A Healthy Toddler is a Happy Toddler

I’ve raised three toddlers into childhood, and I can say heartily that a healthy toddler is a happy toddler. To know this for sure, look at the inverse – a sick toddler is a sad toddler!  Nothing is much harder on a parent, or on a toddler, than being sick. It’s extra hard because the toddler has no idea why they don’t feel good. They are too young to understand illness, or germs, or vomiting, or earaches or any of that!  They only understand that they feel awful, and that Mama or Daddy can’t instantly make them feel better. It’s a sad situation!

Keeping toddlers healthy can be very tough. They love to put anything and everything in their mouths, only a little less than they did as babies, and they freely kiss others with colds! They also have little immunity. Every virus is new to them. So, at some point, they are going to get sick.

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When they do get sick, getting them well fast is hugely important to getting them happy again, and to keeping the household sane! Doctors don’t always want to see you for every little sniffle, so sometimes it’s a tough call. Does that earache need to be seen right away? Have they been coughing for too long? Is the fever just something that will blow over, or is it an emergency? And of course, the doctor’s office with a sick child is ironically not a place you’d love to be. But when they are really sick, and need care, you bundle them up and go, and almost hope they have something that can be medicated, to get them better soon. One of the worst things you can hear is “It will blow over in a week or two”.  When you have a howling sick little guy or gal, a week or two is like a year or two.

So how DO you keep them healthy and happy? Well, I’m no doctor, but I do have a few ideas.  There is of course hand washing. I think the washing of hands is one of the few areas it’s okay to get your kids a little obsessive about. I stressed it all as much as I possibly could, and I do feel a little proud to see my teenage boys nicely washing their hands as they learned as toddlers! Just to be sure, when we were in a high germ area, I gave them a bath as soon as we got home, or not long after. Healthy eating is also important. It’s impossible to make sure every bit they put in their mouth is healthy, but early on, I stressed fruits, and had them available as snacks. Cheese and nuts were also always around. Cookies weren’t forbidden, but they just somehow didn’t make it into the house that often. If they were thirsty, I offered water like it was a given that that was what they would want, and they used to surprise people when offered juice or soda by saying “Can I please have water?”. Ice cubes can make regular water a lot more fun! I also made sure they were up to date on vaccinations, which is a controversial area a bit these days, but something I strongly believe in, and as the mother of an autistic child, I don’t say that lightly.

I think the phrase works a little both ways, too. A happy toddler is a healthy toddler.  Sometimes in today’s world, we rush even our littlest kids. Toddlers don’t need to go to an endless string of lessons and play dates. I made sure a lot of days were relaxed days, just playing in the backyard wading pool, coloring, singing and yes, even the dreaded video watching. Kids don’t need to be rushed around. They need down time as much as we do.

That leads to another big topic in keeping toddlers healthy and happy – sleep! That can be such a big problem if you happen to have a toddler who doesn’t sleep well. I was lucky in having two that did, but the one that didn’t – wow! He just didn’t, and still doesn’t, need as much sleep as his siblings. Or he just wasn’t as good at getting to sleep. And I don’t think it’s a total coincidence he was sick a lot more than they were. Part of sleep is just making a regular bedtime a priority. Around the same time every night, just make it an assumption that everyone goes to sleep. Unfortunately, this in our house meant everyone – my husband is an early to bed type, and as the years went on, I had to become one to conform. There was a lot of nights we ALL were asleep by 8pm! But we got our 8 hours in, and that kept us healthy.

There are always going to be a few kids for whom staying healthy is harder. My middle son, the non-sleeper, has chronic asthma and severe seasonal allergies. There were a lot of nights when he was a toddler we spent in the emergency room, or getting him up every 4 hours for an asthma nebulizer. That made keeping him happy extra tough, but most of the time, I think he was. One thing that helped was always being as direct and honest with him as possible for his age. Asthma was a part of him, not some big scary unspoken of thing. We tried our best to make nebulizer time fun, with a video or a story. And we tried to make times sitting in waiting rooms be times of extra togetherness, in a way, his own time that most middle children crave. He still has the asthma, but I think he looks back on even those parts of being a toddler as happy times.

Being sick sometimes is part of life, even a toddler’s life. We can do everything we can to keep them healthy, but once in a while, they are going to get sick. By eating well, sleeping well, washing hands well and doing preventative care, we can reduce those sick hours to a minimum and enjoy the happy toddler years to a maximum!