What Are Your Best Coping Strategies for Parents During Illness?
One of the most difficult parts of parenting is raising children when they are sick. Unlike work, where, at least in theory, you can take a day off to rest and recover, raising children is a round-the-clock job where you are a backup, sickness be damned. Add to that the myriad of illnesses your kids bring home from kindergarten, and parenting becomes a non-stop blur of concern for your kids to survive as well as the last nasty virus.
The first serious illness my son brought home was RSV. He had a slight temperature for about a day, but quickly returned to normal, and my own infection turned into bronchitis. Over the next few days, while my son was running around the house dressed as a baby shark (it was also Halloween), I spent time on the couch, coughing, trying to control myself until my husband calmed down. home and can take over.
My son’s diaper stayed wet longer than it should have, his bottle only came out after he started screaming, and one of my main strategies to keep himself safe and sound was to shove him into a sun lounger, which kept him occupied for fifteen minutes. before he started screaming. I’m crying again.
A few months later my son came down with the flu and immediately infected me – only this time my husband was out of town on a business trip. As before, my son quickly bounced back, leaving me in the lurch to take care of him while he’s sick, feverish nighttime feedings and all. I still can’t remember how I got through this, but we’re both still alive and well.
This has been a pattern throughout my parenting journey: my child has given me streptococci, stomach infections, bronchitis and the flu so many times I can’t count. Due to the last batch of parenting while sick, we have all contracted COVID-19. For a week, my husband and I lay on the couch, barely moving, and my son, who had a mild illness for about a day, destroyed the house. Someday I will remove the last scribbles from the walls with a marker, but until then they will stand as a monument to survival.
Since I will have to deal with this again in the almost certainly not too distant future – and I know I’m not the only one – I’m turning to you for advice. What are your strategies, tips and tricks for raising children during illness? Veteran parents, please leave a comment below to help me and other parents of young children get through these times better. We will collect them to share in a future post.