Taking care of a baby means needing some natural baby cold remedies. Having a cold is annoying, and sometimes miserable. When your baby has a cold it’s worse- always demanding and sometimes scary.
Cold remedies for little kids wasn’t something I knew about in the beginning. As a new mom 20 years ago I looked for some kind of medicine to help our baby through his colds, but soon discovered there aren’t medicines out there that are safe or effective for colds of such tiny people. Fast-forward to now, I have about 20 years of advice and experience to help me feel confident when one of our little ones gets a cold. And now I’m going to share that with you, so that you and your baby can breathe a little easier through their colds.
Remedies
To take care of tiny colds you’ll need these baby cold remedies:
- soft tissues
- saline nasal spray
- bulb syringe
- chest rub
- a vaporizer/humidifier
As that little nose keeps running, you’ll just have to keep wiping it with soft tissues to keep it from getting too chapped and sore.
Saline nasal spray helps to loosen up the mucus that makes it hard for baby to breathe. For not so stuffy noses, spray it upward while baby is held upright. For more stuffy noses, lie baby down to get a stream in their nose. You might need an extra set of hands to get it done. They hate it, but it does help them to breathe. This is a little kids cold remedy you don’t want to be without.
The bulb syringe is a great tool to help unplug some of that mucus that makes it hard for baby to breathe. You can use it together with the nasal spray, or just on it’s own. And keep those tissues ready to wipe up the goo.
You can use as much chest rub as you want on your baby. The menthol really helps baby to be able to breathe through the mucus. Rubbing some on their chest is great and recommended. Rubbing it on their feet and then putting on socks always seems to help them sleep better, which I don’t really understand, but I’ve seen it work so many times! Give it a try. Also, I’ve tried the name brand and dollar store versions of chest rub and they both work just fine.
A vaporizer or humidifier is great to help baby breathe and sleep through their cold. This is also one of the few things that has really helped with our kids’ coughs at any age.
After the first year, when they can have honey, there are a couple things you can add to your list of natural baby cold remedies.
The first remedy we use pretty often for any sore throat or stuffy nose and we like to call it “hot medicine.” The hot water is soothing, the honey is a proven cough suppressant and has vitamin C in it, and the apple cider vinegar is a natural antibiotic.
Hot Medicine
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon honey
Directions
- Warm the water in a microwave safe cup for about 30 seconds. Check that the water is very warm but not too hot.
- Stir in the vinegar and honey until it is dissolved.
- Pour it in a child safe cup. Serve while warm.
This next recipe for natural baby cold remedies needs a story. A few years ago we had a cough going around our house. Several of our kids had it and they just couldn’t stop coughing. When it came to Sunday morning we decided to leave those coughing kids home with Dad, while Mom took the well kids to church. We were more worried about the annoying noise of their coughing disturbing the people there than we were about their health. When I got home from church, they weren’t coughing any more! Dad had made a miracle herbal tea from the herbs in our garden that did a wonderful trick.
Dad’s Cough Remedy
Ingredients
- A handful fresh mint (or 2 Tbsp dry)
- A handful fresh thyme (or 2 Tbsp dry)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 4 cups water
Directions
- Place herbs in the water and bring to a boil. (If using dry herbs, wrap them in a sturdy paper towel or a coffee filter and close tight with a clean rubber-band).
- Take it off the heat and cover to let it steep for 15 minutes.
- Remove the herbs and stir in the honey.
- Pour about 1/2 cup into a child safe cup and serve warm.
Aside from natural baby cold remedies, we have tried many different children’s medicines over the years with our kids who are a little older. Frankly, most of them didn’t help much. But there is one kind of medicine that I will buy again and recommend and that’s a mix of guaifenesin and phenylephrine. These are the main ingredients in Mucinex. I usually get the store brand that works just the same. I believe the minimum age for this one is 4 years. When I give this medicine to my stuffed up kids they breathe easier and don’t seem quite so miserable, something I can’t claim for too many of the cold medicines we’ve tried.
Prevention
You don’t have to wait for a cold to come on to start taking care of it. Of course we can’t avoid the occasional cold altogether, but there are things we can do to catch them less often and make them less severe. We can help our little ones keep healthier as well. The best natural baby cold remedy is prevention.
Feed babies breastmilk. Science is full of evidence that breastmilk helps babies stay healthier. They have a specific advantage while they’re being breastfed. Even our ancestors knew this before they had the science. They used to counsel the young mothers to nurse their babies through their 2nd winter to help keep them alive.
Even after a baby is too old for breastmilk, having their immune system built with the nutrients from breastmilk will keep them healthier for their whole lives.
Wash your hands and bathe your baby. This is an important natural baby cold remedy and prevention. I think that living through COVID has reinforced for all of us the importance of handwashing. It’s even more important with little ones to wash hands before holding them, before feeding them, after changing them, etc. I’ve definitely made a habit of handwashing in my years of motherhood, washing after cleaning, after we go outside, after we leave the house, before I cook or prepare any foods, etc, etc. If I think there might be any germs on my hands, they’re getting washed, because I don’t want to get my kids sick. (I may have ranted a little on that one 😆).
Bathing your baby during cold and flu season can have the same effect. Of course you don’t want to overdo the baby washing, because of their delicate skin, so keeping them indoors most of the time when they’re really small is a good idea. On days when you take them in public, give them a bath when you get back home. For a trip outside, a wet warm washcloth over their hands, face, and hair can help remove allergens and germs without over doing it.
Keep those little toes warm. Even in the Valley of the Sun it can get cold enough to give little ones a runny nose if I let them play outside with bare-feet. Little ones, especially babies, have a hard time maintaining their body temperature, so if it’s chilly, warm them up, especially with some socks and/or shoes on their feet.
Cut the sugar, up the veggies. I learned this natural baby cold remedy by experience. The biggest change in our kids’ health came after we changed our diet to eat healthier. Before we changed our eating habits, we were in for antibiotics for each of our kids at least twice a year. Afterward it was years in between any of them needing any antibiotics, literally. I believe the thing that made the difference was decreasing their sugar intake and increasing their vegetables.
When I say sugar I’m not even talking about the ice cream and soda and cookies, because we already ate those in moderation. I’m talking about paying attention to how much sugar was in the food we ate for snacks and meals that we considered healthy and making sure those were low in sugar.
For the vegetables, feed them to your littles often. If they’re just starting solids, throw those veggies into the pattern of foods that they try and eat. Once they’re eating meals at the table, feed them vegetables at least two meals each day. Those little bodies need the fiber and vitamins and nutrients that are vegetable are so rich in. (We need them too, but that’s a topic for another time.) Read more about nutrition for kids here.
So there you have my 20 years of wisdom for taking care of tiny colds. I hope these natural baby cold remedies and preventions help you and your little ones through your adventures.
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