Homesteading: A Woman's Journey

Avoiding colds & illness in little ones

It is disheartening how many young moms are not taught how to help their little ones avoid illnesses through proper care of the baby bottles, pacifiers, and sippy cups.  Over the past few omnths, I have heard many young moms talking about their little ones getting sick often or having chronic problems with catching colds or other illnesses, sometimes even thrush.

One of the ways that we have avoided illnesses with our little ones is to be very diligent in the care of the bottles, sippy cups and pacifiers.  Amazingly, most young moms have no idea how to sterilize these things.  Just this one simple task has helped tremendously in preventing illnesses.  Now that we have 2 little ones, it will be even more important.

The first thing that helps to prevent illness is the obvious of limiting contact of your children with others who are sick.  Of course if you have a little one in day care or public school, they will share the illnesses with the little ones at home.  Whenever possible, you should limit contact however.

Teaching little ones to wash their hands during the day is also important.  Especially after using the bathroom.  You can also make up a batch of hand wipes for them to use.  Take a stack of wash cloths and soak them in a solution of water with a few drops of baby wash in it.  We use these as baby wipes for diaper changing also.  If you have a container of these where the little ones can reach them, they can easily be taught to use one to wipe their face and hands.

One effective way to prevent the sharing of illness between little ones is to not allow them to share sippy cups, bottles or pacifiers.  Take this also a step further.  Each night after the little ones have gone to bed, when you wash the bottles, sippy cups, and pacifiers take the extra time to toss them into a large kettle and sterilize them.    Sterilizing these items will do much to help prevent the sickness from speading.  Especially things like pacifiers!  A little one who has just gotten over a cold can have a relapse if you do not wash & sterilize the pacifier they used during the illness.  As a matter of habit, I sterilize the bottles and all their parts, the sippy cups and all their parts, and the pacifiers every day.  Whether it be at night or during their afternoon nap, I sterilize a whole day's supply of these.  Sterilizing all the little parts is especially important if you use the Dr. Brown type bottles or others with parts that are hard to clean.  The same goes for the flow restrictors in the newer sippy cups that are very difficult to clean due to the flow restrictor's design.

Here is the process that I use to sterilize.  I use my water bath canner kettle as it is large enough to hold everything.  I place all the bottles, sippy cups, their parts, and the pacifiers into the kettel and over with enough water to allow the bottles & cups to be fully submerged.  Place the kettle on the stove and bring the water to a boil.  Continue boiling for 15 minutes.  I then turn off the heat and allow the water to cool.  They are then dried with a clean towel.  Since I make up a day's worth of homemade formula each day, I go ahead and refill the bottles with the formula.  Sippy cups are allowed to dry fully before I assemble them, unless they are needed before they have dried.  Pacifiers are allowed to air dry, then are stored in a container to help keep them clean until they are needed. 

There are some websites that say sterilizing bottles is no longer needed if you make the formula with city water that has been treated.  Some medical websites disagree though.  I agree with the doctors on this one.  We live in a rural area.  The water we get is through a rural water system, similar to a city's system.  We are receiving letters in the mail on a regular basis however that the water is not yet up to the standards that it is supposed to be ~ containing pollutants that should not be there.  The other reason is the design of the bottles & sippy cups.  Even using hot soapy water and a bottle brush, you cannot get into all the areas that need cleaning.  So, to be safe I will sterilize them.

Hopefully some of these ideas will be of a help.