Find yourself freaking out when your kid gets hurt? Or frantically turning to Google or a Facebook community for answers about when to seek medical attention? Stop doing that. You should feel confident and prepared to handle basic first aid at home. Caring for your children shouldn’t make you feel nervous or helpless. In fact, with these first aid skills for parents, you should gain knowledge and confidence in your ability to help your child.
Must Know First Aid Skills for Parents
These are the thirteen essential first aid skills for parents.
Handle a Bee Sting
Treating bee stings in kids is an essential skill for parents to learn because, eventually, every child will get stung by a bee. Spoiler, using a credit card is not necessary to get the stinger out!
Care for a Wound
Kids are constantly falling or bumping into things and getting scratches and scrapes. Sometimes, our kids manage to really hurt themselves and wind up with a massive bloody scrape or cut. As parents, we need to know simple wound care for kids to treat the wound quickly and efficiently.
Deal with Head Injuries
Bumps and bruises are part of childhood, but that’s also what can be so scary for parents. When your toddler falls and faceplants right onto your patio, when do you start to worry? Recognizing and treating head injuries in kids is an essential skill for parents; especially now that there is more awareness about concussions and the long-term impact they can have.
How to Use an EpiPen
Knowing when and how to use an EpiPen is extremely important. Every single adult needs to know how to use an EpiPen, and honestly, there’s no reason that older children shouldn’t be educated as well. Your child could save a friend’s life one day just because they understand when and how to use an EpiPen.
CPR
CPR is a critical first aid skill for parents. You need to act quickly if your child becomes unconscious. When you review, understand, and practice pediatric CPR guidelines, you’re helping yourself and your child. Seriously, CPR could save your child’s life.
Choking
All children will choke on something- usually, it’s not food- at some point. You need to be ready to spring into action quickly when your child starts to choke.
Handle a Burn
Burns are incredibly scary. And what makes them so frightening, isn’t necessarily that they’re always really severe, but its that they really, really hurt. Calming a hysterical child after a minor burn is much, much worse than treating burns in kids.
Don’t forget to check out the toolkit! There are lots of great printables and other resources in there designed to help you better handle everyday emergencies!
Stop Diarrhea Fast
Kids get diarrhea frequently, sometimes with no clear cause at all. You need to know how to stop diarrhea in kids fast– without using the BRAT diet. Knowing how to handle diarrhea will give you the knowledge and confidence you need to help your little one quickly.
Remove a Splinter
Splinters are seriously painful! If removing a splinter from a child feels like you’re performing major surgery, you might be doing it wrong. There are easy ways to remove a splinter without using tweezers. Snag three easy splinter removal tips and tricks that you can use to make splinter removal much less painful- for both you and your kid!
Stop a Bloody Nose
You need to know how to stop a bloody nose– the right way- and when it’s serious enough to warrant a trip to the doctor. Stopping a bloody nose quickly involves a little more than just shoving a tissue up your kid’s nose. Taking the time to stop the bleeding correctly will save you time in the long run.
Treat a Fever
Fevers. All kids get them, and they usually pop up at the most inopportune times. When our kids spike a fever, far too many of us freak out for no reason. Fevers are good things, but, as moms, we have to know how to treat a fever in kids the right way. Hint- the right way doesn’t involve chasing your child around with an oral syringe hoping they’ll take the medicine.
Take a Temperature
Thermometers seem simple enough to use. But, I can’t explain a moment more full of panic than when you think your new baby has a fever—especially as a first-time parent. When you think your child has a fever, you need to know how to take a temperature correctly.
What to do for Diaper Rash
No matter what you do, every child will experience a diaper rash at some point. It’s unavoidable. You need to have a few diaper rash remedies on hand and ready.
When to Call 911
Figuring out when your child’s symptoms are severe enough to warrant a call to 911 can be daunting; there’s a fine line between needing to go to the emergency room and needing an ambulance ride to get there. But knowing how and when to make that call are essential first aid skills for parents.
Knowing what to do, and how to do it, when your kids get hurt are crucial first aid skills for parents. Which one is a skill you need to practice?
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