No parent wants their baby to suffer from any kind of illness if it can be helped – and it can almost always be helped. If you are a new parent and you want to make sure that you are protecting your baby as well as you can this winter, then there is plenty you will need to take on board. It can be surprisingly challenging to ensure that your baby is kept away from disease during the colder months, but with the right approach, you should be able to ensure that you are at least minimising any risks which might be inherent. Without further ado, let’s look at some of the best ways to keep your child healthy this winter.
Hand Washing
As a parent to an infant, you just can’t afford not to wash your hands regularly. Although we all know that hand washing is essential for health reasons, so many people fail to really do it correctly. With a child in the mix, however, this kind of behavior can actually be lethally dangerous. You need to make sure that you are washing your hands regularly, especially at the usual times you normally would. But you also need to make sure that you are actually cleaning them with the proper technique.
Proper hand washing technique is something that unfortunately escapes a lot of people, but it is likely to be essential if you want to keep your baby as healthy and free of germs as possible. A strong hand washing routine should take around two minutes to complete, and you should make sure that you are really getting in under the nails and in between the fingers accurately. There is a huge noticeable difference between doing this and just giving your hands a quick rinse, and you need to make sure you are doing it just right. It is likely to make a massive difference to how successfully you keep your baby away from any potentially harmful germs.
You will also need to try and make sure that others who come into contact with your baby are keeping their hands clean. This is much more difficult to police, but polite requests should usually be more than enough in most cases. Remember too that you can only do a certain amount to protect your baby, and to a certain degree you have to accept that you can’t control the germs. That being said, proper hand washing should make a world of difference.
Regular Cleaning
Naturally enough, it is critical to ensure that you are cleaning your baby regularly. If you are a first-time parent, you might be surprised at how confusing the whole realm of cleaning your baby can actually be, at least to begin with. But with some simple research, you should be able to get on top of it in no time at all. For a start, you need to make sure that you are cleaning your baby at the right amount of regular intervals. You only really need to clean your baby around three to four times a week, but if you want to bathe them every evening, then there is absolutely no harm in that. You don’t want to subject them to baths more often than that, however.
Be sure to check the temperature well with your elbow, and then place them on one foot at a time, and gradually so on until they are in entirely. Then it’s just a case of making sure that you are gentle but thorough – a fine line which you just need to try and find yourself. Also ensure that you clean every part of their body, including shampooing their head. As well as being generally good hygiene practice, it also helps to treat cradle cap and other conditions so is definitely a good idea. The more thoroughly you clean your baby, the less likely it is that they will pick up anything over the winter months. Just make sure to keep them warm throughout the bathing process, and especially after.
Be Careful Of Crowds
It is common for new parents to want to take their baby everywhere they go and show them off. It is likely that you will experience this same feeling, but for the sake of their health, it is a good idea to try and minimize the amount you take them out to see lots of people. You don’t want to hole them up inside, of course, but you should just be wary of how many people are coming into contact with them. The fewer, the better, especially over winter, as this only makes it much less likely that they will pick up any germs or illnesses. As long as you are conscious of any crowds of people, you should find that your baby is healthy for much longer, and hopefully won’t get sick over winter at all. If your baby does start to develop an illness of some kind, then you definitely want to make sure you keep them inside, as this is the safest way to deal with it.
Vaccines
Something you really can’t afford to overlook is the issue of vaccination. If you are serious about keeping your baby as healthy as possible, then you will want to make sure that you get them vaccinated in all of the major diseases. This is the safest way to keep them from getting genuinely very ill – something that no parent wants for their child, after all. If you vaccinate them, you can be sure that you have done everything you can to keep them protected as well as possible for the entirety of the winter months. Without vaccinations, you are keeping your baby open to vulnerability for many diseases and illnesses, so it is definitely a good idea to ensure that you get this done as soon as possible.
As long as you follow the above advice, you should find that you are able to keep your baby as safe as possible over the colder months.