Last updated on September 3rd, 2023 at 10:34 am
Nat shares her best tips and tricks to prepare for cough and cold season, sponsored by our friends at Vicks Vaporub. Check out what she has to say!
I am Natalie Diaz and today we’re going to have a discussion about prepping for cold and coughs season. All right well we’re going to talk about cold season because it is upon us. We’re talking about tips and tricks thanks to our friends at Vicks. As a mom of now 13-year-old twinnies I have been through my share of cough and cold seasons. A lot of them. I also know that when one twinnie gets sick the other twinnie is going to get sick.
The first thing that I want to tell you is that you need to stock up on your supplies. So classically beginning cold and cough season you really should have an arsenal of supplies, so you do not have to run out if you need them. Cough and cold season is here, there’s nothing that we could do whether we get sick or not have the stuff in your house because none of these things have like a quick expiration date. So, things that we need to stock up on are you ready? Get a pen and paper. I’ll hold.
So, we need our Vicks Vaporub. If our children are two years and under we need our Vicks BabyRub. If the children are three months and up. And this does smell pretty much exactly the same. I didn’t know that there was a baby rub, by the way, when the twinnies were little so I literally waited until they were old enough to use this. But I never knew that existed. The next thing is clear we’re stocking up on these. These when I don’t find them everywhere so I’m giving you notice now. When you do find them by like four or five boxes. They make the regular sized box too I like these little boxes. They don’t take we don’t have like a giant house and as crazy as this sounds even though this is a smaller box I leave it on the windowsill pretty much 365 days a year. I never ever move it. So that’s what we have.
The next thing you need is a humidifier. Now Vicks does make a humidifier which is super awesome because it has you could have that Vaporub scent in that humidifier, so you do need a good humidifier. Now whatever humidifier you buy if it has filters in addition to buying the humidifier you need to buy the filters. I cannot tell you how many families that I visit and that people I know whether it’s professionally through Twiniversity or personally just in my own world you have to have to have to replace the filters on those humidifiers. If they have a filter and if they don’t have a filter you still have to go in and clean it. So, don’t just things like oh I have a humidifier its good enough. It is actually not good enough you please, please, please make sure that you are changing your filters and cleaning your humidifier as much as necessary.
The next thing that you need is some kind of bulb syringe. Preferably you’d have one for each baby in a perfect world but if you only have one then you have one. But you do need a bulb syringe. And what a bulb syringe is it is um sometimes they’re called nasal aspirators – is another name for them – but it’s this bulb with this tip and you would squeeze out the entire gunk in your little baby’s nostrils. Because if they’re super tiny and you know that you can’t go up to them and say okay blow, right? How many times you do this to your kids a day? I did that a million times so blow go. I’m going to do it to you guys too. So please make sure that you have a bulb syringe handy for when they’re little before they could assist you with blowing their noses.
The next thing that you need is you do need acetaminophen. Depending on the age of your babies and depending on your doctor’s approval you should have some kind of fever reducer in your home in case the twinnies did get a fever. You gotta have something on hand. You have to so choose whatever one you want. Whatever one your doctor tells you. That’s the one that you’re going to go to whether it name-brand or generic. Don’t care. Have it in your home but make sure that your children can take it. So, you always want to make sure that you are speaking to your pediatrician and in addition to making sure that you’re reading the manufacturers recommendations on dosing and such.
That’s the next thing the next thing that you need is in addition to acetaminophen you probably want to have some kind of ibuprofen. Sometimes if your twinnies are super sick you may have to do both acetaminophen every four hours and ibuprofen every six hours. And, of course, once again don’t go by my recommendations go by what your doctor is telling you to. But if your babies have a really high fever and it is not coming down you really need to make sure that you have both in your home. So, if they’re super small you want to make sure you have the liquids and if they’re older you want to get either the tablets that dissolve in their mouth or the ones that they could shoot. But always have age-appropriate medicines in your home.
You know what’s like a funny thing and I always say like you know what’s crazy? The children’s acetaminophen which is the liquid I still carry in my home. I still actually use it. I find that sometimes if I’m having like an upset stomach like especially if I have like if I have a stomach virus or something. Sometimes if I take some medicines right so if I’m taking over the counter ibuprofen it actually irritates my belly. But I found that if I take the liquid of the ibuprofen or the acetaminophen myself and I just do an adult version of the dose it’s so much better for my stomach. So, know that this stuff is for children technically it’s made for children but if adults need to use it for whatever reason maybe your throat is too sore and if you have trouble swallowing pills you know the baby stuff it’s just the same stuff. You just got to take a lot of it so you might want to speak to your doctor too and make sure that you check up on that. Not only do you need to have this stuff, but it’s got to be at the grandparents’ house too. Your aunts and uncle’s. You should also have this stuff in your diaper bag. It’s not crazy it’s not absolutely nuts to have a little one of these in your diaper bag at all time in addition to the bulb syringes and all.
That the next thing we need is an age-appropriate thermometer. If they’re younger you have to use the rectal thermometer and as they get older if you want to use the forehead thermometer or you want to go old-school under the arm. Or if you want to use one that goes in their mouth or one that goes in their ear speak to your doctor once again. I know a lot of people register for these when they’re expecting and then you forget all about it. I do want to let you know though like the ones that go in your ear you should buy a lot of them. A lot of them have them like little covers that go over the nozzle of where the temperature is being read. When you’re buying them don’t just buy the thermometer, but you do want to buy the covers as well. Like the humidifier, you have to make sure that you have the additional pieces that are needed.
Alright, so we got that. The next thing that we need is some kind of baby safe disinfectant. There are so many out there right now, but you have to have some kind of disinfectant, so you could wipe down toys. You could wipe down the crib. You could wipe down their mattress. You could wipe down everything that needs to be wiped down. If it can’t go in the dishwasher you have to buy a baby safe disinfectant. If you’re really worried about it there are a lot of them that are considered food grade. So, if you buy a food grade one then you are able to use it not only to clean off like a cutting board, but you could use it for the kid’s toys and stuff like that. And everything needs to be wiped down. As the kids are getting bigger you have to do the toilet bowl handle. Every doorknob in your home. Every light switch in your home. Um, any handles that they hold on to the zippers on their jackets. The elevator buttons in your hallway. Everything should be wiped down. When the germies strike you must, must, must think about other people as well. Especially if you live in a high-rise building or a small building. Any place where you’re exposed to more than just the people in your home. Think about outside of your home as well. That goes in the car, the seatbelt buckle, the door handle everything should be wiped down. When cough and cold season strikes it’s a little mean-head in your home.
So, the next thing you need is some kind of foaming hand sanitizer for kids to use. So, depending on the age of the kids you want to use something that’s fun so maybe something with a fun fragrance or a fun top. If your kids don’t like using hand sanitizer and that’s all that we can buy the hand sanitizing wipes, buy the wipes that go outside. Or of course, you could if you know if you can get to a saying clearly get to a sink to have them wash your hands you should be washing them too. But if your kids don’t love hand sanitizer or if you can’t find a hand sanitizer that you can entice them to use maybe here’s a few ideas. Number one, get them each their own sanitizer and have them decorate the outside. So, take a plain packing label put it on the outside of the hand sanitizer but have them decorate that packing label before they put it on and that becomes their hand sanitizer that they get to use and keep ownership of because we know that toddlers and school-aged kids are very particular about having anything that is theirs. That’s one thing.
The other thing you could do is you could put stickers on it so if your kids have a favorite cartoon character or a favorite television show go ahead and put the stickers on the outside of the hand sanitizer. And maybe that will entice them to use it. That’s always like my secret trick. Why not packing labels? I have never used a packing label to like to ship a box. We use, and I actually have them handy like it’s so funny that they’re really right over there, but we have I buy them in bulk because I put them on everything anything that I couldn’t get the twinnies to use. I would make their own by putting a packing label on top of that.
The next thing that you want to have on hand is some kind of like super disinfectant. Whether it’s some sort of bleach or some sort of like other super disinfecting thing. That’s going to go for you know the toilet. Let’s say you definitely want to do that for bathroom messes. Maybe they’re having what’s called a protein spill. If you know what I mean it’s protein that spills out that’s what that’s called is protein spills. Well we’ve called it in our home. It’s actually what Disney calls it. So, we’ve adopted that name from Disney. But yeah so you want to have any kind of like super disinfectant for any protein spills in your home or any bathroom accidents. Anything that means that you have to also if they do have any accidents you really have to make sure that you’re washing stuff to the manufacturers regulations. So, if they’re puking in the car make sure that you’re not just like taking you know chemicals to the car seat that aren’t okay to be used with that car seat. So always make sure that you’re washing stuff in the correct form that it is supposed to be being washed.
Okay, the next thing is child care. So, if your kids are in daycare or if your kids are in school and you are working full time what’s your plan? What are we going to do if they’re sick? Is there a neighbor that can watch them? Is there a grandparent that can watch them? You have to have a backup plan. Especially because if you have twins we’re still going to have to take one to school, right? If we had a singleton we could take the day off and be like yeah, we’re just going to stay home with our one kid. But because we have twinnies. If the other twinnie isn’t sick get them out of the house because we don’t want to keep them in the germ factory that is your home. So, get them out of the house. Send them to school. Send them to preschool. Send them to daycare if you can.
But what are you going to do with that child that is staying home? You have to have a plan. Whether it’s your plan. Whether it’s your partner’s plan. Whether it’s a family plan. Somebody has to have a plan on exactly what to do during cough and cold season when it comes to having a kid at home. So, you also may want to expect to take a lot of vacation and sick days because if you are going to stay home with that twinnie you are clearly going to miss a day off as well. Now if you are hiring help like let’s say you have a nanny what if your nanny gets sick and your nanny can’t come in? Or what if one of the nanny’s kids gets sick? You have to have a backup for your backup for your backup for your backup for your backup. There should be at least four layers of what’s going to happen when it strikes.
I do also want to give you guys a heads up and I’ll mention this before there is a great website called healthychildren.org. Julie’s going to post it to you so you can check it out. It’ll give you even more articles and suggestions and stuff for cough and cold season. You do want to check that out. But I’m not sure if they talk a lot about help. If they don’t we’re talking about it now. Plan for you to be out you’d want to know your HR policies on sick leave, on family time and what if they’re like really sick right? You get covered sick days. You rarely use them yourself. Cole is saying… yeah Amanda I wish we lived closer. I would come and take care of the twinnies when they were sick but it’s tough when you guys don’t have family nearby. So, you have to have a plan. Maybe even call a nanny agency or sometimes there are websites out there. Your local twins club would be fantastic to find help for spot sitting when you need just a little bit of help to make sure that you could go to work. But have a back-up. Discuss with your employer. Know what the policies are for your specific job. Know if you could work from home and even if you work from home you may not be able to work from home because if you have a sick kid that is puking or a sick kid it’s coughing every place you kind of have to nurture them and take care of them. Working from home really may not be as realistic as you think. Have a backup for that too.
Now I want to talk about symptoms that you should be concerned about. So how do I know right? I’m a mom. I have a new kid. How do I know exactly when to worry, when to call the doctor? When this is an emergency room situation? How exactly do we know? So we have personally I’m going to tell you we’ve had so many emergency room visits. My son has something called spasmatic croup. Now as a thirteen-year-old it’s called reactive airway disease. So we’ve had many, many, many visits the emergency room. From the time that he was less than two. We’re well versed in the emergency room arts.
Now of course most coughs and colds and everything are not even remotely anything to be concerned about. But I do want to tell you when you need to know to call your doctor or what not. You want to call your doctor if there’s any signs of wheezing, a barky cough, rapid breathing. If they’re working harder to breathe you could see that they’re struggling or if you look at the base of the throat. When this gets pulled in they’re struggling for air. So even if you don’t hear anything if you look at this area it’s like that’s horrible to make that sound but I kind of wanted to demonstrate to you that that’s something you need to look for because if that’s being pulled in even if it is not an audible gasp you do want to call your doctor.
And you have to know when you go to your pediatrician. And next time you go to the pediatrician if you do not know their policies on calling in the middle of the night or do they have an email address? Can you text them and send them over a video? I remember our pediatrician would say take up it take a video of him and send it over to me and I would text it to her. I would text her, kind of you know like a stressful time, and she would be “Okay, here’s going to be our first line of defense – get a nebulizer. Some saline spray.” We had a whole system of what we had to do. And I’m so lucky that I had a pediatrician that was there with me every step of the way. And if you go to a pediatrician and you’re like, you know what this person doesn’t care about me, why am I even going to them? Change pediatricians. There’s no rule that says you have to stay with one pediatrician for the life of your children. If you are not satisfied with the pediatric care that you’re getting modify it, change it. We want to go to a doctor we want to go to the same doctor for 55 years. Make sure that you have a good relationship with your pediatrician and that you are able to call and ask the questions that you need to ask and get the answers that you need to make the appropriate decisions for your kids and yourself and your family.
So that you know anything respiratory is something to think about. You know the barking, the wheezing. And I believe somebody just said that there was a YouTube video that’s up. You may want to watch a video, but I certainly would not rely entirely on that. Your instincts and your intuition as a parent is actually going to go take you pretty far.
If you have a hunch that something’s up, call the doctor. Don’t wait until like a classic sign of something that I’m telling you. Always trust your instincts. You have to find a pediatrician that’s going to play on your team. You have to have a quality kind of circle of care for your twinnies because twinnies are not like an independent sport. Unless you live like in the middle of Alaska where there’s literally one doctor that sees everybody, and you do live in an area where there’s a choice make a correct choice. Your kids are going to be with them till they’re 19 plus years old. Make a really good choice okay? So that’s one thing that you want to look for.
Now Vicks Vaporub’s medicated vapors they last up to eight hours. If they have a little bit of a cough or a little bit of a cold I would really do I would rub it on their chest. Of course, remember this is if they’re over two years old. I would rub it in their chest before bedtime. Make a little ritual out of it. Play some nice music, dim the lights down, make it a very relaxing environment because you know when you’re sick it’s already stressful enough because your body isn’t working the way that it should. But how nice would it be if somebody could take care of us? I wish that there was like a service that somebody could come to my house and take care of me. I guess my mom would come if I called her, but I don’t want to bother her. She’s always so busy doing her own thing. But you do want to make sure that you do this before bed and since it lasts eight hours.
Once the babies get up and once the kids get up while babies if you’re using the baby rub. When they’re bigger you do want to reapply and make sure that you have a nice coating of it. And you don’t want to like slap it on. Like I should not see chunks of the Vaporub on their chest. It should be like a nice think about like when you’re putting on sunscreen. That’s always how I kind of give you the analogy. Put it on like you would sunscreen. You don’t want to put it on a giant healthy portion, but you want to put on a portion that’s adequate enough that it’s going to provide the relief and the comfort and the soothing that that’s exactly what it does. You want to make sure that you’re doing that. Remember two up and then three months and up for the baby rub. Now it is this is what I love about it and this is how we found out about in the first place, well our family used it. But it is the number one recommended pediatrician cough rub and it is clinically proven to reduce night coughs. It’s not just like I think it is the reason why it’s existed for so long. It’s because it’s effective. You make sure that you have some of this in your home. But yeah, the baby rub does have similar vapors and it has similar effects and of course, this is for our tiny crowd. You can use this for children that are older but I’m going to tell you that the comparison just doing it like a side-by-side comparison I’m going to smell it. It’s just it’s a lighter scent it’s not as strong. I love this stuff it’s so crazy. I love it so much. I absolutely love it so. Guys also know that the tops are changeable. That’s not necessarily like a great thing so if you have different aged children in your house please make sure that we’re always putting the correct top onto the correct Vaporub. Because let’s say your grandparents are over or your parents are over and you’re like use the baby rub that has the pink top. If you don’t if they don’t go and look or maybe they have a little hard time seeing and they’re going just by the colors if you did screw the wrong tops on you wouldn’t be using the right ones. So please just really make an effort to make sure that you’re always putting the correct top on to the correct lotion if you are going to if you have children in your home that has different age ranges. So that’s if you have a cough. This is definitely your best friend, but you want to make sure that you are making the effort to look for any signs of distress and call your pediatrician ASAP.
The next thing that we have to deal with is congestion. Congestion is a very big deal because you know that your congestion is not only in your nose sometimes it’s in your sinuses. Sometimes it’s in your throat but congestion could really give you that feeling of that pounding in your head. So, use a bulb syringe for the little tiny tots and make sure that you are kind of getting any gook out of their nose. But do really make an effort to buy the tissues that have the lotion in the bonus of course for the Vicks but after even the little guys when they had the little grossness on them don’t just take like any tissue and just rub it on their face. Get something and be really mindful think about how that feels to that baby because if you do rub that baby’s nose and you’re like oh my god baby hates it. Of course, the baby’s going to hate it. If it’s an abrasive tissue of course the baby’s going to hate it. So yeah, we definitely want to make sure that we’re being thoughtful and by the way I’m going to blow my nose again. Oh, my ears just opened. That’s the best all right. So, we got our tissues. You’re going to keep your little snot sucker handy and then we also want to make sure that we have a cool mist humidifier on at sleep time. And sleep is not only overnight sleep is during the day as well. So, if you’re putting them in for nap time or whatnot you have to make sure that you have that humidifier on. Make sure that there is water in there. Make sure that the filter is clean and get ready because it will if the air is so dry it makes everything worse. Have that cool mist humidifier.
Don’t wait for cough and cold season to come to you. Try to do things that are going to make it not show up at your door. All those cleaning tips that we talked about before do them as per like practical course. If you’re really worried about it, you could keep like disinfecting wipes in your bathroom and every time like maybe once a day wipe down the faucets wipe down the handle wipe down you know the faucet handled the door handle and then the toilet handle just to kind of keep things as germ free as possible. Clearly, we’re not getting away with not having any germs. Germs are always gonna find us. But if we could do things that could help us get a little bit ahead we may be a lot better than the average bear.
Now when do I call the doctor? Tell me when you guys call the doctor I want to know what are your signs that you look for when you call the doctor. Like do you call them at the first sign of the cold? Do you call them at the first sign of a cough? Do you call them always when there’s a fever? Is there something that you do for you and your twinnies that you’re like automatically I’m calling the doctor? Do you have your doctor another question is thumbs up if you have your doctor saved in your favorites? Is your pediatrician saved in your favorites on your phone or are they saved on speed-dial? Yeah, I’m curious. I know, my god, I had our doctor she’s still in our favorites. I mean it’s, just peace is all that it says but yeah. I’m that I’m not the only one and not only should you have that, but the grandparents should have that phone number. Your partner should have that phone number. Everyone should have the phone number for the doctor. Okay?
Also, know that god forbid you did have to go to a hospital, what hospital does your pediatrician have rights to go to? If you live in a big metropolis like I do not every doctor has rights to be in every single hospital so if there’s a lot of hospitals find out which one your doctor has privileges so that if your kid was admitted that they could at least be seen by their doctor. So green mucus is when you call the doctor. Coughs are when they see the doctor. But if they have a fever above a 100.4, check with your child’s doctor because depending on their age that could be really high. So, you’re calling your doctor if the fever is above 100.4, not a 104.0, but if it’s above a 100.4, check with your doctor.
If your baby is noticeably pale or flushed or has fewer wet diapers that could be a sign of dehydration. You’ve got to call your doctor about that. And you do want to note we joke all the time about keeping a twin’s daily log. You could use a regular notebook but if you’re like I like structure we created one for you. We want to take the guesswork out of that. But while they’re sick using the twins daily log is a genius idea. Genius because if they’re taking ibuprofen, acetaminophen, if they’re taking you know other antibiotics or whatever you have to be able to know who took when, what time and what happened and keeping track of poop and pee is really important when the kiddies are sick. Because we do not want them to get dehydrated. And with so many kids in the house it’s tough to remember who exactly the one that had the pee today was. Did they pee twice, did he poop, who pooped, what happened? So, make sure you use a twins’ daily log. Keep it on your refrigerator. There is no app in the universe that is created for everyone. Some apps work for droids. Some apps work for iOS. Some apps I mean what if you have a Google phone I guess you would use a droid right? I’m not even positive but if you have an old-school piece of paper that has here’s what happened this is the time this is the date etc., etc., everybody could use it whether it’s the babysitter, whether it’s your partner, whether it’s your mom, whether it’s your mother-in-law, your cousins whomever. Use a piece of paper and a pencil and stick it on your refrigerator.
You should always, guys I cannot express to you this is like super serious. I’m getting serious for a second. If your kids are taking any medication whatsoever it is critical that you mark down the time that they took it and how much they took. Because if the fevers not going away you’ll be like oh my god what time did we give you know Jonah that? I don’t know what time Jonah took that medicine. Make the effort, find out. You know like make the effort to put the paper up there and always write down what they took. And if they have to have other things like breathing treatments or you know they’re doing a nasal spray or anything. You have to do that.
Speaking of what time, it is I love how this is literally I’m this sick but thanks to this little thing called caffeine I am able to get through sicknesses and truthfully, I’m actually taking I’m taking Dayquil right now. I love me some Dayquil. I love me some Nyquil also by Vicks by the way. I have been taking that since the dawn of time. Really, I’ve been taking I’ve been using those forever I don’t like the generic. I know that they make store brands of them. I find the store brands are not as effective as the real deal. Also, know that Vicks does have like something called ZZZquil. It’s an additional sleep aid. It’s a sleep aid that’s in the Nyquil. This is not for your children. This is for my moms and dads that are sick. Because we’re not being like the kids aren’t the only ones that go through cough and cold season. We do too. And that’s why I have this. All of the twinnies were sick. They’re still sick right now. But I could I can’t not kiss them goodnight and I know like it’s like this slow motion like Quentin Tarantino movie that when they’re coming to kiss me goodnight I could see the germs starting to spread all over me. Or it’s like they need a snuggle and I’m not going to pass up a snuggle. Let me tell you something. When your kids get big and they want to snuggle you’re going to snuggle. You’re going to be like let’s get our snuggle on little red. And when they’re sick they get so super snuggly and so super lovey and I’m never passing that up. I will take the rain of germs that falls down on me when the twinnies are sick because that’s my job. I’m a mama. It’s a momma’s job.
Are we ready to move on to our next quick tips? The next thing we have to do is that if they are getting coughs and colds it is so important that you push fluids. They have to get those fluids in they can’t get dehydrated. It’s going to flush that everything all those germs through their systems. You have to keep them kind of smiling and hydrated. Fun water bottles are the way to go gang.
Remember those little labels I told you about? I have them decorate their own labels. They actually even have water bottles that they could decorate themselves. I just bought some for my nieces for Christmas. I know that’s like the worst gift. Like I’m giving the kids’ water bottles for Christmas, but my kids think it’s fun. And I know that you know my sister wants them to have you know this she wants them to drink the water. And so, I’m like yeah just like I use the labels on the hand sanitizer use the labels on the water bottle as well. Push those as much as possible. Also, electrolyte replenishing drinks. Make popsicles out of them. That is definitely one way to get kids to eat is by making popsicles out of anything. There’s a lot of ways you don’t even have to get the Popsicle mold. Just get some of like those like K cups let’s say the little plastic cups or you could get any kind of plastic or paper cups put a straw in it you don’t even need fun sticks but get something that’s substantial. You could even use a spoon. Don’t think I haven’t done this. But the way you do it you get a tiny little cup put a piece of saran wrap and fill it up with the fluid put a piece of saran wrap on top of it stick the spoon the straw whatever through the center so that it holds that stick straw spoon whatever in the center of it so that when you’re done you actually have it as a pop. Because if you just put the spoon in the cup it’s going to be like all lopsided when it comes out. Any kind of fluids. You could do orange juice, you could do you know electrolyte drinks, like the sports drinks. You could do there’s a lot of different things out there. You could always do some orange juice with a little sprinkle of salt in it. Believe it or not that is what they told my husband to do in the hospital to replace a little bit of electrolytes. Make sure that you are doing that.
Now if they don’t finish that whole pop throw it in the garbage. Just chuck it, absolutely chuck it. Another thing you could do you could get an ice tray you could fill it with the kind of electrolyte fluids or whatever the sports drinks. When it’s done take it out throw it into a blender and make a slush. You can make a kind of like a like an ice out of it. And they could eat it as an icee if they don’t want to hold it there and drip down their hands.
Okay, there’s another thing that you could. Do guys also know the paper plate trick? When you do give them any kind of ice pop if you get a small little like one like that the cake size plates cut it a little bit, or you don’t actually even have to cut it but you could put it underneath the ice pop so when it drips you could also use a coffee filter a coffee filter underneath the ice pop. It’s not going to interfere with getting in the way of them eating that ice pop, but it is going to catch the drips. Yeah, guys, I’m full of tips. I don’t even remember half of them until they’re actually coming out of my mouth. You have to get those fluids into them as much as possible. That really, really, really is important and you want to keep them on a very simple diet. Toast, rice, bananas, applesauce, yogurt if possible. And if they’re taking antibiotics you may want to get a little probiotic to give them because sometimes antibiotics mess with their little baby belly.
If they do have an ear infection you probably should find some kind of probiotic to give them. Speak to your pharmacist and of course your doctor about that. But it’ll kind of set their little bodies straight again because the antibiotics are going to kill a lot of stuff. You have to put some of the good bacteria back in their bodies and yogurt and probiotics are definitely the way that you do it. But you have to speak to your doctor okay? And you got to stay home guys. Please don’t be one of those people that take their kids out when they’re sick. Now if you’re going to the doctor yes. But there’s really not there’s no place in the world that’s important enough to go when your kids are sick because they’re just going to get sicker. And you’re going to infect everybody else. I mean they don’t call it cough and cold season for a reason. They do I mean they do call it cough and cold season four a reason because everybody is getting sick.
You have to make sure that you stay home, and you avoid public places, social gatherings, and really avoid your friends and family if people are really sick if you can. I’m not saying quarantine the kids but if you got to keep your kids a sick kid in an area of the house that’s kind of away from everybody else whether you have like a big basement playroom or a living room that the kids don’t really use kind of maybe isolate that kid away from the rest of the house. Because you never know. You actually may be able to get away with nobody else getting sick in the home if you play your cards right. But yeah, I watch people all the time here in New York City on the subway and once again like the matrix I’m watching those germies come to me and I really do. And I was never a germaphobe before but having preemie babies and then having kids that basically were sick for the first eight years of their life I’m a little hint of a germaphobe. Now my little chick has inherited my germaphobeness and the kids at school call her the class mom because she brings this little well she has like this little first-aid kit I always have a first-aid kit. Yeah, I am rarely will you ever find me without like a mini first-aid kit. My daughter has now the same thing and she always has the hand sanitizer and all that other stuff in there. So yeah make sure that you were carrying this stuff with you and if you do see somebody out in public that has the matrix of germs that are coming right at you at least you could wash your own hands, you can wipe down your arms, anything. One of the reasons why I love winter so much who says this? Who says I love winter? Because when it’s wintertime I wear my gloves.
When I’m outside I don’t have to touch anything. I get to wear gloves and not look like a weirdo. Not that I would wear surgical gloves at all times although maybe there’s a piece of me that would love to do that. But in the wintertime, I get to wear gloves and I never have to touch anything. I guess so especially like on the subway when I have to like, hold on to the straphanger thingy I get super stoked that I don’t have to touch anything. I love the winter because of gloves. I’m going to stay home. Quicker recovery equals rest. You guys have to take some rest. So just like I’m going to crash on the couch and watch Netflix this is the time. And get your kids to rest if they’re trying to buzz all around the house and you’re not like a tablet family or a TV family maybe think about being something or finding those books or finding those activities that are going to keep them stationary because we don’t want them being whirling dervishes all around the home. We want them to stay as stationary, quiet and calm for a quicker recovery if they do get their rest.
The other thing I want to talk about is to sanitize. We already talked about this one before. Sanitize everything. The toilet bowl handle, cabinet pulls are another big one. Refrigerator handles another big one. If you have a lid to your garbage pail that’s another one. There are all these places in your home if you look at it light switches. Light switches are another one there are a million places in your home that could be housing the cough and cold little germies. When you’re thinking about cleaning your home think about where could these things be living. What did this kid touch? What could I clean? What can I do get those germies out of there? And you will be better off.
I really do humbly want to thank our friends at Vicks. You guys have been there for me and my twins long before you ever became a partner at Twiniversity I am honored that you would give me this opportunity to talk to our Twiniversity friends and family and give them a chance to win some prizes, have some fun, and really just get educated on all that there is. Well not all that there is to know about cough and cold season but certainly a lot. And it’s very humbling to me and guys I want you to say thank you to Vicks too if you don’t mind but I really do want to let you guys give you the opportunity to say thank you to Vicks because without partners truthfully there’s no way that we could do this. Twiniversity is actually a fairly significant size staff now. There is I think there’s six of us if I’m not forgetting anybody. And this is the way that we’re able to provide this support for you, the connection for you, the community for you. Please do not forget that we have that mentoring program that is always, always, always available to everybody.
