Beat That

Okay, so for the millionth time since Eli came to our family, they’re sick. This time, we all got sick.

To be honest, I’m sick of it!

I get that we’re in that unique window of life where sickness is the most prone. We have young kids. Young kids attract the touch of adults, they attract the touch of other kids, they can’t wash their hands on their own, they put things in their mouths, they have new immune systems, and they can’t blow their noses. I get it. It’s a fact that we go places….often. It’s a fact that we’re exposed.

This most recent bug was a brutal one but I am noticing now, after the initial ‘worst of it’ is over, how much the improved diet has benefited us. The first big difference was the speed at which the boys (and myself) went from feeling awful to feeling not that bad. The next difference is the lingering cough. They always end their colds with looooooooong liiiiiingering coughs.

The cough hit last night. I thought we were all better. But then they started coughing. Eli is extremely dramatic with a lot of voice in his and Avery’s are endless and frequent. Sucks so bad. So this morning I decided we’d have only cold fighting foods. We drank lots of water, we drank lots of tea (chammomile herbal brewed with green tea) with honey, we ate foods that are high in vitamin C.

Little known fact, cabbage is very rich in vitamin C. I steamed some because it’s a really easy and tasty finger food for a toddler. I added nothing but a little sprinkle of salt while steaming.

Being a natural mama, I try to avoid synthetic meds. Personally, during pregnancy and breastfeeding, I am required to avoid most. Sure, I can take Advil or Tylenol but all synthetic cold medicines are off limits and that has allowed me to explore the healing power of food. It treats symptoms, like synthetic meds, but not only does it come without negative side effects, it actually provides positive side effects like increased energy, good breath, healthy digestive function and a happy tummy.

We also ate bananas, carrots, and for comfort, homemade wholegrain bread with apple butter! Naturally, green smoothies were involved.

I made sure to add some local wildflower honey to help sooth the throat, plenty of collards, lots of water and even chia seeds.

I started giving Avery honey like cough syrup. It’s extremely effective. In fact, I gave it to him before bed, and he didn’t cough for over two hours. Then when he did, I gave him another spoonful and bam, he was out with no coughing, and that was over an hour ago. So incredible.

Anyway, fighting with food has been awesome and I’m feeling completely normal now even though I woke up feeling really rough this morning. But food isn’t everything. The other piece of the puzzle is rest.

Avery did nap….but not really that long.

Eli slept for about as long as it took for me to take this picture.

Joking, like twenty minutes.

We did ‘rest’ though.

Mostly because my amazing husband got up with Avery at 7am and let me and Eli sleep in for TWO HOURS. You heard that right. Though he struggled to sleep with all the coughing throughout the night, Eli slept in until 9am. I was pretty blown away. And pretty grateful to have Shane here.

However, both boys are sleeping soundly now and I hope they get a good night. Eli still refuses the paci and I’m open to any and all suggestions on how to get a paci free baby to go back to sleep after waking up at night. Right now, his tactic is to scream until nursed. I can’t nurse him a hundred times a night though, I run out of milk halfway through and he doesn’t like that either. It’s not great. Tonight I let him cry himself back to sleep and that was fine, only took a few minutes, but Avery woke up so that was a problem. I moved him into our room til we go to bed but I can’t count on him not needing to do it again throughout the night. We’ll see.

Question: How do you combat colds? Do you ever use food to heal over meds?