Important immune training at an unusual time
Is it Christmas already? At least when we look at how many children are currently coming into the practice with mild respiratory infections, you could almost think so. While we had virtually no mild infections last autumn and winter, we can hardly save ourselves from children with coughs, colds and fevers. This is extremely atypical for summertime - but it's not bad. Quite the opposite.
Here are a few points that are important to me: Dear parents, be glad that your children get these infections! There is actually nothing better for a small child and up to primary school age than regular simple airway infections. These are infections that heal on their own, where no antibiotics are needed because the child has pus running out of the ear or the tonsils are purulently inflamed. They are simply so-called cold infections, which are very important for the child's immune system. And, don't be alarmed: They say that eight to twelve infections a year are completely undramatic, especially in infants, and are no cause for concern for children's immune systems.
One aspect that seems strange to me is that there are more and more reports of children being sent home from community centres, even though they have been tested for Covid, just because they are covered in snot or have a bit of a cough but are otherwise fit and healthy. I think we need to be careful that we don't introduce new regulations here that shouldn't actually exist. Before coronavirus, a child with just a cold, a little cough and no fever, who is otherwise fit and active, was allowed to attend community centres. I think that should continue. Because we won't be able to get such mild colds out of the centres - and, strictly speaking, we don't want to. Because children's immune systems need this training.
I would also like to look ahead and make a plea for the coming autumn/winter that we don't try to deprive children of contact with other toddlers for months on end again, because we can see that now: The immune system has really been waiting to be allowed to become active again. And I can report from 15 years of practice: The children who often had a bit of a cold and were ill when they were small are often the ones I didn't see again for years later because they were simply healthy throughout, not seriously ill. So here's my appeal once again: regular contact with other children - and therefore also the exchange of banal viral pathogens - is fundamentally important for the (young) child's immune system.
Further interesting tips
Dummy
When is my child too old for a dummy? All parents ask themselves this question sooner or later. There are many answers. But there is also a very simple way.
The task of the environment
"The task of the environment is not to mould the child, but to allow it to reveal itself." So what does that mean? It means that we parents often have to think and feel what makes our child tick.
"Writing baby"
Babies who cry and scream a lot have always existed. In the past, they were often referred to as crying babies or people were quick to talk about three-month colic, which plagued children and caused them to cry. Today, people are increasingly talking about regulatory disorders when a baby cries and screams a lot. This often occurs mainly in the evening. But there is a remedy.