Parenting, even with all it's rewards can be difficult. No time seems more difficult than nighttime parenting, especially when your child is sick. In the middle of the night you don't have the luxury of calling your mom, a more experienced friend, the doctor or other support. You often have to wing it on your own. Thank goodness for the internet!
A couple of weeks ago we had such a night. After about 4 hours of trying to get my 4yo to go to sleep it was clear it wasn't going to happen any time soon. So around midnight we decided to go downstairs, have a bite to eat and watch some cartoons. Within about 30 minutes my daughter was suddenly crying and screaming because her ear hurt. This is the 1st time she's had an earache, and she's my 1st child, so I didn't immediately know what to do.
At first I thought she could just have water in her ear since she had taken a bath that evening...even though it had been about 5 hours since the bath. So, I used some drops I had from my swimming days to help clear the water. Unfortunately, that wasn't it. The cold drops and the alcohol only made my poor baby cry harder. I felt terrible! So, I got a heating pad for her to lay her ear on and did what any natural mom does in the middle of the night. I started searching for natural ear ache remedies.
The remedy that kept coming up over and over was garlic oil. Garlic is antiseptic and anti-inflammatory, 2 things you need when dealing with earaches. The best article I read was this one by Herbalist Steven Horne on Organic Authority. According to Organic Authority, Steve Horne is:
...a Registered Herbalist with and a past president of the American Herbalist Guild (AHG). He is the author of numerous books and courses on herbs and natural healing and has lectured on this subject all over the world. He is the father of five children, who were all raised on natural remedies. Because he's learned how to provide primary health care to his children in the home, he's only had to make three visits to a medical doctor for illnesses with his five children.
Those sound like pretty good qualifications to me. What I liked about his article was he is an experienced parent, has the educational background for what he's discussing, and talked about the biology of what's happening to give full understanding.
One thing this article did that others I read didn't was suggest lymphatic massage to help the lymphatic system drain. So, I took a couple of garlic cloves, put them in a pan with organic olive oil and heated it to release the garlic's oils. Once it had cooled down I put it in a dropper. I didn't have a glass dropper, but I did have one of the 5cc syringes I got from the hospital when my daughter was born (no needle on this type - it's for feeding colostrum). I was able to use that to put the drops in her ear. Then I started massaging her neck.
I can't say for sure that the massage worked, but she did like my rubbing her ear and neck. Even if the caressing didn't help with lymphatic drainage, it certainly helped soothe her. Within about 30 minutes to 1 hour the pain was relieved enough for her to finally sleep.
The next morning when she woke up she told me her ear still hurt a little, but she wasn't crying and screaming like the night before. I put one more round of garlic oil drops in her ear, and that was it. About an hour later she was fine and ready to go to school. It was amazing! It was such a relief and comfort to be able to take care of my daughter in the middle of the night using things I already have in the house. If only all our kids aches and pains could be handled so easily!
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