Ideas to Cheer Up a Sick Kid

It is a stressful time when your kid is sick, both for you and them. The child gets irritable, bored and you as the parent find it very easy to reach your wits end, trying to keep your sick child happy. Here are some ways that you can treat your child and keep them happy (and you) when they are sick.

Let's get the fluid intake and nutrition as recommended by the doctor out the way first.

To make drinking fun when your child doesn't feel like drinking, you can create food colored ice cubes (blue and yellow ones) and pop them into their drinks so your child can watch them go green. A crazy straw always works a treat too. Also it doesn't take much persuasion to get your child to 'eat' popsicles and slushies.

When encouraging your child to eat when they are not feeling well, create little bite sized nibbles like grapes, carrot sticks, cheese cubes and apple slices. A variety of things will entice your child to eat at least something, and as it is bite sized it will seem less daunting to a not particularly hungry child.

A good selection of toys, activity books, DVDs, or video games will also help make sure that your child is entertained enough throughout their illness. A kids activity basket or movie gift baskets certainly are great choices here.

There are plenty of get well gift baskets on the market, but if you have the time you could create an ultra personalized one for your child to cheer them up and make them smile.

This section is going to go over some gifts that you might want to put into this get well gift basket. Any kind of container will do for the basket. Also any of these gifts would be good stand-alone gifts too.

You'll want to include things that will cheer them up, but not upset their tummy. You could make some home made soup to include along with crackers, organic fruit, fruit snacks and cookies.

To cheer the child up, you could create a theme of smiley faces on the gift basket and include a joke book in there. Laughter is the best medicine they say.

Books and activity books make great gifts to put into the gift basket. Of course, all this does depends on the age of the child, but coloring and reading to a child can be done from an early age. Don't forget the crayons if you go for this option.

Playdoh and clay make great activities for a sick child. Check out my featured lenses below for homemade play dough recipes. Some masterpieces can be created. It's a great way to spend some quality time together.

There are plenty of children's movies on DVD that you include in the gift basket. Or maybe a tabletop game like chess, mini monopoly or scrabble that you can play with your child while they are ill.

And don't forget the cuddly toy - an essential friend in the recovery process.

When a child is sick, no matter how much they want to, they should not go outside during spring, summer, fall or winter. This is itself it likely to make the poor kid grouchy, so one novel idea is to bring the season indoors to the child.

So if it is Spring, it is the time of baby lambs and bunnies coming into the world, so you could get your child cuddly toys of baby animals. Also the birds start singing, so you could buy your child a CD of birdsongs to make sure they are not missing out on anything.

In the Summer you can give your sick child popsicles and slushies to both help them feel like they are not missing out on the hot weather, and also make sure that they get much needed water to keep them hydrated and get better sooner. Also you can bring in flowers to cheer up their room.

In the Fall, there are all sorts of craft activities that you can do with the multicolored leaves and seeds from trees and it's easy to recreate what it looks like outside inside! You could make picture and placemats out of these leaves, or even press them until they become skeleton leaves.

In Winter, and if your child is missing out on snow, there are several things that you can do to bring the season to them, like making snowflakes out of paper, making an igloo out of cushions, or bringing some snow into the house so a mini snowman can be built in the bath or sink.

With a little imagination, your little one will not feel like they are missing out on anything after all.

Children grow up so fast as it is, so when they are ill why not take some special time together and create lasting memories, instead of getting stressed.

Hope you got some ideas on how to pass the time while your child is ill, make them more comfortable and bring a smile to their face!