It's Been a BRAT-filled Week

We've just recently experienced the stomach flu in our house. Groan. It actually could have been MUCH worse but God is merciful and only gave us what we could handle.

My little guy suffered the worst. He is still not 100%. Without going into too much detail, I'll tell you that we have had to carefully watch his diet this week.

That got me to thinking. Do you know about the BRAT diet? I did but I did NOT know that it has now changed to the BRATY diet. Now, this has nothing to do with the attitude of your sick angel but rather tells you what is safe to feed a "tummy sick" child.

B is for bananas.

R is for rice.

A is for apples or applesauce.

T is for toast.

Y is for yogurt.

These foods are safe to eat and actually should help improve their digestive state.

Another thing I found out about at the doctor yesterday was a product called Florajen for kids. It is a capsule that contains more than 6 times as much live probiotic culture as a cup of yogurt. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about it the next time your kiddos are having troubles.

It is super easy to administer, too. For little ones, open the capsule and sprinkle into cold drinks or soft food.

I gave some to my son last night and he seems better today. Thank goodness! It's been a long week ... with lots of laundry ... and not a lot of sleep.

Ahh, the life of a mom ... :)

In the Most Delightful Way

This week my youngest son had to be put on some antibiotics for a sinus infection. He is normally a trooper when it comes to taking medicine. 

The first night when I gave him his double dose, he kind of gagged and spit half of it back out. 

The second night I enlisted the help of my husband and we held him still and tilted back to encourage the medicine to slide right down his throat. Yeah, that didn't work real well either. 

Then I remembered something I had heard years ago with one of my other daughters. The nurse had told me to pour chocolate syrup in her mouth before and after giving the medicine. The chocolate syrup kills the taste of the medicine and works really well. 



So on the 3rd night, I sucked up his medicine into the syringe and then poured some chocolate syrup onto a plate and sucked that up, too. I wasn't sure if it would work this way but I knew that trying to squirt chocolate syrup in his mouth straight from the bottle would be a disaster. 

I gave him his medicine and he didn't even flinch. Big sigh of relief. I gave it to him again last night the same way and had success again. 

I thought I would share that little tip with you in case you are ever in that situation - which I know is a desparate situation to be in. 

I guess Mary Poppins was right - "just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down ..."