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I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic but nothing brings on the Greek tragedy like having a sick baby. I don’t cope well.
My initial reaction to the first sign of illness is self-doubt. I spend hours debating if I need to be concerned at all. Then I wonder if I should be heading to the GP or if maybe I’m overreacting. Then I second-guess myself and panic that I haven’t panicked enough because I’m completely negligent and I should probably rush straight to the hospital. Then I tell myself it’s just a cough and I shouldn’t expose the kids to the super bugs and drunkards crawling around the emergency room so we stay home. And then I lie awake all night listening to Snuffleupagus snorts and wheezes and Google all the possible diseases my children have contracted.
I also launch into Dr Mum mode. This involves even more time on Google, trying to find every possible at-home, natural remedy that will magically cure my baby. So I end up sitting in the bathroom, holding my baby in the steam of the shower, chopping onions and rubbing her in garlic, trying to do extra feeds to keep her hydrated and wishing I could just take the sickness away. Meanwhile, the husband has been sent to the chemist to buy ALL THE THINGS. All of them.
You do this too, don’t you? Or maybe it’s just me….
Pop has the great distinction of being my second baby and as a result she gets automatic early entry into the cesspit of life, thanks to her older brother. This is in fact an official diagnosis given to me by a very expensive doctor I rushed her to late one Saturday night. He told me, with all the bedside manner of a dish sponge, that baby number two will cop. it. all because toddlers and germs and licking each other etc.
This little dolly had a blocked nose for the first 12 weeks of her life, no exaggeration. I started to worry she was allergic to our cat or the house or maybe just me, but my life revolved around her nasal passages. Because babies refuse to breathe through their goddamn mouth for the first few months, I spent every hour of every day fiddling with her nose so she could sleep, eat and breathe.
When I say fiddling, I mean spraying and sucking. My sister gave me some Fess Little Noses drops and a snot sucker (I believe they’re actually called nasal aspirators but that sounds painful) when I had my first baby and I’ve kept a supply ever since. I took it with me in my hospital bag when I had Pop. I own all the Fess. It’s a standard component of my Winter Survival Kit.
I genuinely love Fess so much that I regularly give the drops and a snot sucker as a baby shower gift. It’s gentle, safe and a must have for every new mum. I mean, sure, a teddy bear is cute but I like to think my friends are silently thanking me when they’re spraying and sucking snot in the middle of the night. From one mum to another, you’re welcome ladies.
And look, I’m not going to lie, the snot issue is a bit complicated for me because on the one hand I can’t stand watching my baby struggle to breathe, but on the other hand I get a twisted pleasure out of sucking the snot. Oh God, the satisfaction that comes with dislodging a particularly bulky nostril nugget.
I also have a bit of eye gunk OCD. I literally can’t talk to my kids if they’ve got a big eye booger happening so I’m constantly rubbing at their eyes. The sick, weepy eyes they get when they’re feeling awful make me so sad but the Little Eyes Gentle Cleansing Wipes can deal with all that crusting without hurting them (and that’s according to ophthalmologists and dermatologists, so you don’t need to take my word for it).
One of the hardest things about having a really tiny sick baby is you can’t give them anything so they just need to battle it out on their own which is a little bit heartbreaking. But from six months old you can give them Little Coughs with Ivy Leaf Extract, which has been used for centuries in traditional medicine to break down the mucky, chesty, crackly cough. You know the one I mean. When it sounds like they’ve got a huge golly sitting on their chest, poor little ducks.
I’ve just restocked my mini-pharmacy because Thud and Pop adore each other. Which means they are in each other’s faces every second of the day. Because loving your baby sister means trying to show her all your toys, INSIDE HER MOUTH. Occasionally up her nose. It’s called ‘sharing’ apparently. “Here little sister, here’s my upper respiratory tract infection!” So sweet.
What’s in your Winter Survival Kit?
3 comments
I love Vicks, especially the baby version. It’s a great tool for sticking pens to the wall as my 3 year old has demonstrated. He also likes to bring home 4763466 different types of germs, viral infections and cold-like diseases from his fucking daycare. My 2 year old, on the other hand, is all about the vomit. Gets sick? Vomits. Chokes on his ham sandwich? Vomits. Drinks too much apple juice on the way home from McDonald’s drive thru? Vomits the second we walk in the door. Every. Single. Time. Last time we had an epic three-day chuckathon where he chundered on the curtains, table, carpet, Duplo container, baby rug, and his own bed (three times). The baby is also quite fond of a good hurl, and whilst the regurgitated contents of his stomach are slightly less offensive, going on 5 months now and I have yet to see a significant reduction in output. It just pours out of him. Some people sweat. He vomits. We are all permanently wafting the gentle fragrance of sour milk and the instant I put on a pair of clean jeans he vomits in my crotch. And then I have to sit there rubbing it with a spit up cloth like some kind of demented perv. #notevengoingtotalkaboutthecleavagevomit
Oh my winter sickness is the worst! We totally coddled Miss M from any germs germs…but you’re right the second one does cop it worse! One of mine currently has a sniffle and the other a cough ?
Oh my Lauren! We need an intervention for you and all the things!