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.
Give a teaspoon or 5 ml of rehydration solution every five minutes, even if the child vomits — and start again after a ten-minute break.
Small amounts stay down where large ones come straight back. Over an hour it adds up to a decent volume.
It does not replace assessment if a child keeps nothing down for hours.
See a doctor at once with a dry tongue, sunken eyes, a nappy dry for six to eight hours, listlessness, green vomit or blood in the stool.
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.