How to help your baby fight a cold naturally

Unfortunately, now that there are two kids in the house, they share everything including viruses. Two weeks ago, my son got the flu. Despite all our efforts and precautions, my daughter got it too. A 6-month-old baby with a congested nose is heartbreaking. But we were determined. We’ve had a similar 6-month-long cold drama with my son when he was only 6 months old, we weren’t going to have it with my daughter again. We did the following and the cold is almost gone. I’m hoping it’s on its last leg by now.

The preventative measures we took to stop the disease from spreading to each other:

1. Everyone wore medical masks in the house. Especially, I took great care not to get close to my daughter without a mask.
2. I kept my distance from my son for a while. We started to live in different parts of the house: my husband and my son in one corner vs. I and my daughter in the other.
3. When I had an interaction with my son (he wanted someone to snuggle with him while he slept during the week he was sick), I immediately took off my clothes and threw them in the laundry.
4. We changed our sheets and pillow cases every day. This way, we didn’t have to socialize with our germs over and over again.
5. We aerated our rooms every day, regardless of the weather.
6. We stopped sharing the same towel. We dry our hands with paper towels for now. We wash our hands zillion times during the day.
7. When we were wiping our own nose and my son’s nose, we only used tissues once. Kleenex says that it kills viruses but there still is no need to wipe our noses over and over again with the same germy tissue. We wash our hands again after wiping our noses.

Despite all these efforts, I think because I took off my mask too early thinking my cold was gone; the lingering viruses got my daughter sick too.

Things we did in addition to the above, to help fight my daughter’s cold:

1. We kept her nose clear with saline solutions. My mom researched this. Apparently, the cold virus settles in the nose and saline solutions not only help wash away snot but also these viruses.
2. Trying not to irritate her nose too much, we cleaned her nose with a syringe bulb (blue bulb). My poor baby’s nostrils got bigger.  Apparently there is also a new nasal aspirator called Nose Frida Nasal Aspirator. We didn’t buy it but it looked pretty good.
3. We gave her steam baths few times during the day and also bedtime bath at night.
4. After her bath, we put her clothes on in the bathroom instead of bringing her to a colder bedroom. I even held a blow dryer to her head and belly from afar while we were dressing her. She calmed down with the sound and kept warm.
5. So that she wouldn’t feel cold because of the sudden temperature change while leaving the bathroom, I had a warm humidifier running in her room. It helped me regulate the temperature to the level I wanted, more so than moisture.
6. We kept the room warm but humid. We used an ultrasonic cold mist humidifier.
7. I put a wedge under her mattress and raised her head so that post nasal dripping wouldn’t make her cough and she would not wake up to many times.
8. We plugged in a Sudacare vapor plug in her room so that it would ease her breathing at nights while she slept.
9. While breastfeeding, I always nursed her either in football position or in sitting position with her head up, so fluid would not get into her middle ear and cause an infection.
10. On top of the prenatal vitamins I was already taking because of breastfeeding, I also started to take extra vitamin C and zinc supplements. My daughter takes multivitamin drops anyway, and we started to give my son special children’s multivitamins that were rich in vitamin C.
11. So that I wouldn’t catch a cold again from her, just like she caught it from me, we tried not to get too touchy-feely with each other.

I wish everyone a flu- and cold-free winter!