3 Immune Building Must Do's For Your Kids

#1 - Sleep

While more sleep won’t necessarily prevent you from getting sick, skimping on it could adversely affect your immune system, leaving you susceptible to a bad cold or case of the flu. (1)

As parents, we know our kids need their sleep to help their mood, health, learning and their overall behavior.

Here are some effective measures to help your kids sleep a little more soundly.

A solid bed time routine lasting approx. 40 mins,

Eliminate screens 3 hours before bed
Set low lighting that your child recognizes as bedtime lighting
Bath
Bed time story

According to Jeffrey Durmer, M.D., Ph.D., a sleep specialist and researcher in Atlanta, "Children who go to bed after 9 p.m. take longer to fall asleep, wake more often at night, and get less sleep overall,” (2)

Something that we do as a family, after a load of research as to which essential oil company to use, is to diffuse “sleep” oils at night. I struggled for a while to get my little one to have better quality naps and a more sound sleep at night until I found my perfect combo!

#2 - Sugar

When their cute little face is filled with the misery of feeling sick you want to give them their favorite chocolate or ice cream but you very well could be weakening their defenses.

Sugar DECREASES immune activity leading to sluggish defense. Studies show that immune function decreases by 50% within 30 minutes of eating sugar and for up to 5 hours after consumption. (3)

As 80% of the immune system is housed in our gut, the necessity for pre and probiotics is a must have in your child’s diet.

Vincent Ho, a lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist at Western Sydney University states “we’re beginning to realize gut bacteria plays an important role in the growth of infants’ immune systems. One way this could occur is by altering the development of the white blood cells that provide a first-line defense against invading microbes: bugs that make us sick.”

We try our best, we certainly aren’t perfect, to include Kombucha, Sauerkraut and coconut kefir to help with gut flora.

Bone Broth is another food we love adding to soups and noodles and our “Baby Gravy”.

We our now lucky to have the perfect pre and probiotic supplement which is 100% safe for our kids and actually tastes pretty good.

#3 - Toxins

While toxins threaten everyone’s health, infants and children are especially sensitive to toxins. This is because children are more exposed to chemicals (pound-by-pound), their organs are still developing and their bodies are less able to detoxify.

Children are also more vulnerable to toxins because they lack a fully developed blood-brain barrier, the structure in the central nervous system that prevents the passage of chemicals between the bloodstream and the neural tissue.

In fact, a human brain continues to develop until age 20.

Children today are exposed to an ever-increasing number of chemicals, many of which have not been tested for their possible toxicity. (4)

One thing I recommend is changing your cleaner and laundry detergent to plant based options, however, be very careful of brands that look clean and in actual fact are not!

My number one rule is to avoid anything with FRAGRANCE on the ingredients list.

It took time but we have tossed out all our chemicals and replaced them with alternatives that are not only healthy but that actually work. I highly recommend doing this! All the way from your cleaners, to the shampoo you put on their precious little heads.

In my exclusive community the cleaner we use has been Mumma tested by thousands of us and we all give it the green light. Sometimes science isn’t enough, you need the Mumma vote to go along with it.