Toddler Cold/Flu Remedies: How To Beat Naturally

**Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Any remedy mentioned below is from my personal experience with my child. These toddler cold remedies primarily work with illness prevention and slowing down the worsening of symptoms. These are not cures, but more of natural treatments to the symptoms caused by traditional illnesses that many toddlers experience, especially in daycare.**

When your little one isn’t feeling well, as a mom all you want is some relief for your tot. Cold and flu often affect a child’s mood, ability to breath, and can irritate their throat. So our job as moms is to beat the illness fast! Not only will it help baby, but it’ll decrease the chances of you getting the illness yourself. Which is a top priority for me, a mom with a chronic illness on an immunosuppressant medication. Check out these simple ways to alleviate and eliminate your toddler’s cold or flu fast!

Keep these items with your child at all times so you can fight the symptoms before they worsen. I always keep saline drops, tissue, and cold and cough medicine in my son’s diaper bag. Our diaper bags have so much organization that these items get their own pocket. Get your diaper bag now.

1: Increase Vitamin Intake to Combat Toddler Cold

Increasing your child’s vitamin intake is the best way to deal with toddler cold. You can start to increase while they’re sick but really it should be a regular part of their diet.

That’s a lot easier said than done when you have a picky eater, as I do. Pediasure is one way to help. My son also like granola bars so I try to get high protein bars with as many vitamins as possible. He’ll also eat most fruits (sweet tooth kid) so I load him up on vitamin C, potassium, and antioxidants by giving him berries and bananas.

After we beat his latest cold completely, I’ll be starting him on a multivitamin because my concern about his diet grows each day. A simple Flintstone gummy is what we currently use. They’re much better than the chewable option. He looks forward to eating them.

2: Diffuse Essential Oils

Diffusing essential oils will help your little one breath. They can also soothe a sore throat which can be hard to detect if your toddler can’t express that he has one just yet. One or two drops is all it takes. Besides the essential oils, the real hero here is the diffuser. Even if you just diffuse water, it can help with a stuffy nose.

Try eucalyptus, tea tree, or lemon. In 2020, whenever my son shows signs of cold or flu eucalyptus is our go-to essential oil remedy.

3: Utilize Saline Drops

Saline drops are honestly a God send. My son hates to see me coming with anything to put in his nose. However, once I do one nostril, he’s always more than happy for the second. Why?

Saline drops break up mucus, making it easier to move out of the nose with minimal effort for your child. If your child can’t blow yet, this is easy relief for them. Damon thinks blowing (like you’d blow hot food) is what I mean by blow. Cutest thing but not the most helpful 😄.

You’ll notice more runny nose activity so keep your tissues and suction handy so your child isn’t tempted to lick it 🤢 which will keep them sick.

4: Suction Snot

I used to be afraid of the little suction that people use for baby noses. I think it was the fear of sticking it too far up his nose. Aside from that, I wasn’t sure about the cleanliness of it.

I bought and tried a Frida and it wasn’t my cup of tea. A good, old fashioned suction bulb will do the trick.

Just squeeze, insert, release, and voila! If you’re lucky it will suction most of the snot, then bring a string with it so that you know it’s mostly, if not completely, cleared out.

I recommend this clear suction so you can see how much you got out of your child’s nose. Also it helps with clean-up to see that the inside is truly clean!

I lost my traditional suction and had to run to Walgreens for a new one. They didn’t have the same one I had. Instead, they have a clear one with a shorter tip and I greatly recommend. You can actually see what comes out (not for the squeamish, but I feel satisfied seeing it) and it’s much easier to clean because you can see when it’s clean.

5: Tissue and Q-tips

For the two actions above, you will definitely need tissue. The goal of those methods is to draw the virus out. But you’ve got to have something to catch it! The value or adding the use of Q-tips is to get any extra boogers lingering on the edge of the nose. Do not insert the Q-tip in your child’s nose. Just make a circle around the edge of the inside of your child’s nose and you’ll be amazed what the tissue didn’t get. This method is far less irritating to your child’s nose that rubbing with tissue.

6: Fluids, Fluids, Fluids!

Fluids help with cold and flu and are also useful in quickly treating mild fever. My son started to show signs of fever and I gave him fluids, a hot meal, and coddled him of course and within hours (with no medicine) his fever was gone.

I’m not a medical professional but when I called the pediatrician she was surprised his fever had gone away with no Tylenol and recommended if it came back to give him some. It never did!

The key is to catch it while it’s early. Once a fever advances, your child is less likely to want to drink them and more likely to refuse. My son loves milk so even though I know it’s not the best for his mucus, I let him have as much as he wanted that day and gave him water in between. I don’t give him juice, except for rare occasions, so I can’t really recommend any to help here. However, I can see the benefits if it replenishes electrolytes.

7: Hot Foods – old toddler cold remedy

Hot foods are soothing to a coughing toddler. I started out giving my son oatmeal then his favorite noodles for lunch. The broth from the noodles is helpful. I’m not sure all the official benefits but what I do know is it works! It’s like a long held remedy for cold and flu and I stand by it. According to First Cry, hot milk and honey together have an antibacterial effect making it an amazing natural remedy for respiratory ailments such as coughs and the common cold.

8: Tylenol as a last resort for toddler cold symptoms

If none of the above works, call your pediatrician right away. When in doubt, always ask your child’s pediatrician for help. If you’ve properly screened them, their interests should best align with yours on what to do for your child. Check out my screening question for pediatricians here. If it’s a fever don’t wait. See what they suggest, which will likely be Tylenol. If you’re like me you want to try all your natural options first. Then, if it doesn’t improve, provide medicine as needed.

For illness that doesn’t include a fever, I typically don’t give him medicine until I’ve tried all of the above. I’ve tried cough medicines but they don’t seem to help as much as these other options

What remedies have you found most helpful for your little one’s illness? Let us know what’s working in the comments below.

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