When there's a stomach bug, the most important thing to do is to keep children hydrated. We've developed a sure-fire way to keep our children hydrated when their stomachs do not want to keep anything down.
We use Pedylite Popsicle to help re hydrate our children, essentially a flavored frozen drink with sugar, salt and potassium.
The popsicle are expensive (they're about $0.30 per), but the ingredients to make them are not expensive at all. We have everything we need (water, sugar, salt, flavoring) but I'm missing one ingredient: potassium. Thankfully it's something that can be found at the grocery store:
Potassium Chloride
It's a salt substitute called "nu salt". It doesn't really taste like salt, but it's an essential electrolyte for rehydration. It's what's found in Gatorade.
We add sodium chloride (sea salt) and potassium chloride (Nu-salt) along with a generous amount of sugar and grapefruit flavoring, to boiling water and let it all dissolve together.
Put it all in a jar to cool down and we have our flavored rehydration solution!
It tastes salty-sweet with a citrus flavor, I suppose that shouldn't be surprising as those are all the ingredients.
The idea is to put them in sandwich bags and allow them to freeze to make ice-chips. This is a useful tool to help rehydrate little children who are having stomach issues.
The Rehydration Protocol
This is our family method (not medical advice) on how we rehydrate our children when their stomachs become emptied. These are five steps that could literally save a life!
We wait 1 - 1.5 hours from the vomit incident. This is the most uncomfortable time, but it allows the body to relax and begin accepting fluids. If it is continuing for a very long time, we use anti-nausea medicine, but only as needed.
Once the child has gone at least 1 hour (or more) without incident, we try them with a chip of crushed ice, about a table-spoon size. We set the timer for 15 minutes and if the child does not have another incident, we give them another ice chip. If the child throws up at any point, it's back to stage one again.
After about four ice chips (one hour), if there are no problems, we try a pedialyte ice chip and wait 15 minutes. If there are no problems, we give them the entire freezer pop - it's usually very well enjoyed after several hours.
After the freezer pop, the child relaxes for another hour, then we give them some jello or soup broth. If they are able to keep these down, an hour later we try giving them dry toast or crackers.
Once the child has graduated to solid food without throwing up, we monitor for another hour and evaluate if they can eat something else without issue. This is where it's touch-and-go, since if the child vomits the food, it's back to step one again.
The idea is to allow the body to calm down before introducing too much liquid or food - even though the child is thirsty (or hungry), feeding them will do no good if it all just comes up again!
Once the child goes a number of hours without throwing up, it's usually a sign that that portion of the illness has passed. The process is very slow and requires some discipline (and lots of timers), but it can keep a child out of the ER. Dehydration is NO JOKE, so careful attention and patient administration can shorten the experience to one day, instead of two or three days.
How do you heal a stomach illness? What methods do you use?
Bless the Most High!
Teach Your Children Liberty from Sin
We encourage parents to teach their children principles of Godliness, beginning with the Word and an understanding who God is and what His Son has done to form a relationship with us.
No one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. 1 Corinthians 3:11-13
Teach Your children Liberty from Tyranny
Second to this is the principle of self-determination and freedom, lest we loose the ability to teach our children the first principle in future generations.
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