When is the flu season in the United States?

[E_7]

Babies who get the chicken pox are in for a world of trouble. It’s very dangerous for a baby to get the chicken pox.

But…yes, theoretically…it’s far worse to get the chicken pox the older you get.

The CDC and the WHO recommend that everyone still gets vaccinated even if you’ve had chicken pox as a child.
I still had to get the vaccine…despite having a serious case of the chicken pox as a child.

My grandma told me that when mom got the chicken pox as a toddler, my uncle was a baby and got it from her and had it all over his body including his tongue, poor him. Grandma says she put him Calamine and he looked like the Pink Panther.

 

[E_7]

Traveling with a baby to another State is not recommended during the flu season, I suppose?

 

[pensmama87]

Traveling with a baby to another State is not recommended during the flu season, I suppose?

I don’t see why not, though I would probably be less likely to recommend air travel.

 

[Kelfa28]

Traveling with a baby to another State is not recommended during the flu season, I suppose?

Not necessarily.

Maybe during the babies first year…but I wouldn’t take a child that young on an airplane anyway.

As long as you take extra precautions with hand washing…and maybe give the kiddo some extra OJ or fresh fruit loaded with Vit C to help build up their immune system before hand (one reason why to wait until they are over a year old).

There really is only so much you can do to help prevent a child from getting sick.

That is one reason why a vaccine is so highly recommended…it’s a very effective tool to use to keep a baby from getting a virus that is dangerous for them.

I do everything I can to keep my kids from getting sick. They wash their hands, they eat healthy foods (lots of fruits and veggies and Vit C), I try to keep the house as clean and disinfected as possible and they get the flu shot every year.

It helps my older girls and it helps my infant…who is too young for most vaccines right now.

Besides a slight cold about once a year and the occasional stomach bug they’ve both had in their lives…my older girls have been really, really healthy their whole lives.

I imagine that will change when school and daycare starts for them.

 

[GreyWings]

Well you can catch the Flu year round, but the consensus is that “flu season” is during the cold/winter months. According to Wikipedia for the U.S. it’s October through May, peaking in February.

From personal experience: I had a horrible respiratory infection last January and I ended up in the ER… ugh

 

[EasterJoy]

Traveling with a baby to another State is not recommended during the flu season, I suppose?

The usual course after the newborn stage is to take reasonable steps to lower the chances of the infant picking up a disease, rather than avoiding travel altogether. Talk to your pediatrician about whether there is a reason to avoid airplane or train travel or some other likely source of disease exposure. Your child’s doctor is in the best position to evaluate his or her risk, because he or she will have first-hand knowledge of the relative maturity of the child’s lungs, how well the child is putting on weight, how well the child’s immune system seems to be working so far, the child’s overall robustness, and so on.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t see why not, though I would probably be less likely to recommend air travel.

Air travel has some unfortunate features (all those germs circulating back and forth), but babies in the 5-8 month range can be quite angelic on the plane and are also relatively sturdy compared to newborns. That’s a conservative estimate–I’m sure other people have had good results with babies both younger and older than that. I last flew with my youngest when she was 7/8 months old and she was absolutely charming the whole time. I was by myself but I had fantastic seatmates. And the infant car seats are relatively easy to manage on the plane and in strange cars.

I do practice a 1-3 no fly policy these days, though, just for my own mental health. We’re still going back and forth on flying next summer to grandmas with the baby, who will be a big 3.5 at that point.

4+ is the BEST, though, with regard to travel, as kids are often ready for those booster seats that are really, really easy to carry around and buckle into cars. Also, around 4, they are often quite capable of walking through airports pulling tiny rolling suitcases and actually love it. I’m practically counting down…

 

[UbiCaritas]

We did travel last November with DD. She was 8 months old at the time, and while not especially angelic, we were lucky in that the worst flight was when we a) had the nice older couple in front of us who kindly regaled both rows with their horror stories of flying with their then-baby triplets ( ) and b) had a five-year-old one row over who spent the entire flight throwing tantrum after tantrum, as well as any throwable objects within her reach. DD cried some, but our seatmates were rather more understanding of a fussy 8-month-old than a spoilt five-year-old, especially given the aforementioned triplet stories.

I digress.

In terms of germ avoidance, planes are notoriously germy, but we somehow managed to all avoid getting sick. I kept DD in a front carrier, which both made the airport easier to maneuver in and meant that people were less likely to try to touch her. With a good front carrier, you can even use the bathroom without taking the baby out. Hand sanitizer was used liberally, to say the least.

 

[Kelfa28]

I do practice a 1-3 no fly policy these days, though, just for my own mental health. We’re still going back and forth on flying next summer to grandmas with the baby, who will be a big 3.5 at that point.

4+ is the BEST, though, with regard to travel, as kids are often ready for those booster seats that are really, really easy to carry around and buckle into cars. Also, around 4, they are often quite capable of walking through airports pulling tiny rolling suitcases and actually love it. I’m practically counting down…

Yeah…we did a family trip that included 3 kiddos…ages 1,2 and 3.

Not doing that again. The baby (my middle child) was fine, the 2 year old (nephew) was hating the fact that he wasn’t quite old enough for his own chair (he missed the 2 year old mark by a month) so he was restless most of the flight, and my 3 year old was fine until the descent and she lost it from the cabin de-pressure and her ears started to hurt.
She was a mess on the descents of both flights.

My husband is no picnic either…he hates flying and going with a bunch of kids under the age of 4 is too much for him.

I’ve made the decision that all family trips will be drivable until this new addition hits 4 or 5.

 

[Xantippe]

Yeah…we did a family trip that included 3 kiddos…ages 1,2 and 3.

Not doing that again. The baby (my middle child) was fine, the 2 year old (nephew) was hating the fact that he wasn’t quite old enough for his own chair (he missed the 2 year old mark by a month) so he was restless most of the flight, and my 3 year old was fine until the descent and she lost it from the cabin de-pressure and her ears started to hurt.
She was a mess on the descents of both flights.

My husband is no picnic either…he hates flying and going with a bunch of kids under the age of 4 is too much for him.

I’ve made the decision that all family trips will be drivable until this new addition hits 4 or 5.

I was AMAZED the first time I discovered that at least some 1 and 2-year-olds are impossible to mesmerize with electronics to keep them quiet and still on a plane. It takes some kids until 3 to have the sort of attention span that allows for being able to sit down and watch a movie, rather than wanting to run up and down the aisles.

 

[on_the_hill]

From what I understand, shingles comes from chicken pox.
I guess this means if you get a chicken pox vaccine you will be immunized against shingles, too.

 

[Kelfa28]

I was AMAZED the first time I discovered that at least some 1 and 2-year-olds are impossible to mesmerize with electronics to keep them quiet and still on a plane. It takes some kids until 3 to have the sort of attention span that allows for being able to sit down and watch a movie, rather than wanting to run up and down the aisles.

Exactly.

My kids cannot sit still for long even if I put a movie on or give them my IPad and call it a day.

My 3 year old was well-occupied with a number of different things…coloring, toy planes, her doll as well as some screen time.

She and her cousin were happy for a little while watching Mickey Mouse on my IPad (thank-goodness for WiFi)…but you just can’t occupy that age with screen time for the entire 3 hours.
They’ll get bored quickly and want to move…especially my nephew…who is so active and asking him to sit on his mom’s lap for 3 hours is just cruel and unusual punishment.

 

[EasterJoy]

From what I understand, shingles comes from chicken pox.
I guess this means if you get a chicken pox vaccine you will be immunized against shingles, too.

I think boosters are required…but we digress from the topic and stray too near to medicine.