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One of a mamma's simple pleasures is the quiet that falls over the house between the kiddos' bed times and momma's bedtime. I don't like that time to be disturbed. By anything.
Especially by the sound of a screeching toddler...
At about 11:45 last night, Little Bear (2 1/2) started screaming like a banshee. My first thought was, of course, bad dream... I ran to his room and
he was sitting up in bed clutching his ear. I will concede that he's really not ever sick and has never ever had ear troubles, so he may have been more dramatic than most kids. Either way, the sound of my baby in pain induced a bit of a panic.
... Crap. An ear ache is probably not ER worthy, although his screams are pretty intense. Can I get an OTC drop that will help? What kind of artificial meds are in those drops? ...
I had to do something, but I had no idea what. There were some old homeopathic, glycerine-based ear drops in the medicine cabinet (not sure why, though), but they turned out to be entirely useless. Dude wouldn't even let me hold a warm rag on his ear to soothe it, and
I was out of ideas.
As I snuggled my still-bawling little guy,
I googled like a maniac. The only remedy I could find that could be made with what I had on hand was garlic and olive oil. I had no expectation of success, but
I had to do something.
Apparently,
both ingredients are highly antibacterial and garlic is a crazy good anti-inflammatory.
SO, to cut to the chase, Little Bear sat on a chair in the kitchen whimpering, "muh ear, muh ear. muh ear hut" while
I made "Momma's Magic Drops" {Seriously, naming not fun things fun names somehow makes the idea less appalling to the little ones...}
I have no pics of the actual process, because I was beyond tired and frazzled by the time we were at this point in the night...
- Put 1/4 cup unrefined olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.
- Add about 4 cloves of crushed, coarsely chopped garlic.
- Let it simmer until the garlic pieces start to brown.
- Remove the garlic and bring to room or body temperature.
- Use a dropper and drop several drops in the affected ear.
- Wait several minutes with the bad ear up to let the oil run down into the ear (we sang the ABCs three times slowly while eating chocolate).
- Repeat several times a day until the ear is better.
You can store the oil in a glass container in the refrigerator. When you're ready to use them, fill up the dropper and leave it on the counter to warm up for several minutes.
No exaggeration, within seconds of the drops going in his ear, LB was calmed down. And, by the time we were done singing the ABC's, he was already starting to doze back off. He woke up this morning tired, but without even the slightest indication that his ears were hurting. SUCCESS!!!
For good measure, we still did drops this morning and then two more times during the day.
*HUGE sign of relief*
Do you have another natural DIY remedy to share? Have you tried this one? I can't say how well this will work across the board, but I will for sure try it again if/when LB has an earache again!
