Following these suggestions will help to keep your children from getting sick. Let's face it. Children and germs are always going to find each other.
Let's face it. Germs and kids are best buddies. Children are always putting their hands everywhere and anything they can put their hands on ends up in their mouths. It is an unfortunate truth that most germs are not spread through the air,
but by the hand to the mouth or the eye. Here are a few ideas on keeping the germs away from kids, while trying to teach them good habits to last a lifetime.
A bath given daily is a good way to get a child a clean start at least once a day. An evening or bedtime bath may be preferable so that the child can spend the most consecutive hours a day without fresh exposures to new germs because they are asleep in their beds. Even though children do not perspire and develop odors like adults, a bath is needed daily because it is an ideal time to get hands and faces extremely clean, as well as the genital area.
After a bath or hand washing every child should have their own towel. If one child is getting sick and their nose runs a little on their towel, another child can pick up those germs easily. Every family member should have their own towel and towels should be washed frequently.
Also, teach children young not to share cups. Everyone should have their same cup to use all day. This prevents so much cup washing, but it is also helps to keep children straight on which cup is their own if certain cups in the cupboard are always their own. They can have a particular character on their own sippy cup or you can coordinate their cups by color. A magic marker has been known to be employed on cups from time to time to write family members names on them.
Avoid letting your children sit on dirty toilet seats. At home you can keep a nontoxic cleaner on the bathroom counter and wipe down the seat on top and underneath several times a day with a little toilet paper. Be certain your cleaner is nontoxic! They are out there, but not all cleaners will qualify. You do not want to protect your children from germs to turn around and be poisoned by a common household cleaner. In public rest rooms, assume that all toilet seats are germy. If there is no paper liner to use, help your child to avoid touching the toilet with their hands at all, and always follow up with scrupulous hand washing.
Do not let your children eat raw meat, fish or eggs. This is not a particularly safe practice for adults either, but at least a healthy adult has stronger body defenses for fighting the kinds of germs that can occur in these raw foods. It can be hard, but avoiding raw eggs means no licking the cake batter or eating the cookie dough before being baked. Also, do not hesitate in a restaurant to send your child's hamburger back if it has not been cooked thoroughly.
Teach your children proper hand washing. They need to lather up for at least the time it takes to sing their alphabet song. Supervise them so that they are washing their hands before and after eating, after using the potty, after playing outside, after school, after playing with friends and more. The parent should be washing hands also, especially after changing diapers.
Parents also need to fight germs on as many household surfaces as they can. Particular attention should be paid to doorknobs, toys, toilets, garbage can lids, and floors. It is a good practice to remove shoes indoors to reduce the bringing of germs indoors from outside.
Following these suggestions will help to keep your children from getting sick. It will establish some healthful habits for a lifetime. You can try to teach your children to keep their hands away from their mouths and faces also, but keeping the hands and the child's environment clean, as we have discussed, is another way to wage the war on germs.
