How to Help Your Child Deal With Growing Pains

When my daughter was 3, she woke up screaming in the middle of the night that her legs hurt. Being our first child, we were still in the learning phase and this was new to us. She had fallen earlier in the day, so we figured that she must have seriously hurt herself and we took her to the emergency room. After a simple exam, the doctor told us that it's growing pains. Growing pains are very common in children from toddlers to teens. This article will give you the simple steps that we learned to help our daughter during her "growing pains" episodes.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tylenol or Motrin
• Glass of milk
• Banana
• Rice sock (see instructions)

1. Before following these instructions, you need to assess whether or not your child has been hurt. If your child has sustained a fall or could be injured in any way, you need to seek medical treatment.

2. It's VERY common for children to wake with "growing pains" in the middle of the night since that's when they do their most growing. If your child complains of both of their legs/feet hurting and you know that they haven't been injured in any way. It's best to try these simple steps to help them get back to sleep in the shortest amount of time.

3. Potassium and calcium are two things that normally help growing pains since bones need both of these minerals to grow strong and healthy. After our emergency room visit and advice from the doctor, "growing pains" interruptions in the night became simple to treat. Within minutes, you can be back in bed.

4. First, give your child the appropriate amount of Tylenol or Motrin for their age/weight. Next, pour them a glass of milk and give them a banana. Not only does this help the pains, but it gives them a healthy little midnight snack.

5. Lastly, heat up a rice sock (take a large old sock and fill it with uncooked white rice or beans and tie the end closed. You can also sew larger rice bags. Prepare these and keep them on hand for these situations). Usually 1-2 minutes in the microwave works best, depending on the size of your rice sock.
   The rice sock can lay across their ankles, knees, etc...wherever the pain is the worst.
   Within several minutes, the combination of pain reliever, milk, banana and heat begin to work and your child will be back to sleep in no time.

Tips & Warnings

• If these tips don't work for your child, please discuss the problem with your doctor to make sure there are no underlying issues that may be causing the leg pains.

[seradis]

on 4/22/2009 Great article on how to help your child deal with growing pains! I remember I also had these. 5*