Saturday 20 April 2013

The Sunday Parenting Party - House of Plague

Taming the Goblin

Its the Sunday Parenting Party. Please link up your parenting posts and have a look at what others have linked. I'm sure you will find something you like. This week I'm linking the following:
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(Goblin is 42 months)
I am soooo fed up. Goblin has been ill for what feels like an eternity. It started way back at the beginning of March with a hideous cough and a raging temperature. After letting that fester for five days we decided to take a trip down the doctors. They listened to his chest and thought he probably had a chest infection so gave him antibiotics. 
That cleared up by the end of the antibiotics and he had a day at nursery before he was floored once more. This time by two hourly vomiting which lasted three days and was accompanied on day two and three by a high fever which obviously we couldn't control as he kept vomiting up all the drugs we tried to give him. 
And just when he had recovered from that and was starting to sleep better again (and following a day at nursery - are you spotting a pattern here?) he developed another temperature. This one seemed to make him so lethargic and floppy that we didn't wait five days. We took him to the doctor after only two. The Doctor looked at him and said "Oh my! He's not well" and gave him yet more antibiotics. But this time despite the antibiotics he proceeded to maintain a temperature of 39 - 40 degrees C (86 - 104 F) for the following five days. He was sleeping really badly and coughing through out the night and that wasn't giving us much sleep either.
This prolonged illness made me worry about all sorts of things.
There was the obvious worries:

  • - Is his temperature going to spike in the night and cook his brain
  • - is this something more serious that hasn't been diagnosed properly
  • - will this ever end?


But there were also the stupid parental worries that I allow myself to have

  • - is he ill because I don't feed him the right things
  • - should I not fill his days with so much stuff
  • - Am I making it worse by pumping him full of chemicals?

Now he is on the mend and we are all sleeping a little bit better I have had time to reflect a little. Firstly it gave me a chance to notice the pattern that most of his illnesses came on within a day or so of going to nursery. That's not nursery's fault but scientists don't call small children "super spreaders" for nothing. They are harbingers of germs and their lack of respect for personal space, hygiene or hankies makes them walking infection magnets.
And secondly Hublet and I both commute from London during the week, probably bringing back half the world's lurgy with us. So Goblin has significantly more chance than most of being exposed to germs that his little body hasn't previously encountered.
Still I'm going to up the level of vitamins and reduce the level of activities in our rhythm, in the hope that we might fend off the next bug coming our way.
One thing this experience had taught me is how grateful I am that the majority of the time I have a healthy and happy little human. My heart goes out to the parents of children who are really ill, who have something serious and may not recover. They must be such strong people.

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My favourites from last weeks link up are
Parenting Mantra ~ Happy Whimsical Hearts
How to choose the best possible day care for your child ~ Mums make lists 
Birth Trauma: If only I'd known ~ Ghostwritermummy
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And now to the linky



7 comments:

  1. Yes, nurseries are little germ dens!! I caught everything when I first started teaching little ones, and developed the immunity of a rhinoceros. He'll do the same after a while!

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  2. Oh dear, glad to hear he's feeling better. If it's any consolation, a high temperature isn't necessarily a bad thing - it helps to kill any virus. My little one is starting preschool one day a week - she's never been in any care before, so is likely to catch everything and spend all Winter sick, probably spreading everything to my 6 month old. Oh the joys - NOT!

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  3. So sorry to hear that your house has been full of lurgy. There's nothing worse is there? Such a worry when they are so little :( Glad to hear that everyone is on the mend now though. Here's to a healthy week chez vous! Thanks for hosting.

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  4. So sorry to hear Goblin been ill - the weather flicking around all over the place hasn't helped has it. Alice xx

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  5. Ugh, it's the worst when the little ones have one illness after the other. Hope he's feeling lots better now. You may already know this and be doing it, but a good idea during and after antibiotics is to get lots of probiotics in Goblin's diet to restore health of the gut with the 'good bacteria.' Foods like yogurt and kefir are great for that.

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  6. I feel your pain...we have been going through the same thing here and just when I get one of the girls on the road to mending the other twin comes down with something different and then the cycle continues!
    We are doing a lot of yoghurt, probiotics powder and herbs at the moment! The lack of sleep is a killer isn't it? Hope he is on the mend...and I have learnt that no matter what we seem to do as a parent they still catch everything. My teen was in child care centres with me from a young age as I worked there and we both got everything for a few years...have to say she has a pretty sturdy constitution now and even when she gets sick it is rarely a full on strain if that gives you hope xx

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