Home remedies for the flu in children

The cold or the flu can be classified as one of the most common contagious diseases among children, especially during the fall and winter seasons when our little ones spend most of their times in closed spaces.

Below are some natural home remedies that we, as mothers, can use to alleviate the symptoms of the cold in children:

Comfort: let’s avoid sending our children to school and make sure that they stay at home to help their little bodies rest and recover.
Fluids: let’s offer our children lots of healthy fluids, such as water, chicken soup, natural juices and herbal tea drinks (like camomile, basil and mint) in order to both loosen their mucous secretions and compensate them for the fluids they lose due to the cold.
Steam: let’s boil some water and encourage our children to extend their heads over it to inhale the rising steam for a period of 10 to 15 minutes (and an average of 3 times a day). This method is very effective in clearing nasal congestion.
Humidifying the air: let’s install a humidifier in our children’s bedrooms as this device plays an important role in relieving nasal and chest congestions.
A warm bath: let’s fill the bathtub with warm water and encourage our kids to sit in it for a while in order to alleviate fever.
Salt-water spray: let’s spray a couple of pumps of salt-water into each of our children’s nostrils and repeat this around 3 or more times a day as needed.
Gargling: let’s mix a teaspoon of salt with a warm cup of water and ask our little ones to use it for gargling twice a day. This will help reduce the throat pain they might feel as a result of the cold.

A cold might be a temporary disease that poses no harm for our children, but this does not mean that we shouldn’t consult a doctor about the condition, especially if our kids do not respond to the above remedies and their symptoms worsen.