Can I give my 14mth old dd Echinacea?

[maisiemoo]

Since starting nursery full time 7 months ago dd has had a constant runny nose, occasionally peaking with ears/throat but we have just finished 3 lots of antibiotics on the trot for ears and throat!! First fo 12 months then 3 all at once(Sounds like the buses!)
dh and I take Echinacea and Ive been on the Bioforce website who seem to do an Echinacea for children but I wondered f anyone had used it, with any success??

Sorry - bit wordy all that - first posting on the boards!!

[Marina]

We have used the Bioforce echinacea for children since we became aware of it, for ds (he was about 18 months old when we came across it).
It certainly seemed to help him a lot through his first full year of nursery - your predicament sounds very familiar Maisiemoo! We gave it for two weeks on, one week off, as I read somewhere that generally echinacea's potency is reduced if it is given continuously.
We did some other things too. We put Kindervital, a vitamin supplement for children, in his porridge every morning. And we also switched to a children's toothpaste containing the natural antibacterial xylitol (check the ingredients lists, as a lot of perfectly good brands don't include it). You can find this in Boots Total Care for Children, for example. This was following advice from robinw, a long-term poster here - xylitol is increasingly shown in research to be beneficial in protecting against bacterial ear and chest infections.
Since we did all of these things, he has not needed antibiotics. Some of that is down to a naturally maturing immune system, I'm sure, but I feel the measures we took helped him along.
Hope your dd feels better soon - it does improve, honestly.