Natural Cold Remedies' Effectiveness

             Hey folks! It's that time of year and if you or your kids haven't been sick yet, chances are you will be soon, unfortunately! It can get tricky trying to treat cold symptoms with very young kids since there isn't exactly a whole lot of medicine out there for them. We prefer to try and treat ailments with natural remedies anyways, especially with our kids, and in this case, it's about the only thing you can do since even most children's medicine isn't appropriate for babies/toddlers.

             Today I'm sharing the various natural cold symptom remedies we have tried with our kids and how effective (or not) they have been. Hopefully this list will help you out with your own sick kids this winter! Before we begin...

-These are all store bought natural remedies. There are tons of other ones you can make/do yourself at home, such as elderberry syrup. (I need to try making this next year since we actually have elderberries! I totally dropped the ball this summer.) Unfortunately, I haven't really tried any of these.

-These are all based on my past and recent experience with both my 4 year old and almost 1 year old.

Click on the pictures above for reviews of each!

*Essential oils in diffuser-This one actually does seem to help clear up nasal congestion a moderate to good amount. I usually put about 4 drops of lavender and 6 drops of cedarwood or fir needle essential oil for this purpose. It smells good and helps clear up stuffy noses! (A word of warning: Most places I've come across on the interwebs warns against using menthol-y type essential oils, such as eucalyptus and anything from the mint family, really, with young kids, generally under 2 years of age. I'm not an essential oil specialist, so as with anything, please be sure to research first if you're concerned!)

*Essential oil roll-on-We reviewed this one from Plant Therapy last year. Having to worry about one kid getting the other kid sick was a whole new ballgame for me this year. As soon as Ripley got sick recently, I started making Myka and I use this roll-on at least once a day. It may be coincidence, BUT, Myka did not get sick for a few days until Ripley started feeling better...By which point I had already started forgetting to have her use the Germ Destroyer. Just food for thought. ;)

*Hyland's Cold & Cough and Tiny Cold Tablets-I used to love Hyland's, I really did. Hell, I was a blog ambassador for them for a couple of years. I still swear by their Teething Tablets, but...Both of these cold medicines mentioned above haven't done CRAP for either of our girls. No noticeable difference in symptoms whatsoever. I know of at least a couple of other companies now that make cold medicine for kids as young as 1, if I remember right, such as Zarbee's, so perhaps they work better.

*Maty's Baby Chest Rub-I'm not a fan of Vick's whatsoever, but everyone swears up and down it helps. I couldn't bring myself to buy it, even their baby version, after reading the ingredients, so I decided to give Maty's a try. (Not that I was happy about my baby being sick, but I was excited to try something out from Maty's as I had just recently learned about their natural products!) This stuff smells pretty good, but it didn't help quite as much as I had hoped. It did seem to help a little with nasal congestion, but I feel like the diffuser helped more.

             So there you have it. I wish I had more remedies to share with you (with better results, too!). Maybe we'll start trying some teas and things like elderberry syrups when we're sick and see how those go. :) What are your favorite natural remedies for colds?