Okay. I WAS sick, but I wasn’t the only one sick over Christmas break. Everywhere I looked families had members dropping like flies to this fever filled stomach bug and respiratory illness. Unfortunately, when we moved here to Pensacola, I left almost all of my preparedness supplies behind. And with me hitting the ground running with a new job three days after arriving, I haven’t put a lot of my preparedness systems into place again. But this Christmas, with our family having so many down at once, I’ve decided that this week during my grocery run, I’m going to restock what I call my ‘sick tote.’
As a mom – especially when my kids were younger – I couldn’t just pick up and run to the store in the middle of the day with sick kids, so I used to keep a tote of foods, drinks, meds, etc to in the case of a sick kid.
Has anyone ever had something similar? Well, I’m going to give you a list of things that we keep in our sick tote.
Sick Tote Contents 
- Frankincense EO (#1 respiratory support essential Oil (According to Gentle Babies, it’s safe to use on an infant, but make sure you do your own research.)
- Activated Charcoal (perfect for upset stomachs if food poisoning is suspected)
- Apple sauce (jars or individual cups)
- Chicken noodle soup
- Vitamin C powder (This is easier for little ones to take. You can add it to water or to apple sauce.)
- Electrolyte sticks (We like the Gatorade or Powerade Zero.)
- Crackers
- Chicken broth
- Ginger ale
- Mandarin orange cups
- Pickles (Our naturally-minded doctor in IL recommends these when seeking to rehydrate)
- Red cups (see below)
- Lemon juice
- Real Maple syrup
I keep the last two on hand because when my kids are throwing up, my doctor from IL suggests this recipe to rehydrate.
Mix together and sip on:
– 1 quart of water
– 1 tsp sea salt
– 1 tsp baking soda
Optional: make this more palatable by adding in 1-2 freshly squeezed lemons and real maple syrup to taste.
Red Cups
Okay. I’m going to get into something a little gross here, but I think this is important and most people won’t talk about it. But we’re moms and we keep things real, right?
So when I, or one of my brood, comes down sick with a respiratory issue where we have a lot of mucus and phelgm, there’s one thing I insist on. They carry a red cup around. Why? Because when they cough up mucus, I don’t want them swallowing it. It will coat their throat again. It can also really upset their stomachs. So I have my kids spit into a red cup. You could use a real mug, but who wants to clean one out after someone’s spit a ton of grossness into it? If you use a red cup, you can just throw them away.
What About You?
Do you keep a sickness tote for your family? What items do you keep in yours? Let us know in the comments.
I have a fully stocked homeopathic kit on hand at all times. I can treat food poisoning, diarrhea, throwing up, stuffed up head, etc without having to worry about the medicine coming back up. It’s absorbed through the mucus membranes in the mouth so even if they can’t keep anything down, I can treat them.