It can be a challenge to keep children healthy, especially during the fall and winter seasons. It is more important now than ever to take as many precautions as possible and make decisions that increase our kid’s chances of staying healthy.
While there isn’t just one guaranteed way to keep your child healthy during colder months, there are various ideas and tactics to consider that can be helpful. Explore these options for changes you can make or actions you can take that can decrease the chances of your kids catching a cold, the flu, or another type of unwanted virus.
Hydration
We all know how important it is to keep children hydrated throughout the warm summer months. However, it is just as essential to keep kids of all ages hydrated throughout the fall and winter as well.
Keep an eye on the water intake of your children and make sure it is enough. Ask your child’s doctor for an adequate amount of daily water intake. When the body is adequately hydrated, it can effectively get rid of toxins, including sickness-causing bacteria. Water also helps support the proper functioning of various body systems, including the immune system.
Try to switch out juices and sodas for water. To help keep your kids drinking water throughout the day, let them pick out a new water bottle and encourage them to keep it full. You may even want to create a reward system for when children drink the right amount of water each day or week.
Nutrition
In addition to making sure your kids are drinking plenty of water, you can also help boost their immune systems with the right foods. As the adult in the household, you have the opportunity to provide your children with extra beneficial foods and beverages for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack time.
Adding foods rich with vitamins into everyday meals can help build up immune systems to fight off sickness or decrease the illness’s intensity more effectively. Here are just a handful of healthy options that can benefit your children.
Offer yogurt for breakfast with granola or fresh fruit. Yogurt has important probiotics that promote gut health, where many illnesses can start. Spinach can be added to salads or sandwiches for an extra vitamin A, C, and K. Fruits like oranges, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and cantaloupe can be great morning or afternoon snacks that provide plenty of vitamin C.
Relaxation
Relaxation isn’t just necessary for working adults. Kids of all ages can get stressed out too, which can harm their immune systems and ability to fight off viruses. During the fall and winter months, children are especially vulnerable to stress from a combination of school, sports, extracurriculars, and social events.
You should encourage your children to relax, especially when they feel strained, sad, or overwhelmed. Help them find a cozy place at home where they can watch a favorite movie or read a new book by themselves. This space should be free of distractions where they can simply be alone to relax the body and mind.
Relaxing not only supports the immune system but promotes positive mental health for children of all ages.
Sleep
At any age, when the body becomes tired, it doesn’t have the necessary energy to fight off bacteria and viruses. Children who don’t get enough sleep, or enough quality sleep, are vulnerable to succumbing to illness much easier.
The amount of necessary sleep varies by age, so it’s vital to check exactly what your child needs. A well-rested child will not only have an immune system ready to fight but may also behave, listen, and eat better.
Limiting screen time, snacks, and beverages before bedtime can help children fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer for higher quality sleep each night.
Hygiene
Proper hygiene has a significant impact on keeping kids healthy. During the fall and winter months, germs are everywhere. Without proper hygiene techniques, germs and bacteria can quickly make their way from a door handle to the hands, to the face, and then enter the body through the nose, eyes, or mouth.
Teaching your kids property hygiene can reduce the chances that a potential virus makes it into their bodies. Children of all ages should be encouraged to wash their hands consistently throughout the day. It’s also important that they touch their faces as little as possible, especially when they are around other kids and before eating.
Boundaries
The easiest way to catch a cold or the flu is to spend time near someone that already has the illness. During the colder months, there are plenty of people that go about day-to-day life while contagious with an illness.
Inform your children about common symptoms and how to spot them. For example, a runny nose with constant sneezing and cough shows that a peer is sick. Children should be encouraged to recognize these symptoms and keep their distance.
You may also want to remind your kids each day not to share food or drinks with anyone else, whether they seem sick or not. Sharing is not caring when it comes to germs this fall and winter.
It can certainly be a challenge to keep children healthy during the fall and winter months. However, using this information might make it a little bit easier. Any small changes you can make may protect your child, and other children, from catching a cold or the flu. These tactics can also help reduce the intensity of an illness.
The fall and winter, make sure that your children stay hydrated, with diets full of the right immune-boosting foods. Promote relaxation and plenty of sleep as well as good personal hygiene and healthy boundaries.
