Things to do when kid has fever

Source UnKnown | FW by Saranya

Cold Compresses

As soon as your baby develops a fever, the first thing to do is put a cool, wet washcloth on your baby’s forehead. As the water from the wet washcloth evaporates from the skin, it will draw the fever out and the temperature will come down quickly.

Put some cool tap water in a bowl.
Soak a clean washcloth in the water.
Wring out the excessive water, then place the wet cloth on the baby’s forehead.
Once the cloth warms, remove it and repeat again.
Do this until the fever has gone.
You can also use the damp washcloth to sponge areas like your baby’s armpits, feet, hands to reduce the temperature.

Note: Never use very cold or ice water, as it may cause the internal body temperature to increase.

Lukewarm Bath

A lukewarm bath will help relax a fussy baby and help regulate the body temperature. It will even help your baby sleep better, which is needed for faster recovery.

For babies younger than 6 months, give a lukewarm sponge bath 2 or 3 times a day.
For babies 6 months or older, give them a regular bath in lukewarm water a few times a day.
After each bath, dress your baby immediately.

Note: Never use very hot or cold water, as it may cause the internal body temperature to rise.

Breast Milk

For babies younger than 6 months old who have a fever, breast milk is very important. It offers a unique balance of nutrients that strengthens a baby’s weak immune system and is tailored to fight a baby’s illness.

Breast milk is quickly and easily digested. It will even keep a sick baby properly hydrated, which is essential for faster recovery.

Try to breastfeed your young baby frequently. If your baby refuses to nurse while experiencing a fever, try different nursing positions. You can keep the baby upright while breastfeeding to make your baby more comfortable during feeding sessions.
If your baby regularly refuses nursing, pump out the breast milk and feed it to your baby using a spoon or bottle.

Give More Fluids

For sick babies, it is important to increase fluid intake. Fluid will help cool them down and replace the fluid lost through sweating to prevent dehydration.

Dehydration may lead to various other complications and delay recovery.

Due to having a fever, babies may refuse large amounts of fluid at a time. So, try to give them smaller amounts more often.

Give oral rehydration solutions (either homemade or readily available in the market) along with lukewarm water to help replenish fluids and electrolytes.

Keep Your Baby in a Cool Place

When taking care of a sick baby, it’s important to keep a close eye on the room temperature. It should not be too hot or too cold.

Dress Your Infant Comfortably

Many parents make the mistake of bundling up their sick child with layers of clothes or extra blankets. This is something parents should avoiding doing, as it may keep the temperature from going down or even make it go higher.

Infants cannot regulate their temperature well, hence when bundled in layers, it will be harder for them to cool down once overheated. Too much clothing will even prevent radiating body heat into the surrounding air.

Dress your baby in one layer of lightweight clothing. If needed, use a light blanket when your baby is sleeping.

Also, keep your baby in a comfortable room, where the temperature is not too hot or too cool.

Foot Massage

Rubbing the soles of your sick baby’s feet with some warm oil is one of the best ways to calm your fussy baby. Apart from relaxation, it will promote better sleep, which is necessary for quick recovery.

Foot massage also helps regulate body temperature.

Rub some warm olive oil on the bottoms of your baby’s feet.
Apply gentle pressure on the soles with your thumbs.
Finally, give a nice massage to the whole foot.
Do this for just a couple of minutes and repeat as needed.
When it comes to foot massage, be careful not to do too much.

Basil

For bringing down a fever, basil is suitable for babies older than 1 year. The herb can help reduce the heat in the body. It works as a natural antibiotic and immune booster.

Boil a handful of basil leaves in 2 cups of water, until the solution is reduced to half. Add a little sugar and give it to your little one, a few times a day.
If your baby is big enough to chew basil leaves, give him or her some thoroughly washed basil leaves to chew at regular intervals.

Monitor Body Temperature

Another important thing when your baby is having a fever is to regularly monitor his or her body temperature with a thermometer.

Remedies for cold and cough:
Camphor

Heat coconut oil and add little powdered camphor in it. After it has cooled, pour 4 to 5 drops to your palm and apply it evenly over the chest of your little one. Please take care to use very little camphor as it may irritate the baby skin.

Eucalyptus oil

Allow the baby to inhale the eucalyptus oil.The oil can be also be sprinkled in the baby beddings.

Turmeric

For infants, take a dried turmeric piece and burn it in a candle or diya flame, allow the infant to inhale the smoke from the burning turmeric for a minute. The smoke arising from the burning turmeric will be like a thread only, so no fear of smoke inhalation!!!
For kids above 2 years, a little turmeric can be added to milk and given.

Garlic

Peel the skin of 2 garlic pods and allow them to steep in 50 ml of hot water for 10 minutes. Let it cool, feed 2 sips of the garlic water to your little one every 2 to 3 hours. This can be done for kids above 4 year.

Ginger

Ginger thins out the mucus and so is very helpful for treating blocked nose. Grate a small piece of ginger and add it to hot water and allow it to cool for about 10 min. This can be given to children above 2 years.

Chicken soup

Clear chicken soup can be given from 8 Month onwards.

Tulsi/Basil leaves

Tulsi leaves have great medicinal properties, they can be either added to water or milk. Allow them to soak in water for more than a hour and feed the water in sips to kids above 2 years.

Honey

For Babies above 1 year, a half a teaspoon of honey can be added to the milk and given twice a day.

Ajwain

Roast Ajwain on low flame in a pan, wrap it in a kerchief to make a potli and allow the kid to inhale it or hold it near the nose of infants.

Lemon

Lemon is rich in Vitamin C and helps in developing immunity. For babies above 1 year, mix lemon juice with honey and lots of water.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon has an antioxidant effect and acts as an effective antibacterial and antifungal agent. This can be given kids older than 1 years of age.
Mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 1/4 spoon of cinnamon, feed this mixture every 4 hours throughout the day when the first signs and symptoms of cold surface.

Mustard Oil

Mix 5 to 10 teaspoon of mustard oil with crushed garlic and ajwain seeds and tadka. After it is cooled, strain the mixture and store in a bottle. When needed, warm a little and apply on the child’s chest, forehead and throat.

Steam Inhalation

Never let the child do steam inhalation as done for adults. Fill the buckets or bathtub in the bathroom with piping hot water, hold the baby in the arms for 10 minutes in the steamy bathroom to thin out the phlegm.

Ghee

For dry cough, heat 2 tablespoon of ghee and add 2 to 3 pepper in it, grind it and give a little of it throughout the day. This can be given for children above 1 year.

Author: Saranya

I’m HomeMaker and a mother of 1 year old baby girl. I have 6 yrs of IT experience with Accenture and IGATE and currently taken break to take care of my little one. I have an interest towards home made ancient recipes which is very healthy for kids and adults and hence started preparing all those at home and thought of sharing the same with all parents.

Home Made Ayurvedic Oil

As market available baby massage oil might be dangerous as it has mineral oil. its has parebens and other poisonous ingredients. So i am sharing with a home made pure BALA SIDDA BABY OIL, which we use in our family.

  • Bala
  • Aswagandha
  • Hadjod (makes strong bones )
  • Mamra badam
  • Neem leaves or powder
  • Vacha/ bach/vekhand
  • Manjal
  • Ajwain
  • Crushed garlic
  • Few cloves
Direction
  1. Take 1 L of orgnaic cold pressed cocunut / gingelly oil
  2. Add the above ingredients in oil in a vessel and boil well till all the ingredients turn jet black . It means oil has absorbed the qualities of the Ingredients well.
  3. Let it cool down and store in a conatiner and take when needed .
    Warm it before using.

     

    It gives energy to body n bones ..makes skin pure. Avoids cold ….flu ..cough etc

    All the above you get in ayurvedic shops. Alternatively for pure oil, do consider our community shopping project https://hlp.world/store

Author: Lakshmi Bharadwaj

Lakshmi Bharadwaj, known as OJAS in whatsapp group, is a home-maker and mother of three lovely kids. She comes with a rich tradition that follows home-remedies, which makes her a passionate towards ancient knowledge in Ayurveda naturopathy and herbs. She is one of the sincere and senior member of swarnaprashana Whatsapp parenting community. She has been constantly guiding new parents and with her continuous selfless efforts on various social and educative platforms. In 2015, She was the Parent of the month for her exceptional guidance in home-remedies to many parents in our whatsapp community.

Ancient Ways to Cleanse Colon Safely With Castor Oil

Learn the art of natural way to detox your stomach, bowel & colon to rejuvenate the digestive system.

16652033607_983f626b7b_z
There is always a heated discussion among our parents at our whatsapp group on what best to eat, but seldom discuss about how to remove the waste that we eat and accumulate in our system. At our recent webinar, we discussed in great detail and we came up with this blog.

It is often an assumption that what we eat is absorbed by the body and the waste is disposed in the form of urine and stool. Ideally that works for a healthy body. But most of the undigested food, now known as toxins are always stored inside our digestive system.  Did you know that the path from mouth to the anus is approx. 33ft? Yes, it is a long journey indeed!

Then these toxins take a permanent position in our body, disturbing our physical health, but mental and spiritual health as well. More the toxins we accumulate, more the health problems we may have to face. Most of the health problems can be easily avoided by basic detoxing method followed by our ancestors. Our ancient texts have given a lot of ways to remove this toxins regularly. It is an important duty to clean bowel, often!

There is a song by Thirumoolar, that says, yearly at least twice we have to clean our stomach. Given that Thirumoolar advised this 1000+ years ago; today, with junk and processed food, almost all the Siddha doctors advises to clean the stomach at least once in  4 months.

There are plenty of ways to do this. Here is a simple ancient technique.

5521716648_6ea0f36193_b

Ingredients
  1. 3 to 4 Teaspoon of Castor Oil (15ml – 20ml)
  2. 3 Teaspoon of Ginger juice (without skin) (15ml)
  3. 3 Teaspoon of Honey (15ml)
  4. 50 ML of warm water
A day before

Take light food at the night.

On the day

Make sure, you do not have any outdoor-activities on this day, as you might have to visit rest room very frequently.

This process has to performed in an empty stomach and early morning would be the best time. Mix castor oil, ginger juice, honey and water as per the proportion mentioned above. Depending on your body type, in next few mins or an hour, you might have to visit the restroom more than 3 to 6 times. Make sure your diet is warm water only.

The right time to stop this process is, when you notice the urine quantity is more than the stool, and the stool is in the color of plain water. Your body will tell you to stop it, then you can either take, some buttermilk with rock salt or lime juice with salt. It would stop the loose motion.

It is necessary not to eat or drink anything except warm water.

Once you stop it, give some time to rest your body. At noon, have liquid diet, with rasam or kanji. Later at dinner, have semisolid food. Next day, you can follow normal diet.

The quantity of Castor oil, Ginger, honey and so on, might not work for all, all the time. You can increase /decrease as per your needs.

This simple process, will detox the body and prevent from non-communicable disease such as cancer and so on.

You can buy pure castor oil and various types of herbs honey from our community store – HLP Store.

Author: Velu Jayaprakash

Velu Jayaprakash is a social entrepreneur, product manager, techy, photographer, meditator, father of two angels, ancient wisdom seeker, holistic adviser and Soul coach. You can reach him at velu.jayaprakash AT gmail DOT com

Herbal Pouch For Nutritious Hair

Hi Friends,

When I was sharing my Shikakai powder, many were asking some solution for hair-fall. So I thought I will share another grandmas home-made solution for hair-fall.  This is a pouch which consists of 8 major herbs required for a healthy hair growth. Our grandma insists us to use this as our daily combing oil. May be because of this we used to have healthy thick hair in our childhood. Time passed on and as I grew up, started using all cosmetics available in the markets which are easy to be applied and readily available. The results are:

  • Pre mature greying
  • Dandruff
  • Hair fall
  • Dull hair

I was also a person who was affected by all these problems. Use of chemicals  are not the only reason for these above mentioned issues, its because of our lifestyle, pollution and atmospheric changes too.

Just then my grandmas herbal oil struck in my mind which she used to make for us. I called her and asked for the recipe. Thank you Grandma! for sharing this recipe with me. Yes!!! it worked again. Wondering how come our ancestors found solutions for all problems with items which are connected to nature. Now I see a drastic reduction in my hair fall. Just thought that I would share it with a bigger community.

How this works

The below 8 natural and basic ingredients are added and slowly heated in the natural sun light, it provides the necessary nourishment needed for the hair.

  • Methi seeds – Treats Dandruff and acts as body coolant
  • Dried Amla – Improves the texture of the hair
  • Surul Pattai/Alkanet root – Naturally colours the hair
  • Dried Hibiscus flower – Gentle cleanser and prevents hair shedding
  • Mehandi cake – Prevents premature greying and conditions the hair
  • Dried Curry leaves – Repairs damaged roots n reduces hair fall
  • Rose petals – Tightens the scalp
  • Vettiver – Fragrant and coolant

How to prepare

Take a glass jar/bottle with lid and drop this herbal bag in 300 ml normal coconut oil. Pour  oil which the necessary to cover the bottom part of the pouch and place it under the sun for 4 to 5 days. The warmth and light from the sun will help to infuse the herbal properties into the oil. The oil will turn into light red colour. Now you can add the rest of the oil and use it. This oil mainly helps in  premature greying of hair and makes the hair denser and smoother. It reduces dandruff and hair-fall too. This herbal oil can be kept till 4 months.

Each pocket costs Rs.108. If anyone is interested you can place your order at sriharicares@gmail.com or call me at 7760292062/9884554149.

Note : If in case you want the entire process viz. soaking of herbal pouch in cold pressed coconut oil and exposing to sun to get the complete herbal oil, please let me know. This can be done on request basis to facilitate parents who are unable to do it. This is done with additional cost for the coconut oil.

We are part of HLP.World/Store, a community driven shopping project, that revives Indian indigenous traditional organic food. A project initiated exclusive by parents for parents at whatsapp holistic group.

Author: Sri Nandhini Hari

I’m Sri Nandhini Hari, a B.Com & M.B.A finance post graduate and have worked in American Express Bank as an Asst. Manager and later with CTS as Financial Analyst. I have a passion towards our own tradition and culture and this has triggered me to share the natural and homemade products to a bigger community for the benefit of all.

Curry Leaf Oil – Hair Care

Dear Friends,

Healthy and strong hairs are the dream of many and let us take a step to achieve it.  With great pleasure introducing the home-made natural wonder “Curry Leaf Oil”.  As a rich source of natural antioxidants Curry leaf oil helps in contracting the muscles and tissues, thus strengthening the roots of the hair and preventing hair fall. The healthy nutrients in this oil promotes natural hair growth and effectively works on the real pigmentation of the individual’s physique and helps in bringing back the original colour of the hair.  This attribute of Curry leaf oil makes it a wonderful natural aid for premature greying of hair.

IMG_5872

Ayurveda calls this Curry leaf tree as Girinimba or Krishnanimba, named after Lord Krishna, the God of ultimate protection. Curry leaf oil has the power to pacify aggravated kapha and vata doshas and increase pitta dosha. With such well-built healing values, Ayurveda prescribes Curry leaf oil as an aid to assist every human being with healthy hair.

This ancient art of holistic healing has used Curry leaves and its essential oil in various Ayurvedic preparations for the treatment of diabetes, eye diseases, liver problems, diarrhea, high cholesterol, hair fall, gastrointestinal problems, skin pigmentation and oral disorders.  Curry leaf tree is an easy to cultivate herb and is indigenous to India and Sri Lanka, the countries of rich cultural heritage. Every part of this tree including its leaves, berries and flowers have enormous medicinal values and the best part is that it is easily affordable.

img_20151023_065302_21776739463_o

Curry leaves boiled in coconut oil in a particular traditional way is a natural tonic for hair growth. This home-made herbal tonic is trusted to nourish hair follicles and restore its natural colour.  In our family we have been using this home-made curry leaf oil for generations. If you have premature greying in the family line start using the curry leaf oil for your kids at a younger age.  It takes 36 hours for curry leaf oil preparation and is a risky process if not handled properly.  Once receiving the order, time taken to deliver the freshly prepared oil will be 7 to 10 days.  Apply this hair oil on a daily basis or massage this oil one hour before a hair wash.  Do not mix this oil with any other oil, can be applied directly.

Each pocket is of 200ml, and it costs Rs.360. If anyone is interested you can place your order at krithikakaruppiah@gmail.com or call me at 97404 71261.

We are part of Hlp.world/store, a community driven shopping project, that revives Indian indigenous traditional organic food. A project initiated exclusive by parents for parents at whatsapp holistic group.

About author

IMG_5775

Krithika is dedicated mother of two kids. Being a post graduate in Science, she comes with a wide range of abilities starting from HOD in Microbiology, worked as a Research Associate in Anna University, Assistant Manager HR, etc.

Author: Krithika Sudhakaran

Krithika is dedicated mother of two kids. Being a post graduate in Science, she comes with a wide range of abilities starting from HOD in Microbiology, worked as a Research Associate in Anna University, Assistant Manager HR, etc.

Case Study on Oil Bath from our parenting community

One of the key activities, to revive our ancient practices, we often push in our whatsapp group is to perform oil bath. In short time, many parents started to follow it for their kids and themselves.  We always wanted to capture some data points on a person who has not done it before and study this improvement after participating it.

One such parent from a MNC was stressed out and was worried about changes in his body. We simply suggested out oil bath practices along with other simple to follow technique invented and practiced by our ancestors. After few week this parent came to me with the following message.

“From 26th July it got improved from 5 hours to seven hours. Now my body temperature is normal due to twice a week oil both. Thanks”

Thanks to technology wearable device. He captured his sleeping pattern and you can clearly see improvement from the real data!

IMG_6579 IMG_6580 IMG_6581

performing an oil might seems time, but the benefits are plenty. If you have not started it. We would highly recommend doing asap and join our club. Read this article about oil bath for detailed procedure.

Author: Velu Jayaprakash

Velu Jayaprakash is a social entrepreneur, product manager, techy, photographer, meditator, father of two angels, ancient wisdom seeker, holistic adviser and Soul coach. You can reach him at velu.jayaprakash AT gmail DOT com

Oil Bathing with benefits

Oil pulling is getting popular in the west. There seems to be a lot of discussion in media and research community about its various benefits. On those lines, we decided to introduce yet another important practiced by our ancient people for a healthy life. It’s called as Oil bathing. This is one activity we contently reminding our parents in our whatsapp group.

Though we (people from India) have been practising oil bathing for ages, we decided to research further into Ayurveda and siddha text to dig more details about this holistic practise. This article is not only for babies, but to all every one.

Her second bath Oil bath is a process of applying certain oil over the body, in a certain way, on a certain days. When we practices this over a period of time, we reap lot of benefits in short, to long term. Let’s start with the benefits first, followed by a details procedure. The procedure we would recommend would suites well with our busy lifestyle.

There seems to plenty of benefits of performing an oil bath, some has been proved in research and some are yet to be provedJ. Over all it does benefits in a positive way to mention some:

  1. Balances the Vata, Pitta and Kapha known as Tridosha- if this is balanced, consider all the benefits are just a free add-on!
  2. Best Anti-ageing, younger skins, natural moistening, healthy blood circulation, healthy eyes, cool head, reduces headache, Feel lighter, frees from stiffness and body pain, Healthy hair, scalp, etc
  3. At a spiritual level, it cleanses the Aura, balances the chakra and keep the body at alert and aware state. And the list goes on…

Let’s go deeper in the “applying certain oil over the body, in a certain way, on a certain days” part.

Recommended Oil

  1. Gingelly oil (a.k.a til oil or sesame oil)
  2. Coconut oil
  3. Herbal / medicinal oil recommended by Ayurveda or Siddha doctor

Many people use other oils as well, Olive oil, Mustard oil, Castor oil, etc. There is nothing wrong in using these oils. Ayurveda or siddha speaks highly of gingelly oil. So we highly recommend gingelly oil. Not many know, it is called as queen of all oils.

Marigold (Calendula) infused oilWe also highly recommend that you play with other oil in parallel that suites well. Your body and mind is the best judge, just explore all and you will end up with one that makes you feel well. In most cases its gingelly!

It is better if you can get cold pressed organic oil. Or if you are in India and have local knowledge you can find places where they prepare oil in a traditional way. Or even you can prepare your own herbal oil in upcoming articles.

Recommended procedure to apply

  1. Scalp: Always start applying at the scalp with a gentle rub. You should feel the heat radiating out from the skull
  2. Yes: if the oils Is of good quality and pure you can apply couple of drops in eyes
  3. Ears: few drops to dilute the ear wax
  4. Rest of face
  5. Palms and feet: apply in both palms and rub it
  6. Rest of body

Following the procedure in a same order will release the heat thru eyes without irritation.

Massage the body

Unless you are trained massage therapist. Do not play hard, especially with kids. Just apply oil and may be a gentle massage against gravitational pull.

Day and time

If you are from India or especially from south you know it’s a Saturday. Actually our ancient text given even more details, they recommend.

  • For Men: it is Wednesday and Saturday
  • For Women: it is Tuesday and Friday

In today life busy world, it’s hard to do this in a working day partially if you have early start. But sticking to Saturday is something we should add in our schedule.

Usually it recommended to apply oil and face the sun rise. To not wait for long time. 10 to 20 mins it more than enough if you are living in a cold country.

Scrubbing

Homemade scrubs are better for babies. Some like this

  1. Bengal gramflour,
  2. 1 tsp tumeric powder,
  3. 1 tsp vacha powder,
  4. 1 tsp zeodary root powder
  5. Cream of milk

Mix all together a best scrub for babies. Natural scrubbers such as vetiver scrubber, sponge guard, Bark of Rita even soft coconut fiber can be used.

One of the parent from our group was able share her home made shikakai powder and ubtan (scrub) for babies. This is a something they have be using this recipe of many generation, Unlike what we recommended or what you get in market, She makes Shikakai power with 18 herbs that is good for hair.

If you can not make it yourselves We would suggest give it a try.

Use warm to hot water. Do not pour hot water directly over the head. Use luke warm to cold water for head because hot water is said to be not good for hair and sense organs especially eyes. It can cause hair loss and decrease the strength of the sense organs.

We would not suggest soap, as it’s very hard to get the oil out and it damages the skins. We recommend gram flour.

For girls, when are using in face you can also add a pinch of turmeric powder with gram flour to remove unwanted facial hairs.

Any natural soap free shampoo is better or Shikakai power (you can even by a home made shikakai for here).

After an oil bath

Make sure you follow few things

  1. Black pepper rasam or soup
  2. Do not eat cooling food
  3. Avoid sleep in day time as this is most important to follow

As you practice this over a period of time you will notice the changes in body and you will feel lighter healthier mentally, physically, spiritually.

It advisable to avoid oil bath when

  1. You are not well
  2. Cold or flu
  3. Weather is cold or rainy day

To save some time over you weekend. You might first apply over your body followed by applying to your kids and give them a bath, in the last you take bath.

Do share your feedback or what kind of oil bath you do or even ask question in our comments.

Author: Velu Jayaprakash

Velu Jayaprakash is a social entrepreneur, product manager, techy, photographer, meditator, father of two angels, ancient wisdom seeker, holistic adviser and Soul coach. You can reach him at velu.jayaprakash AT gmail DOT com