When sickness is not an option

For the last week or so, Ellie has been snotty. Not the contagious type of snotty, just the uncomfortable stage where we've had to get out the snot sucker before feeding and bed, and we're going through Euky Bearub like it's going out of fashion.

I knew when we put her in daycare, that we'd better brace ourselves for everything that was going around and that was soon the case, with Mr Fork getting snotty and sneezy himself.  I did my usual immune boosting techniques: I dosed myself to the gills on Armaforce tablets, vitamin C and zinc, and if I have to look at another olive leaf extract drink anytime soon, I'll puke.  Breastfeeding pretty much rules out all the good stuff, sadly.

To no avail, as I got whatever my baby and husband had, only it seemed to hit me harder (guess it mutated and got stronger passing through them first!). I hate being sick. Even worse when you've got a little person relying on you to nurture them and can't afford to bury yourself in bed the way you could pre-baby. Here's a photo I sent to Mr Fork of myself feeling sad and sorry while working from home so as not to spread anything around the office. Note the stylish pink Hello Kitty pyjamas. Don't judge me.

However, now that I'm on the mend, I threw it open to friends and the social media-verse, for their best "I'm breastfeeding and can't get sick with what the snotty baby and sneezing husband have" cure all remedies, so I know what else to do next time. Here's the top tips with some of my input added after:

• Sleep - hard when you have a baby, but do your best
• Know when enough is enough - when you need to throw in the towel, take to bed, and ask for help
• Super hot shower. A little extra tip I'd like to add here is add a few drops of tea tree or eucalyptus oil into the bottom of the shower so you can inhale it while you're in there.
• Sore throat? Gargle warm salty water
• Congested? Steam inhalation (I stole Ellie's humidifier so I could sleep better, laced with Eukybear inhalation oil)
• Tea. My favourite immune boosting one is YEP tea - Yarrow, Elm and Peppermint. It's good for clearing mucus, helping to sweat out the toxins, calming sore throats and helping you to relax and sleep better. Some people recommend adding honey, but I don't care for it myself. 
• Vitamin C. No brainer. However you can get it, fresh juice or tablets
• Echinacea and Olive Leaf. I get these via the Armaforce but I drink olive leaf separately with water as well
• Probiotics. A healthy tummy totally helps keep the rest of the system healthy too
• Garlic. I'll point out that it's better raw so make sure you take that into account when you're chomping into it!
• Soup. Add lots of chili, garlic and ginger. Mr Fork swears by chicken and corn and I make myself something similar minus the chicken of course.
• Coconut oil. I'm going to add a plug for this wonder product here. Great multitasking product, but in this case, I smear it around my nose to stop it going red and sore from the constant blowing of

Finally, for no good reason other than my pins looking hot and to balance out the heinous picture of my face above, here is a gratuitous picture of my legs. The photo is my entry for a competition about how people style their clogs in Winter. 

Do you have a favourite remedy for when you're feeling a little run down? Any cure all that works for you? I'd love to hear it!

Review: Fess little noses

Earlier this week, Ellie woke up snuffly, sneezing, and with a slight temperature.  The poor little thing, every time she went to feed, she ended up distressed because her nose was clogged, so then she'd sneeze and I'd end up with a charming array of boogers over whatever I was wearing.  She didn't actually realise she was sick to be honest, and was her usual energetic and smiley self, but she sounded just awful and I could hear her chest getting a bit rattly.  She sounded as though she was about to get a cold, and not feeling too crash hot myself, we took a trip to the chemist in the hope of lessening symptoms before it developed into something worse for both of us.

Enter one of the pitfalls of breastfeeding: you can't take any of the good stuff when you get sick because it just passes straight through the milk. So all I got was a bottle of vitamin C tablets and advised to use FESS to try and clear out my sinus.

Ellie got pretty much the same deal. We already had children's panadol to help bring down her temperature, so we were sorted there. (Just as an aside, why is baby panadol so horribly flavoured? Disgusting artificial cherry flavour doesn't do anyone any favours). We also had a tube of Euky Bearub which is seriously awesome - this was rubbed on her chest, back, and bottom of her feet, and really did help her breathe better (and also smelled nice but I like those sort of smells...).  

Finally, the chemist recommended baby FESS to help clear out her nose.  It came in a choice of spray or drops (same price), and I chose the spray because I could use it while she was upright, and didn't require 1-2 minutes of waiting for it to work like the drops apparently did.  Both the spray and drops also came with a nasal aspirator (henceforth known as the 'snot sucker').

FESS little noses box

Here's a comparison of the baby FESS and the adult version.

Basically, what you do is spray the FESS up into each little nostril.  You then squeeze the snot sucker bulb, hold it to the entrance of the nostril, block them both, and let the air back into the snot sucker. It then does what it does best (Mr Fork said that it wasn't necessary to show pictorial results so imagination will have to be used instead).

The snot sucker in all it's (clean) glory

I may be a little twisted but I got extraordinary amounts of satisfaction in extracting that snot. The beastlier they were, the more pride I got in 'getting' them. Mr Fork said I was disgusting and refused to admire the fruits of my labours after the first time I made him look.  At the advice from a nurse friend of mine, I also sprayed more saline into her nose after I'd extracted the snot to help thin the mucus so Ellie could get rid of it herself.

After the first day, we didn't need to use panadol anymore as her temperature was normal. She's still a bit rattly, but the Euky bearub is helping that out. The snot sucker (and spray) verdict? LOVE IT.  Honestly, every house with a baby should have one.  There is nothing more miserable than when your baby is sick, especially when there isn't anything you can really do to help them.  When they're so little they can't even blow their nose, it's heart breaking. This snot sucker device made it so Ellie could breathe and eat, and for that I'm grateful. The fact that it's so satisfying to use is just a bonus.  It's also washable, and pulls apart to make that job easier too. 

How do you cope when your child is sick? Any tips?