Not long ago the stomach flu decided to ravage my home. It came in swiftly and quietly at first, and then loudly and all at once! In about 24 hours the whole family was own for the count, myself included! What is a mom to do when she is sick, the kids are sick, and the husband is sick? Having this family stomach flu was like a nightmare, but we made it through. Luckily, I learned a few tricks that made my life easier which I shall now dub my family stomach bug survival tricks.

Family Stomach Flu Survival Guide

When your whole family has the stomach flu, there are a few things you can do to help make your life easier and combat the icky sicky that was taken over your home.

Bust Out Old Sheets

On night one of our family stomach flu epidemic, my youngest decided to blow chinks all over my bed……great…. So, I got up, cleaned everything up and started a load of laundry. Once I had gotten the clean sheets back on my bed for the next night I thought everything would be okay. Oh was I wrong. That next night, girl child came in to our room and blew chunks all over my freshly laundered sheets. Honestly, I should have known better than to put my good clean sheets back on my bed. After this second spewing episode, I decided that old sheets would be adorning my bed for the duration of this epidemic. Seriously, if there is a bug that starts spreading through your house, bust out the old sheets, put away the nice comforter, and wait it out until you can use your nicer things once again.

Chicken Soup On Repeat

Needless to say, the four of us were not feeling to up to eating much during our sickness. Eating is important though, so it was chicken soup on repeat! My husband likes to call it “green” chicken soup, because every time we make it, well, it looks green from the spinach. When any of us are sick, we make up a huge pot of this health restoring nectar and eat it until it is gone. You won’t want much more than liquids the first few days anyways, so a good chicken soup with a warm healthy broth is the way to go! Oh, and it also makes cooking simple so you don’t have to worry about that while you are in the trows of your own sickness.

Lysol the World

Since we all had it, we were all walking germ factories. I kid you not, I would spray down every surface with Lysol daily if not more. I was hoping that killing the germs on surfaces would maybe help me feel better in some way. While it may not have helped us not to get sick(er), it does make it easier when you are doing the after sick house clean. I mean, you don’t want those germs to linger around and make new friends!

Stay Hydrated

This is pretty basic advice, but I promise while we think of it for the kids, we tend to forget about it for ourselves. I know that drinking is the last think on your mind when in the midst of a family stomach flu epidemic, but I promise you want to try!  Water, Enfalyte, and juice are all good options for you and the kiddos. For sure avoid milk, alcohol, and coffee though. The no coffee thing almost killed me, but I promise if I can make it through then so can you!

Sleep When You Can

This may be the hardest part of all, but getting as much sleep as possible is key to getting better. When everyone is sick, just sleep when the kids sleep and don’t worry about anything else. I promise, work and dirty laundry will be there when you are better. At one point, the kids were on the upswing, but my husband and I were still down. We ended up taking naps on an alternating schedule. He would be up with the kids while I napped, and then we would switch.

Unfortunately, the only thing that will fully cure a stomach but is time. At least we have things like Netflix and chicken soup to get us through the worst of it.

Oh and last little bonus tip, invest in good toilet paper…. you will probably be needing a lot of it.

So what is in your Family stomach flu survival guide ?