Baby Cold Remedies

It's almost at season - the dreaded cold season! Everybody who was ever at a cold knows that it's miserable! You are stuffed up for weeks and medicine is the only way you get through the day and the night. When I'm sick, it's a steady flow of DayQuil and NyQuil and a few boxes of tissues (with lotion or Vicks). The same goes for kids and babies but unfortunately there are not a lot of medicated products that are safe to use for kids under the age of 2. There are a few brands of cold medicine products that are offered: Hyland Baby & Zarbee's Natural Baby. Both are available at Wal-Mart. 

Both my boys, ages 5 and almost 2, are suffering colds. They've been suffering for about a week and this is what I have done for the almost two year old to help ease his suffering:

1. Warn humidifier with a medicine cup for liquid inhalants. We have had this humidifier since our oldest was about 2 months old and was suffering his first cold, that was over 5 years ago! We love this humidifier, Vicks Brand . It is on during nap time and nighttime to help him sleep better. 

2. Boogie Wipes. My youngest HATES his nose being touched! So saline spray was definitely out of the question, although I have heard it works for some moms under 2. I used regular tissues for him and just pinched his nose to get the snot out...he cried and screamed, which made more snot come out but it still hurts him. So I had purchased these cute tiny packs of Boogie Wipes from the Dollar Store and thought I would see if he liked those more. He loves them! They have a light scent to them and they are moist which helps his nose become not so irritated. Now it's not a battle to wipe the snot off his face! 

3. Baby Day-Time Cough Medicine.  My poor youngest has been coughing so much! He looks like he's so sick, pale with red rings around his eyes. I felt so bad for him, so after dropping off my oldest at school, we raced to Walmart to look for relief. In the past I have used the Zarrbee's  Brand for Cold and Allergy medicine for our oldest since he was an infant. I like their medicines, except for the fact that they are sticky (our oldest once spilled an entire bottle on the carpet at my grandmothers' house and it was so hard to clean up! Not to mention expense to replace!) This brand is natural and some products are safe to use as soon as 2 months old! It has helped my youngest return to his normal toddler self! 

4. Baby Night-Time Cold Medicine. Bedtime is by far the worst time of day for anyone suffering from a cold! When you lay down for some much needed rest, your head is so stuffed up and you can't breathe! I always end up sleeping on 2 pillows or sleeping sitting up. Hyland Baby brand has many wonderful choices for parents trying to help their kids feel better. We have used this cold medicine for our oldest in the past since all the good kids cold medicines are for either ages 6+ or 12+. This brand has medicine safe enough for 6 months+ and 2 years+. I know this brand recently had a recall on their teething tablets (which were our go-to medicine during teething along with infant Tylenol) but I did some research and found that they were safe again. I was so happy when I saw that they had expanded into cold medicines! Not only was my youngest happy to take them at bedtime, he finally slept through the night! I found the baby equivalent to NyQuil! 

5. Plenty of Fluids, just like mom told you. I always mix my kids juices with water and when they are sick I let them have as much juice as they like during the day. They don't seem to want to eat a lot when they are sick (me neither but I like Spirit mixed with Orange Juice) but without fluids they could get dehydrated and that makes everything worse! Most of the time I will buy Pedialyte for them (they love the blue raspberry flavor!) but it's a bit expense and with me buying 4 different medicines already (day and night time for both boys) I decided to just stick with apple juice mixed with water this time.  

6. Multi-Vitamins and Immune Support. This might sound odd to give to someone that is sick but it helps! My kids are both not wanting to eat as much since they have been sick (me neither in fact) but having vitamins helps to make sure they are getting some good stuff in their bodies and hopefully that helps them heal faster than they would without them. As for me, I have been eating 2 or 3 of the Immune Support gummies daily (bottle says take 1 daily) in order to help this momma get better quickly because I don't have the time to be sick on the couch with a cold - my kids are sick and they come first.    

6. REST! Sleep is by far the best thing to help your body, or your child's body, get over a cold. I have done all I can to help m youngest sleep so he can heal and get better. I don't like the idea of putting 2 pillows in his crib so I put one under the mattress to elevate him to help him breathe better through his stuffy nose. I give him medicine, I turn on the humidifier and I let him sleep.

I hope my list helps moms out there with babies suffering from Colds. 

All these tips are from me personally and the personal situation I am currently in. Of course you should always check with your doctor before giving your kids any medicine and you should do your research as well. The products I have used were purchased by me, all from Walmart and I personally endorse them. 

  

Mom Tip: Repurposed Formula Dispenser

As a mom of two small children, I can not go anywhere without a few essentials to keep my kids (and Myself!) happy...one of those essentials is snacks! I understand it! When I have not eaten in a few hours or we pass by something in the store that looks good or worse...smells good, then I get, what the younger generation calls "Hanrgy" (angry when hungry). So it has to be worse for my kids, both of whom are super picky eaters at the moment. My youngest doesn't say many words yet besides "Da Da" and "Paw Patrol" so I can only guess a handful of things wrong with him when he screams. In order to avoid a complete public meltdown, from my kids or even me, I found this trick on Pinterest and thought it was pretty cool!

Pinterest Inspiration:

My Version:

 

Looks great right?! It was an easy way to get 3 different types of snacks packed in my diaper bag for my kids to be happy while grocery shopping. My biggest tip if you are going to do this, is to make sure the snacks you have placed in the container can fit through the lid opening. Mine did not! So in order for my kids to eat their snacks, we had to take off the lids. Now my youngest, whom I thought was going to make a huge mess, did very well with this! He didn't make a mess but sat very still in the cart and ate quietly. My oldest on the other hand...he dropped his as soon as I took off the lid and spilled everything all over the grocery isle! It was an accident but I was so embarrassed but lucky for us, a nice man bent down and helped us pick it up. 

Great idea when taking multiple snacks out and about but remember to get snacks that will fit thru the lid opening!  

Before/After Car Busy Bag for Younger Kids

It's that wonderful time of year! No, not Christmas unfortunately, but just as good! Summer is over and the kids are back in school! I love this time of year! This is when kids stop being at the grocery store and in the streets playing. When you go to the park, it's only little kids and not the older ones that run crazy and hog the equipment.

This year is our first year having a child go to school and it was emotional but amazing having him at school. It was just my youngest and I at home together with my husband coming home for lunch maybe. At our school, parents start lining their cars up in two rows 30 minutes before school starts. Pick up time is the same but there is six rows of cars instead of two and again it's best to start lining up 30 minutes prior to the kids being released from school. So an hour of waiting in the car each day, Monday through Friday for me and my youngest...what to do? So, like in everything I do, I always try to be prepared for any situation that might happen - like us walking out the door to pick up my oldest after school right after nap-time. So what if my youngest is hungry plus tired because I woke him up to put him in the car, just to sit and wait 30 minutes?

The first morning of dropping my oldest off, we parked and waited in the car because I was allowed to walk him up to his classroom just for his first day. Thank goodness we decided to have the dealership put in a DVD system in my car when we bought it a few year back, not that I allow it to be used very often, only on special trips or going far away (like over 30 miles away, not just to Walmart down the street). So when we parked, I turned on the DVD and just sat there quietly. After school that first day, I thought ahead enough to grab a few things on our way out:

Our Car Busy Bag Day 1: 2 Juice Cups (one for each kid), 2 Fruit Snacks, Fiber Bar (for me), 2 Cookie Snacks, My Fire Kindle, Calculator, Mini White Board and Pen, and Board book 

I grabbed a plastic grocery bag, threw everything in and...it looked terrible! The cups fell over (thank GOD they are spill proof!) and everything moved around and I didn't like it at all! And we didn't even need everything I had packed.

Morning car line waiting and watching cartoons

Day 2: See my boys up there? Mornings are pretty easy, we have our routine (another blog coming!) and once we get to school, I start the DVD player with Paw Patrol cartoons for the kids and I make sure they have their cups with chocolate milk (Carnation Breakfast Solutions actually; mom win!). They sit back there and just watch it while I drink my tea (mom's have to have caffeine in the morning!) and the book I'm currently reading (The Five Love Languages for Children).

For the afternoon I decided to pack a little lighter because honestly my youngest only wanted the food and my Fire Kindle. 

Our Car Busy Bag Day 2: Fruit snacks, Fiber bar, 2 thermoses of juice, 2 Paw Patrol containers with Goldfish crackers, Back up cheese crackers, Youngest "Baby" stuffed fox, white board and maker, my book, book for kid, calculator, and finally the Fire Kindle   

And again all in a plastic shopping bag 👎

So by the third day I had to do something different because that plastic shopping bag just was not working once I had picked it up. And then once I was in the car, it wouldn't stay up and it was super hard to get stuff out of! Not to mention that I'm the one carrying EVERYTHING when we leave the house because my youngest has to have both hands on the stair railing (which is completely fine but also annoying at the same time!). There had to be a better way!

May's mom had given me a Thirty-one Utility Tote for Christmas 2016 and it lives in the back of my car to help me carry in groceries, so I thought it would be perfect (at least until I get another bag from Thirty-one 💟!) 

Our Car Busy Bag Day 3: Sippy cups of juice, my water with Crush grape liquid water enhancer (because I hate normal water), cheese sticks, fruit snacks, Gerber Grabber (because my youngest slept through lunch), my Cool Clip Thermal Pouch from Thirty-one, calculator, Paw Patrol cups with Goldfish crackers, my Fire Kindle and my book  

Look at this! everything fits so perfectly! With room to spare! And for those wondering about the fan-it's hot and humid in Tennessee and my car AC has been acting up. 

And now there's no more room! My purse it HUGE! But this worked great!

It fits on my passenger seat and it was super easy to find what my youngest wanted and it is clipped to my Mommy Hook that's hooked to my headrest but again that's another blog coming!

The tote worked great! This will be what I use for getting everyone into the car in the mornings for school and picking up my oldest from school everyday. To find your own amazing totes or bags or thermals and a lot of other products you didn't know you needed in your life click HERE!

Parenting is tough! But it helps to have a plan and be ready for anything that may come your way because when it comes to kids the wisest things someone told me, "Hope for the best, be prepared for the very worst because chances are nothing will go as planned!" 

Making Time for "Mommy Time"

We all love our kids? It's safe to say that if we didn't love our kids, we would not do the things we do as moms: feed them, launder & put away their clothes, play with them, stay up late worrying about them, talk about them to other moms. I mean, is there really anything else to talk about? Kids are a HUGE part of our lives?! Kids are wonderful and being a mom is the single best thing I have ever done in my life and the one thing I would never change!

My two beautiful boys!

Look at these two boys of mine! Don't they look so sweet and loving?! Why would I ever want to be away from them? As I'm writing this my youngest is sitting at the dinner table with me, coloring with his dry erase marker on his little white board. Sounds cute right? He's colored on the table cloth (vinyl so no worries, plus being dry erase I hope it wipes up clean) as well as his bibs. My husband is trying to entertain our oldest by playing video games in the living room with him but by the amount of times I hear him say "no" I know that's not going well either. Now my youngest has screamed his head off, pointing to my phone because he knows I have kid games on it for him. At this point in the day, I'll allow it so I don't have to listen to him scream for the fifteenth time in the past hour!

My neighbor and best friend, May, was over earlier talking about her "Mommy Time". She said, "Mommy time is important. It sounds weird but I enjoy ironing his (cloth) diapers while my husband watches him in our room." Sounds like heaven! That got me thinking: this is a great idea! I mean, I do something similar to this when my husband is working late at night. It's the perfect time to eat those foods you hide (from EVERYONE!), watch that show you only want to watch alone (currently Younger which I love!) and crochet or fold laundry or sit on the couch doing nothing. It's my time that I look forward do every day and I'm so upset when it is interrupted. So is this my "Mommy Time"?

I always thought "Mommy Time" was when my husband took the kids to the store without me or I went out to get a pedicure with May and my other best friend Rae. But those don't happen often, I mean I don't get a new pedicure every weekend. I do enjoy my time with my girls, away from my family but is it selfish to look forward to that hour each night where I'm not needed and can do, eat and watch what I want by myself? No. It. Is. Not. 

I think we Moms need to take some time every day for just us. 😮 What did I just say?! We need to crave out time each day to take care of ourselves?!?! How are we suppose to do that? Even before we wake up our days are full of our kids, our spouses and their lives, and on top of everything - some moms work too! Not to mention the house work, the cooking, the house maintenance like grocery shopping and bill paying, actually finding time to get yourself somewhat decent looking with makeup and hair not in a ponytail, friend time, family time with both your family and family far away, AND we're suppose to eat right and exercise 3 times a week?! And now I'm saying to take an hour to relax by yourself? Half the time you can't even go to the bathroom by yourself!

Even the most together of moms get tired and stressed out and don't want to do a single thing more. We all have our snapping points, and that is okay! With our oldest starting school and my husband frequently on business trips, everything falls on me. So I need to find time, by myself, to focus on a happier me. If there is one thing I have learned from my 5 years as a mom, if I, myself, am not 100% feeling okay - the whole family suffers.

So moms, start taking the time to focus on you a little each day! It might be to fold laundry and watch a show on TV, read a chapter a night of a book, drink some tea (or wine lol) on the front porch and watch the stars come out. Whatever you decide, make sure it's just your time. No kids, and no spouses! Just you. Enjoying the peace and quiet till that baby screams at 2AM! And I promise you'll be thanking yourself later for taking that time to unwind and distress. 

Product Review of the Lucky Baby 3 -in- 1 Baby/Toddler Safety Harness

Product Review of the Lucky Baby 3 -in- 1 Baby/Toddler Safety Harness

It’s so amazing when your new little baby is finally old enough to sit up on their own! And that means you can start bringing them into stores and restaurants without that huge, heavy infant car seat. Such a burden lifted away! Like many new moms, with my first son we had a cart cover that we would put over the portion of the cart the baby sits in. But there were a few times the straps on the cart were broken or just not there! Now what? We, of course, never noticed this until all our stuff (diaper bag, purse, coupon binder, re-usable shopping bags…yeah I take a lot with me to the store :/) were all in the cart and ready to go. So we had to take out the baby, take everything out of the cart and go find one that had the straps intact. What a nightmare! Especially when my husband stopped being able to accompany us to the store, so that meant that I had to do all this hunting and putting together by myself with a baby in my arms.

Well, needless to say like every mom out there, I learned some lessons and tried some new things once baby boy #2 came along! The thought struck me one day at the zoo while my youngest (16 months old at the time) was throwing his biggest fit of the day over sitting on my lap for lunch versus sitting in a provided highchair right next to me. The rest of us (me, my husband and our oldest son) were all sitting in chairs around the table and my husband had removed a chair in order to place the highchair next to me. Big mistake! Turns out our youngest just wanted to sit in the chair (or my lap) with the rest of us but like many young toddlers, he wasn’t still in the least bit! That drive home I looked up portable high chairs so the lunch situation would not happen again! Amazon.com is a great place to get baby items and was the first place I looked when I came across the Lucky Baby 3 -in- 1 Baby/Toddler Safety Harness! Available in 2 colors, Swifty Black and Patriot (which we got) for only $26.99 on Amazon Prime, it was a deal we could not pass up, specially concerning that I’m going to Disneyland after Thanksgiving with my family this year and it is always a good idea to pack prepared for anything (like no highchairs presented). What really caught my eye was the fact that it serves 3 purposes and I have not meant a mom yet that does not enjoy a baby/kid items that can be used for multiple things!

Portable Highchair and Cart Safety Strap:

So you have your baby place their legs in the leg holes and tighten the Velcro waistband (not too tight because the baby will get hurt, but also tight enough the waistband will not fall off). Then simply sit the baby on the chair/cart and unbuckle the two straps and re-buckle them around the chair’s/cart’s back. The only issue I have had is the buckle is hard to squeeze because it has that middle button you are suppose to press as well as the 2 side buttons. But once the straps are around the chair/cart, you simply pull them until they are tight enough around the chair/cart!

Walking Harness:

This part had me confused when I read the instructions but it’s so easy! Hold up the leg holes into the waistband, place around your child’s chest and loosen the straps (if they’re still tight from using it as a high chair or cart strap). There is a nifty loop in the middle where both ends of the straps come together.

I LOVE this product! It was well made, washable (every baby item should be!) and folds up nicely to fit in my purse/diaper bag/ car kit/ whatever. We never go anywhere without it! It has become a staple in our diaper bag, one of those products I wish I had found sooner and a product I plan on gifting to my friends in the next coming months! It works as a walking harness for bot my 5 year old (when we are in crowded areas and we don’t want to lose him) and my youngest loves it, he stops and puts his arms up whenever we bring it out with us. We bring it even when we bring the stroller because baby boy is wanting more and more to run with his brother and dad, so this harness is perfect for our family!  

  Link for Amazon:

Amazon Lucky Baby 3-in-1 Safety Harness