Our Least Favorite Time of Year!

I wrote this post while participating in a blog tour conducted by Clever Girls Collective on behalf of Children’s Claritin®. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program.

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The hardest time of year for us has nothing to do when school is in session or out of session! The hardest time of year for our family is allergy season! My oldest has pretty bad grass pollen allergies, and my youngest has every other seasonal allergy! And if this wasn’t already bad enough, for both of them, when they begin having seasonal allergies it begins to flare up really bad asthma. If I can keep the allergies under control then I don’t have to worry about breathing treatments and asthma medication which is my ultimate goal! (We hate asthma!) But even without the asthma allergy symptoms are just plain NO fun! Especially when you have kids! Ear infections, stuffy noses, runny noses, itchy swollen eyes, congestion, headaches- it seems to annoy kids a zillion times more than it does even for adults!

Once the weather outside is warm enough my kids are BEGGING to outside 24/7 it seems like, but when their allergies have gotten the best of them I try to shy away from outdoors! As you can see one of their favorite activities outside besides swimming is catching our chickens! When my kids start up their allergies I prefer to take care of it as much as possible naturally. For my oldest (and ourselves!) we use the Neti Pot which really works wonders! Nice warm steamy baths, a humidifer, and warm tea if they’ll drink it always help as well. We make sure to wash their bedding a lot more often, and take more showers after playing outside to make sure all of the pollen is off of them. I also hose down our screened porches every few days since our screens will actually start turning yellow and green from all of the pollen dust! There’s no sense in letting the kids play on the porch if it’s full of pollen!

Claritin has made this great slide show that I found very interesting because not only does it talk about allergies, but it also talks about ideas to help prevent allergy triggers! You will find a chart about how to tell whether you have a cold or you are having allergy problems, as well as all sorts of fun educational activities for kids to participate in outdoors!

Clear to Enjoy Spring: The Allergy Guide for Moms and Kids

I would love to hear some of your ideas to help beat allergies! My kids especially could certainly use all the help we can get! I’m sort of cringing when I think about the next bout of allergies to surface in a few months! I tried for a while giving them a little bit of local honey everyday but that hasn’t really seemed to help. I’ve also heard a chiropractor can help as well which we are planning later this summer! Another note is that if you hang your clothes outside on a clothesline make sure you don’t do this during allergy season! All of the pollen flying around outside will certainly hang around on your clothes and you’ll be asking for trouble!

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For more tips on relieving allergies, visit Children’s Claritin. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.