Protecting your child from cold and flu

Days of discomfort and bed rest can be avoided if proper precautions are taken at the right time

Our young ones often find it hard to cope with the flu and colds and may get up to 8 colds in a single year. Them getting ill and us getting worried is directly proportional, in many ways. The reason behind these recurring illnesses is an incompletely developed immune system which should be a point of focus for parents as well.

Let’s face the truth, you can’t keep your child in a sterilized bubble all day long, at one point or another they are going to sneak past you and there goes all your assumed protection regime. As a mom you must be worried and we get it completely but there are ways by which you can save yourself the agony of seeing your child getting ill.

Practicing good hand hygiene by washing your hands with soap and water multiple times in a day is one of the best practices in this scenario. Whenever you are about to pick your baby up, go over the preventive measures to follow, in your mind, again and again. It doesn’t matter how old is your child; 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years, you just have to keep pushing the pedal on the health hygiene routine.

A meticulous approach

Babies are like a ticking time bomb that can go off anytime anywhere so you have to be meticulous in your approach when it comes to handling them. A strictly thought-out plan should be followed by everyone who comes into contact with them. Always make sure that you are washing hands either with soap or with hand wash right before picking them up or even touching them.

This is one of the most cost-effective, beneficial, and easy-going methods to protect your baby against flu and cold. Initially, this can prove to be a mammoth task but as you ease-in with the process it can be just be another regular thing to follow, fed in your autonomous nervous system.

The motherly instinct

Driven by the motherly instinct to protect your children you might just become obsessed with the fact that germs are everywhere, when your child starts crawling. Here, you don’t need to wash your hands but instead wash their hands frequently and timely, so that germs don’t get free access to your child’s body via contaminated fingers.

For those surfaces in your house that get high audience, wiping down with a Dettol surface cleaner might be the hail Mary route that you were looking for. Because the cold and flu viruses may survive on different surfaces for a period of more than 24 hours, it’s always a good idea to keep the floor clean and surfaces shining, especially when you have a little one around.

Keeping clothes clean

Using a laundry sanitizer to keep your baby’s cloth clean and free of germs is also a good way of fending off against germs. Dirty clothes are a harbinger of bad news when it comes to protection against germs, so ensure the safety check by doing laundry on regular times and strengthen the protect-against-flu-barrier.

What to do at school?

For school going children, protection from flu might be a completely different story because of possible exposure to germ hotspots outside the house. Here, you need to make your children adopt healthy hygiene habits including avoiding surfaces with high traffic. Touching door knobs, desks, or chairs might prove hazardous when everybody around them is sneezing or coughing.

Ask them to steer clear of such spots and wash their hands times and again throughout the day. If they are unable to do so, push a hand sanitizer in their pockets so their hands stay free of germs round the clock. Respiratory infections are known to transfer mostly by fomite transmission and this includes touching the infected surfaces and then touching your face, nose, or mouth.

Avoiding possible points of contact can help protect your child from cold and flu and the resultant days of suffering and fever. To make sure that they don’t bring in germs home from school, ask your children to take off shoes as soon as they enter the house and wash hands with soap and water thoroughly.

Getting Vaccinated

Apart from instilling personal habits in your children, you should get them vaccinated annually. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends children six months or older to get an annual flu vaccine. This can fortify their defenses against the virus ultimately keeping them happy and healthy through the season.

You can’t keep an eye on your child’s doing throughout the day but teaching them the preventive measures and helping them maintain good hand hygiene can keep them protected from not only flu and cold but other diseases too.