Managing the sick child – consider alternative?

These past weeks, I’ve been talking to a couple of friends. One of who has a child who’s been sick a lot, and one of whom has one that hadn’t ever been sick for his entire one year. God bless that little guy BTW… mine decided to go by the book and have 8 colds in the first year of her life. Nebuliser/baby inhaler and everything. That’s the kind of textbook child I could do without, thank you very much!

Regardless of whether you’re used to it or not though, sick kids are hard. No, I’m not talking about the major illnesses, thank the lord. These are the smaller trouble like sniffles and fevers and allergies and teething ails (for parents, lest you get carried away and think we’re worried about the kid ;)). God, I couldn’t even imagine anything worse, and have humongous amount of respect for parents who handle that!

When kids, especially babies and toddlers, are ill, the major challenge is the guessing game. Because, most often, they can't tell you what’s wrong and its up to you to figure it out. God bless the medical system in Canada, but at best it’s rushed. Going in there with a vague wondering and a screaming child is going to get you on THAT list. You know the one… it just might bump you up in the line though!

I find it’s much, much easier when you seriously watch your child and figure out a few symptoms. Is he arching his back? Gas? Is she grabbing her ears? Ear infection? Sniffles? Cold? You get my drift. Decide based on that if its home remedy time and quickly stuff the appropriate one in right quantities up or down accurate orifice!

Its really hard when the little b^ggers are yelling and even an attempts-to-be-flippant mom like me will tell you its heart wrenching when they are miserable and you can’t do a bl00dy thing about it. So… put down what you’re thinking maybe? And if you’re lucky enough to have a significant other who not only cares but also is a competent parent (I am, knock on wood), run over it together. It’s amazing what the tired mind will miss/conjure up. I’m guessing you’ve figured out how tired you’ll be if you’ve had a sick kid. I’ve had everything from her only sleeping on my chest while I reclined at an awkward 120 degree angle (reflux) to not letting go of my hair (weird family habit that manifests itself especially when she’s sick and insecure).

Once you think you have a few symptoms down and its serious enough to have a quasi-competent conversation with a human being, what next? Here’s what I do… I splash out for alternative medical care. We have a naturopathic doctor for our daughter. Agonized over the decision and researched the sh!t out of it (gotta love the Google age). Found that here in Ontario, naturopathic doctors are meant to have to go through 4 years of training, like mainstream doctors, in order to be able to call themselves that. That made me call a few and we found one. Most will give you a 15 min phone consult for free. Best decision we ever made… that and Montessori early learning, but that’s another post.

Alternative medicine for the most part looks at things holistically. You have to fill out long forms that ask you about everything from the wart on your grandma’s left cheek to what you were wearing when your waters broke. Ok, ok I’m lying; it’s not quite as random. Though it may feel like at times. But there’s a method to their madness. Further, they have longer, fully paid for appointments, which means it’s less rushed and they’re better able to spot potential issues. And lastly, call me crazy for going into this, I’ll have a hundred arguments… but to my mind, alternative medicine with its herbs and its massages and its tissue salts and its needles seems a lot more benign that stuffing a bunch of chemicals into a tiny body.

Does it work? Well it has for my little girl. Most importantly it helped us spot issues like a milk allergy, which had been bothering her for a year. The difference in her was miraculous! To the point that a good bit of our family, including some die hard naysayers have come around to the treatment method. I know I have. It’s helped my migraines and reflux. So I believe.

This is not a pitch for naturopathy, just so I’m clear. It’s me sharing with you what’s worked for me. And asking you to open your minds to options. Because in this long journey to adulthood (the child, not you silly ;)) you’re going to need all the help you can get.

Terrible twos… and threes… and twenties – the tantrum years

Since I’m doing this in no particular order! Lets jump into the clichés. Terrible twos. Except… they lied!

1. FACT: 'Terrible two' starts the second your child turns one. Its true. Chew on that one for a bit! Your child barely enters his/her (the hell with that, we’re just going with ‘it’) second year, and it’s a terrible TWO-er. Why not? It’s in its second year right? See, got you on a technicality, the little schemer did!
2. FACT: There’s a lesser known but very real ‘terrible three’… actually that’s probably what pop culture calls terrible two, now that I think about it. Bl00dy h$ll, there I figured it out ;)! Oh and it sticks around for the teens and twenties… but that’s a whole other deal ;).

So essentially, prepare for your little spitfire to be an even bigger monster from its first birthday to its fourth. Groannnnnn.

Now, I have a hopped up, most-days-I-think-has-ADHD, almost two year old. So what do I do? Nothing. Consistently. That’s the trick. CON.SIS.TENT. Whatever you choose to do. The same reaction every time. Yes, you'll slip up and fall. And fail miserably every so often. And pay for it! But you get back up and try again like most of this child rearing business. This one is worth remembering though. Seriously.

I have friends who swear by time outs and naughty chairs/steps/corners. Some do the hugs and kisses. Some do the ‘distract’. Here’s the deal when you decide... At this stage (till past 2.5 in most cases) they have no real concept of consequence. There’s a school of thought that good habits, taught early, will stick. And maybe they do. I know with things like hitting, I get her to apologize to whoever she’s hit. But she has no friggin' clue what she’s doing!! Its mechanical. Maybe one day she’ll understand the concept and then the words and actions are already there so it all falls into place quicker. Who knows?! Worth a shot. I just know I had to try something with the hitting… its my limit. Because I’m a hitter by instinct and have to work really, really hard to control it. And the poor sod probably will get my genes on that so I’ll do my damndest to teach her it's f*cking wrong except in self defense. And sometimes even then.

So consistency… I say unto you. After trying many things in our house we consistently ignore bad behavior, when direct distraction doesn’t work. Because as they grow older the tiny terrorists get harder to distract! With ignoring she tries to get my attention a few times and then comes by and wants to know what’s keeping me so occupied… so ‘operation decoy distract’ takes effect :). And I’m a happy woman again. For 5 seconds. Till the next tantrum rolls around. *Sigh*

An elite band of difficult kids… I have one

Just that title is probably enough to put me on the ‘we’re watching you for the take your child away from you after strike three’ list. I think the polite term is high-needs or some such namby-pamby cr@p. But who gives a sh!t right? When you have one of these critters, politically correct b*llocks suddenly goes to way down on the list. Below great-aunt Agatha’s views on disposable diapers.... And sex. So strike three is probably going to be at the end of line 3! So if you don't think you can take that, leave now... etc

But I digress… there is a point to all this, which hopefully I’ll get to sometime in this post.

I have an almost two year old. I’m a first time mom. Accidental at best, downright unwilling most times. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a d@mn good one, but I have to work my butt off for it. Usually made much, much harder by the fact that miss-projectile-vomit-turned-poop-when-I’m-bored decided to be atypically p!ssing off each step of the way. Born in distress, NICU for a day and everything. Silent –refluxer. And when that got better, she became a puker (apparently that IS getting better from silent reflux). Ah joy! Besides a few weeks at infancy when she pulled 10-6 stretches (just to show me what its like and then viciously take it away) she’s never really slept through the night. When solid time rolled around, she flatly refused to open her mouth. When switch-to-regular-person-milk time came, she decided to throw in a cow’s milk allergy. Add to that separation anxiety for 20 out of 23+ months and a slightly creepy need to hang on to my hair most times and you’ve got a complete weirdo. Early memo on terrible twos, tantrums, teething on crack… That’s just what I can remember now. (Did I say your brain gets all fuzzy from lack of sleep and confidence?) Lots more where that came from. And that’s who I’m stuck with most of the day! And it can mess with you big time.

So if you’re a rose-tinted idealist who believes babies were born to complete you, and that no trouble is too much trouble when you’re raising God’s creation, look away quick, this is going to be road kill. Of the kind you'll never comprehend. 

Yes its God’s little creation. But, also, yours; said God help you. Vodka/w$ed/stupidity/complacency/I can do this better than Edie/insert your haze here fueled little b&gger though it might be, it’s yours. And you’re probably not going back into that haze anytime soon if you want to hold on to it. So you trudge on. Just know, you are not alone. Everything that you’ve seen, I’ve probably seen between me and a few of my unfortunate buddies. Yes I have them. And we huddle sometimes and discuss it in hushed whispers, kinda like the way you’d talk about a yeast infection! (oh, bring on the comments here, but hey, I’ve never backed away from a b!tchslapping so why start now).

So my point is… when I looked around for help, I found all these books about how your baby was meant to have been perfect by now, tut-tut. Or some abandon-them-and-let-them-cry type plans that I could never get myself to do. Trust me I tried halfheartedly. I want to say as well at this point that I’m no advocate of one way of parenting over another. Though I’ve read them all from Dr Sears to Gina Ford, via Tracy Hogg, any lofty views I had on how perfectly I would do it disappeared with my waistline at the birth.

Anytime I found some helpful non-judgmental advice it was usually in tandem with an ‘I eat cabbage leaves at midnight, in my swimwear’ type sentence that made me question the credibility of the person in question. Plus it was never all in one place - making for hours of frenzied googling on smart phone with baby attached to less than previously attractive body parts. I always saw ‘oh mine won't sleep at all, and here’s what I’ve tried but he does eat like a trooper, bless!’ which made me come away feeling worse. And alone. So I thought I’d put down random bits and bobs, as they come to me. Stuff that helps, stuff that certainly doesn’t/you'd do best not to waste your time on and general blah. Who knows, it might help you; and if not hopefully you’ll come away with a laugh.