immunity boosters for kids

[alison]

The first week of school is behind us, and.... there's a case of lice at school. ALREADY! It's only been 3 days. Dd has short hair, so I don't worry about her too much, but still *itch itch*

Dd is such a poor eater, and I'm looking for ways to boost her immune system. She was sick ALL THE TIME last year. Not having breastfed her is rearing its ugly head.
I was giving her a probiotic, but she complains of a tummy ache with it. Might help if you had something IN YOUR STOMACH, huh, kiddo? But what do I know, I just live here...

How do you guys give your kids bullet proof immune systems? I don't want her to bring home a cold... Not ready for it!!!

[BonBon]

Eh, my kids were breastfed (pumped), eat pretty clean diets, are active, and guess what. We're all sick right now and school just started last Wednesday. I think it's just the nature of having kids. It's getting better now that they're older...I'm not sure if kids are less gross as they get older, or we're just immune to a lot of viruses now.

[alison]

I think the latter! Whenever I'm in Germany, I get sick, and dh is spared!

I was joking about the bf-ing. The little guy crashing his bike was too ambiguous. .

Feel better soon, Chris!

[spotty_dog]

I was looking up Joel Fuhrman's recipe ideas for adults and it reminded me that he has a book out called "Disease Proof your Child," which I guess is largely about choosing antioxidant-rich foods and limiting animal products. But I dunno about how a kiddo who already has limited food choices would handle stuff like "salad-stuffed pita" for their brown bag lunch!

Teaching handwashing skills is supposed to be the best defense against passing germs. I wouldn't know, my kids are terrible handwashers! And for the lice, teach M never to share hats. We got that drilled into us hardcore growing up in Alaska where everybody wore knit hats to school daily during the winter.

[Ravenclaw]

I've heard from friends that probiotics and elderberry syrup (sold in health stores like Whole Foods) help but neither of my kids eat those regularly, so I don't know if they work personally. I'm not looking forward to cold and flu season!

[alison]

I saw this: https://www.honest.com/health-and-we...immunity-boost
And dh was like "do whatever you want, weirdo."

[GrayMatterWife]

The first week of school is behind us, and.... there's a case of lice at school. ALREADY! It's only been 3 days. Dd has short hair, so I don't worry about her too much, but still *itch itch*

Dd is such a poor eater, and I'm looking for ways to boost her immune system. She was sick ALL THE TIME last year. Not having breastfed her is rearing its ugly head.
I was giving her a probiotic, but she complains of a tummy ache with it. Might help if you had something IN YOUR STOMACH, huh, kiddo? But what do I know, I just live here...

How do you guys give your kids bullet proof immune systems? I don't want her to bring home a cold... Not ready for it!!!

My kids almost never get sick. Usually, just one round of stomach flu a year. No ear infections, chronic sore throats, runny noses, etc. We are lucky. Although DH joked: our childr-rearing theory was antigen-presentation. We let our kids get into anything and everything, pretty much everywhere when they were babies. No sheltered strollers or antibacterial washes (but then, we had no preemies or immune-compromised kids, so we were able to). I think they breathed in everything short of ebola. (And now that we are in Atlanta...)

I barely breast-fed. I REALLY would not blame that. At all. I have hearty, formula-fed kiddos.

Zero you can do to prevent lice. Sorry.

I would just try to make sure she gets enough SLEEP. Sleep is so critical to staying healthy. You can overdose on Vitamin C and wash your hands a billion times a day, but if your body is run down, you are much less capable of fighting it off.

GOOD LUCK!

[spotty_dog]

DD is coming down with her first kindergarten cold. It's a big benefit of our wacky every-other-day schedule, I remember DS using almost a day a week to recover from yet another cold, but he didn't have to miss school for illness hardly at all.

In the homeopathy thread I referred to feeling like most "alternative" and herbal medicines are equally unfounded but equally "probably won't harm and could help" (as long as you're vigilant about side effects and interactions.) If you want to go all-in with elderberry, then do it! Not a huge fan of the Honest Company though, just personal (I felt like they took their threats of trademark infringement too far with the Honest Toddler blogger.) There are a lot of places to get elderberry extract, for kids you want a glycerin-based alcohol-free product like this: http://www.iherb.com/Herb-Pharm-Blac...-29-6-ml/10090

[ladymoreta]

Alison, I still hold a grudge against Honest Company, too, over the Honest Toddler blog fiasco.

[alison]

I subscribe to Honest diapers. They seem to fit C's chunky thighs the best. And they don't leak like Seventh Gen., Naty, Bambo. Pampers don't fit C well around the legs, bc she'd need a size 4
to get around her thighs and in 4s they're too loose around the waist. So Honest, it is! I never had this problem with M. She wasn't in a size 3 diaper until she was almost 14 mos! . C was in one at 10 weeks.

Anyway, m came home with her first cold. I agree with you, Abigail, on the sleep factor. I was putting her down at 6:45 every day, because she was so exhausted from school. She'd wake up any time between 7:30 and 8. I attribute this not being a terrible cold to the fact that she's gotten a ton of sleep! She didn't miss any school either.

We're all taking probiotics, including C.

[samssugarmomma]

I think sleep and hand washing are the best germ preventers. We are sticklers for early bed times! My 9 year old last year complained that she had the earliest bed time last year at 7:45 (up at 6:00 am). LOL

I wouldn't beat myself up about not being able to breast feed. I have two that were breastfed and two that were formula fed and I don't see a big difference between who gets sick more or less. I'd let that guilt go girlfriend!