in anticipation of the drink to come!

Chest rub
I have then rubbed a mix of eucalyptus, lavender and cloves in olive oil onto her chest and back. This is replacing the usual massage she gets, with citronella and olive oil to ward off the mossies.

Ear
Because she occasionally rubs her ear as though it might be sore or slightly infected, I have been sticking garlic down there. I chop it up with olive oil and drop into the ear. You can stop up with cotton wool if necessary. Do not push it far into the ear! It really helps with any pain and seems to prevent the development of an ear infection.

Food
I have been giving Bella ginger water to drink and garlicky vegetables – ginger and garlic are tow great natural antibiotics. Have filled her up with citrus fruit and tried to keep off wheat and dairy, though not exclusively. She has had oat porridge made with fresh orange juice which Jemima now loves too so that’s a good way to cut down her intake of milk. (Here we buy long life milk generously donated by some poor hormone pumped cow. As a breast feeding mother I am feeling solidarity with dairy cows! If it were not for my daughter’s love of everything dairy I would consider going vegan. Maybe when she is a bit older. I do miss British organic milk! It may be very expensive but milk is something I really think is worth buying organic.)

I also came across this this on natural remedies which has taught me a lot about using diet to prevent and cure almost everything. Trouble is, change is hard! James looked at me as though I were trying to torture him when I told him he needed to go on a fruit juice fast for two days and then only eat fruit. It is true that on his metabolism he would probably die if he did not eat a good meal every few hours, but I bet he would have fought off his cold before he did (die of starvation that is).

Potions
Jemima never gets ill. She gets run down and shows signs of getting ill, but she never seems to succumb. But just in case, this week she has feasted on 3 daily doses of echinacea, two daily spoonfuls of olive leaf tonic and a one a day probiotic!

Now it’s time to get Jemima and I have not told you about my homeopath, Sally Anne. Actually she needs a post of her own so I will write more next week. But suffice to say she has treated me and Bella twice now and it has been a wonderful healing experience both times. In a country where the kids get sick so often, having a homeopath in town is totally brilliant. Three times now we have avoided antibiotics (which we fell back on rather too often last year) thanks to Sally Anne’s remedies. I will tell all next week. Have a good weekend!