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Story Share: How I Keep My Kids Healthy

Story Share: How I Keep My Kids Healthy

Mother of three, Claire Bozikov shares how she keeps her little ones healthy - read on for her top tips to help get you through the cough and cold season.

Lifestyle insight
Reading time: 2 minutes

When it seems that all of my friends’ kids are ill, I make sure to take steps to try to keep the germs away. And, when they do get sick I make sure to try to keep their symptoms at bay.

Did you know that every year our kids can catch up to ten colds – the sniffles, the coughs, the need for me to play nurse!? That’s a lot of days spent at home resting, missing school, or after-school activities. It’s also a lot of time spent caring for them, and, if you have other children, trying to make sure the germs don’t spread throughout the whole family.

Each cold season I unload my arsenal of tips and tricks, to keep my kids as healthy as possible, or at least help them through it.

My tips and tricks 

Making sure my kids wash their hands after we’ve been out and about, before and after school, and before eating, goes a long way to keeping the germs at bay. It’s been said that correct and regular hand washing may reduce the risk of respiratory infections by up to 16 percent. The older kids know they need to wash their hands for around 20 seconds: the younger ones sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice!

There’s nothing worse than your child developing a chesty cough and you want to soothe it. I always  keep Prospan with Ivy Leaf extract handy. It’s clinically researched to relieve chesty coughs and ease congestion during a cold.

Apparently this specific Ivy leaf extract, known as EA 575, not only helps to break down and clear chest mucus during a cold, but also helps to open the airways to ease the breathing symptoms caused by colds.   

If my child has a sore throat, I give them a spoonful of honey (it really does make the medicine go down), and a salt gargle, which can help ease that tickly, irritated feeling in the throat.

Most importantly, I always make sure we eat as healthily as possible. Winter time is a great time to sneak vegetables in their meals (without them noticing). And even though it’s not hot, we always carry our water bottles with us, to keep hydrated.

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