Home remedies · Children & infants
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Mash boiled potatoes, wrap in a cloth, test the temperature on the inner forearm, then apply.
Potatoes hold heat for a very long time — that is the whole trick. For throat and chest the compress has been used this way for generations.
The warmth works, not the potato. A cherry stone cushion does the same with less effort.
This is exactly where scalds happen in children. Always test on your own forearm first, always a cloth in between, never apply during sleep and never leave unsupervised.
At once: any fever in an infant under three months, a child who is apathetic or has stopped drinking, skin bleeding that does not fade under pressure, breathlessness or drawn-in ribs. A first seizure is always looked at. Refusing to drink for hours counts for more than the temperature.