I’m always trying to think of the many little things I’ve learned over the years that make life a little easier or less complicated as a parent.  Since we’re in the middle of cold and flu season, I simply had to share some thoughts with all of you!

No matter how long you’ve been a parent or how many children you have, illness is something we can never predict perfectly.  Stomach bugs are the worst!  You can sometimes see that they aren’t feeling well and know that “something” is coming on, but predicting any illness … especially one that involves vomit … is pretty impossible.  And you may have discovered that small children, don’t “see it coming” until it’s waaaay too late!

So, to make it a little less stressful, I have a couple of tips for you.

Tip 1: First and foremost, even though I’m sure all of you have your washer and dryer empty by the end of the day (unlike me), there is always the chance that there is one other person who occasionally isn’t able to get all the laundry tranferred around and *gasp* even has a load left in the washer at the end of the day.  If that happens to be you, then you will definitely want to make a point of keeping your washer free every evening through the fall and winter!

That is probably the biggest tip for today, because there is absolutely nothing worse than having icky bedding and clothing and trying to figure out what to do with it while you try and transfer clothing from washer to dryer, etc (with less than sanitary hands at that point I might add).  So, having the washer free allows you to simply throw the soiled bedding/clothing in and get it clean right away.

Tip 2: Have a set bucket or bowl that your children know to use when they have a stomach bug.  Often lovingly referred to as the “Puke Bucket” or “Throw up Bowl” around here, if they don’t know what to grab or where it is located, you may panic when you see what dishes they choose to use.  Did you know that there are even companies that sell bowls that are intended for just this purpose?  Yup, they sure do!

Tip 3: Keep your winter cold and flu medicines and cleaning products handy and easily accessible (still out of the reach of the children of course) so that you don’t have to fuss with that either.  If you have all your cleaners and products necessary for cleaning up after your sick children handy it will be a lot easier on you.

Ok, I think those three tips will do it for now.  If you have more tips, leave a comment and tell us about them!

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This entry was written by Shera on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Family, Health, House and Home, In the Thick of It, Parenting, The Icky and Sicky Parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.