Submitted by lifestylelink

Ring, ring, my phone ring and the childcare principal on the other side said “because one person got stomach flu, the outing this saturday has to be cancelled”.  My first question is when is it postponed to and she can’t tell me, just sometime in october.  My next question, which was spining in my head, but never reach my mouth, “why would one person’s stomach flu has such a great effect?”. And this happened on wednesday afternoon.

When I received the official notice in the childcare communication book, it mentioned that there were several suspicious cases of stomach flu.

The answer to my question was apparent when friday came, my boy woke up with no appetite.  I thought it was due to the late night dinner the previous day and took not much notice.  I left home early in the morning as usual at 7.25am. Then my phone rang at 8.05am and daddy told me our little boy is unwell, he said he cannot walk to the childcare which is one bus stop away. Daddy asked for me to return home. Well, I told daddy I am on the highway and can only make it home in an hour’s time.  Daddy then rang a second time 10 mins later and said DS vomitted.  That was when I recalled the stomach flu alerts from the school.  Stomach flu is so contagious, and now I am quite certain my DS has been infected.

It was bad, all in all, he vomited 6 times that day.  Fortunately I had standby medicine in the fridge.  I quickly administered medicine to him for stomach discomfort, vomit and fever eventhough he showed no fever at that time.  But most experienced mother will know that it is just a matter of time, a sick child will run a fever.

For new parents who are less experienced, reacting fast enough can cut down the child’s suffering and speed up recovery.  I am so glad that the principal had prewarned me about the wide spread stomach flu in the childcare as it cuts down my react time to send my child to the doctor for diagnosis.

And because my DS had previously extremely bad experience with stomach flu, which lasted 1.5 months, I am pretty well equipped with the DOs and DONTs.

The DONT’s

– no milk product

– no soy product

– any milk by-products e.g. cheese, milo etc.

– no beans

The DOs

If you have young children, you will know that cuttingout milk is difficult as it is their daily necessarities.  This is what I recommend:

– watery plain porridge (with a little salt only)

porridge water is great for cleansing the intestines.

– substitute dairy milk with oat milk or rice milk.

You can get these at cold storage.  This is his personal flavourite. So in fact, he is quite happy to miss his dairy milk, as he gets to drink chocolate milk.

– plenty of water to prevent dehydration

So in fact, his fever only peak at midnight to 38.2, which is much better than the last round (which peaked to 39.0).  In case some parents do not know, when a child have fever, wear less so that the heat can be easily dispersed. And if it peak over 37.5 there are a couple of things you can do.

First, give him a cool plaster on the forehead, which you can easily buy at the neighbourhood stores. But this is good only for up to 37.5

Second, for fever above 37.5, you can sponge him with water, the child will complain of cold but you need to perservere. Nevermind if he catch a cold, although I am certain that the child will not, think of the consequence – high fever in young children can cause sever brain damage. But take note that once the temperature starts to decline to 37.5, you need to add the clothes back. That will ensure the child won’t catch a cold.

Third, most doctor will advice to give paracetamol first, if the fever continue to peak, then give Ibuprofen and toggle between the two.  But a well kept secret, shared by an experienced pharmacies, when both given at the same time it will most certainly bring the high fever down quicker. But take note that this must be done with caution if your child has allergy background.

My DS has a tendency to have high fever or no fever. So for a child like that, I keep stock of both fever medicines. And I give both medicine for the night feed as experienced mothers will know that the fever favouritely peak at night. By the way, fever can also peak at 4pm.

I am also glad that this time, my child recovered very fast, within one day he got rid of vomit and fever.  Although his appetite has yet to recover, he will doing quite well.

I hope by sharing my experience and success can give light to some less experienced parents, and reduce the sufferings of the children. And remember, test the child with a small dose of dairy product before you return him to the dairy diet or the child will still get the runs if the body is not ready.  You can tell from the faeces, once the shapes return, you can test with little dairy product.  If the runs or vomit come back, you need to continue the non-dairy diet.