Taking care of children while sick

I'm posting this topic because I read a thread recently and never got a chance to reply.

Mystery Illness (if I'm not mistaken), and someone else (who's name won't come to me at the moment), were discussing how difficult it is to have a toddler to care for while being this sick.

I just wanted to chime in and say I can relate. I have an 18 month old son and I have tremendous guilt because I'm unable to do so many things that I want to do with him. I can't take him for walks, we rarely get to go to the park, the poor kid is pretty much confined inside with me. If we could afford it I would love to hire a nanny/sitter to help me on my worst days. But that's just not an option with me being out of work.

I'd love to hear any advice on how you deal with being a stay-at-home mom while sick with Lyme.

I had planned on returning to work after my son was born, but my health has been declining steadily since he was born via c section. I feel like I should be so thankful that I get to be home with him. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely thankful, and we've gotten so close. He's what gets me out of bed everyday, even on the days I practically have to crawl. But the guilt of not being able to be the parent I wanted to be is absolutely killing me.

I feel terrible because I can see that he gets bored a lot, and my house is a wreck. I just want to be a good Mom. So again, if anyone has advice on how to handle this I'm anxious to hear it. Or if you just need someone to talk/vent to I'm all ears :)

Yup, I was one of the women that posted about having a hard time caring for a toddler while ill. I also have a 6 yr. old son. He is at school all day,but I still have a lot of guilt w/ him also. I'm really sick today and was just feeling guilty about not having spent any quality time w/ him today when he was off school. I was irritable and unable to even process what he was saying when he was talking to me.

I do think I have a unique perspective though because I was a healthy, active stay at home mom for him. I too got very sick at the end of my pregnancy and after childbirth w/ my second child. I really can agree w/ what WWJD20 said. When I was a stay at home mom and was healthy, I was always too busy "doing" and missed many precious moments w/ my son. I could never just sit still and play w/ him. I was always thinking about what needed done around the house and what errands I needed to run. Now that I'm ill, I sit still and just enjoy the small stuff w/ my daughter. Yesterday, we sat on the floor together and looked out the window and pointed to the birds and trees for a long time :o). Something that I never would have had "time" to do w/ my son when I was healthy.

The other thing that I realize from having an older child is that we all have mom guilt. It's just a natural part of being a mom. If we didn't have guilt over being ill, it would be something else.

I do understand what you are saying about toddler boredom though. They are so active and it takes constant interaction. Physically, it's almost impossible for me on many days. I am fortunate enough to be able to hire some part-time help. I have someone come from 8-1:00 2 days/week. I have her take my daughter to a playground near our house or to library storytime or she stays at the house w/ her. She also helps w/laundry and dishes so that takes a little of that off of me. If you could hire a "moms helper" for just 1 or 2 mornings/week that would be very helpful. THere's also a really good book w/ fun/inexpensive ideas to entertain toddlers. Unfortunately, I can't remember the title-thanks Lyme, LOL! I think it's something like "100 ways to entertain a toddler". Little things like filling bowls w/ cotton balls w/ spoons and measuring cups to stir,mix, and throw the cotton balls kept my son occupied for hours when he was a toddler.

It is very hard,but hopefully one day we'll be better and then we'll really appreciate being able to take our kids out and be a "normal" mom!

And thank God for our children! They are definitely what keeps me motivated to fight this and give me a reason to even get out of bed every day. If it weren't for them, I would be sitting alone all day w/absolutely nothing to do or focus on, other than this awful disease.

Although my kids are all grown up and out of the house now, I'd still like to chime in as well, as I was ill since before they were born.

As Mysteryillness has said, the "Mom guilt" is common, no matter what's going on in our lives, so we do need to be careful to not beat ourselves up for something that we have absolutely no control over.

Life was hard, very hard when my kids were young - I was quite ill with periods of being bed-bound or at least house bound and being a single parent. I had to move back in with my Mom several times in order to have a roof over our heads and food for us to eat - not a good thing since my Mom and I have always butted heads!! LOL!! But we both got through it, and now we are friends. We've shared too many hardships to not be.

What's being related here about how this doesn't matter so much with the kids is true. My kids too remember the fun times, the times that brought us so close - even though they had to take care of me several times. They have told me over and over that they would not have change a thing in the way they were raised - it made them who they were and they liked who they were! All of my worrying and fussing about being ill didn't change a thing - except my happiness. I could have/should have enjoyed our times together more and worried about how little I could participate less. They really didn't mind!

So please do all that you can to treasure this time that you have been given to spend 'quiet time' with your kids, instead of being caught up in the mindset of cramming as much as you can into every single day. It really is a precious gift to be able to spend quality time with your little ones. You don't have to miss out on all of those little things that Moms treasure, or dread (giggle!).

Wow, just reading through all these replies that I could have written myself. I am totally struggling with taking care of my 14 month old son. He is so active and VERY heavy (27 lbs) I can't even lift him into his car seat or the changing table etc. I wish I had some advice but I'm struggling right along with everyone else.

Wwjd20-- I am extremely intrigued about your theory of epidural starting the neuro symptoms. The same thing happened to me after my spinal with my son (c section). I have literally had back pain since the spinal but docs look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them so I quit talking about it. I also now have "spots" in my brain per MRI and I just wonder if it is just coincidence. Neuro symptoms have been increasing gradually since then too. Hmmmm.

As a mom of an almost 4 year old little girl, I can totally feel all of your pain too. Mommy guilt is sometimes worse for me then the actual pain I was going through. For me it got tough when all my daughter started to talk about was something hurting her and how she had to go to a doctor. Her pretend phone calls would be with her doctor. That really got to me. I thought I was doing a good job trying to keep her away from a lot of this. If you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she says she wants to be a doctor to help people. If that is what she becomes, I will be happy but sad to know that my being sick is what drilled this into her little mind.

As for how I dealt with it, I did spend a lot of time in bed but she crawled in and we'd watch a movie, read a story or she'd bring toys into the bed. I had a tough time lifting her in and out of her crib due to the shoulder, arm and rib pain. So we took her crib mattress out and put it on the floor. We packed up the crib and she slept on the mattress. I also put a small fordable step stool in the car so that she could climb into her car seat. Anything that would help me out. I think she became pretty independent because of all of this! I have a hubby who's getting his phD so he was able to be home a bit more because we don't live near any family and it's hard to make friends in a new community when you are always sick and at home! I do work but I work from home so my hubby has been the best resource but I think a friend or family member would have also been great. Especially someone who doesn't work during the day time hours.

As for the epidural theory, I only had one and my problems were before and after that pregnancy. With my first pregnancy, I had contractions every 45 seconds to 1 minute for the last 17 hours of 36. I was induced and did the labor naturally. I wanted to know what this was all about. With my second (my only living child) I had a c-section so I had an epidural there. My symptoms became worse after my last two pregnancy losses both of which were natural births but in the first 2 trimesters. So after lots of digging trying to figure out why I had these losses when there's nothing physically wrong with me and I had no issues carrying my daughter to term here is what I've found with a bit of connecting the dots by me. I am not a medical doctor, this is just what I've found by reading and reading and reading and my doctor believes that I may just have connected the dots in a reasonable way. So my theory/findings;

When you are pregnant your immune system is suppressed. It is that immune system that keeps lyme at bay so if it's suppressed lyme is growing and trying to expand it's presence in your body. This may be why many pregnancies don't survive with lyme because it will start to attack the fetus. I know that when I had my one successful pregnancy, I was put on abx for strep B both in the first trimester and the third for about 2 weeks each. I also came down with an infection of some sort that warranted a small dose of abx in the 2nd trimester. So I basically had a bit of abx that may have helped keep the lyme back just enough to allow my pregnancy to thrive.

As for why a lot of women get worse after birth, here is a theory. When you deliver your child, your immune system now kicks in again. The battle begins again and lyme starts to fight. When you couple the battle going on in your body with your lack of sleep due to a newborn, it's no wonder we get worse. Just a theory to throw out there.

I think that for me yoga has been helpful and the coolest thing is that my little on is becoming quite the little yogi. It's a good bonding time. If you're looking for a good yoga video for kids, my little one loves the Wai Lana ones. It's a cute fun series and I can get down and do the poses with her. Then she can participate in my yoga at times as she knows downward dog, cat-cow, cobra, etc. Just a good low impact bonding opportunity for little kids under 5.