Hydration Popsicles for Cold & Flu Season

Worried about your child getting dehydrated? Made with fresh fruit, raw honey, and topped off with hydrating liquid, these Homemade Hydration Popsicles are a great way to help your kids stay hydrated through cold and flu season. 

Happy New Year!!! We are making a goal to not get sick this year.  Haha.  If only we could control everything that could impact us getting sick.  This recipe is one you will want to keep on hand for when those yucky germs find you or your little ones.  We keep these recipes close for when that happens to us.

These popsicles have been kid-tested and approved.  They’ll bring comfort to all you parents worried about your kids becoming dehydrated due to a fever, cold, or flu bug. Trust me, I know how scary it can be to have a little one sick and dehydrated.

My sweet little (now 3-year-old) was hospitalized at 18 months old due to RSV.  Then a year later, was put on 24/7 oxygen for a week because of a secondary infection that affected her lungs and oxygen saturation.  During these illnesses, she ran fevers and didn’t want to eat or drink anything… until I told her she could eat these popsicles.  At the time, I would have let her eat or drink anything, high sugar or not but these hydration popsicles came with very awesome added benefits for a kiddo that was becoming dehydrated.

My kids would eat a popsicle (or two) a day if I let them.  With this being my reality these days, I’ve tried to stick to semi-healthy fresh fruit or 100% juice popsicles.  That makes me feel a little better when I let them eat two… or three at a time.

The first time this little one got sick and had a hard time drinking, I thought… why not make a popsicle with a hydrating liquid like Pedialyte?  Have you ever tasted Pedialyte?  Let’s just say, it’s not my favorite.  I decided to give the popsicle idea a try but enhanced the flavors by adding some fresh ingredients with great health benefits.

We like to make a couple different flavors, one with strawberry lemonade Powerade liquid base, and another with strawberry pediatric electrolyte liquid.  To ensure the popsicles would taste great so my kids would eat them (and not break their teeth like biting into ice), I added fresh strawberries and other yum healthy factors (raw honey and fresh lemon juice).  The strawberries really helped the popsicles not be so hard.

The first thing, I cut up the strawberries into tiny pieces.  I use the strawberries in both, the strawberry and strawberry lemonade, popsicle flavors.  For the strawberry pediatric electrolyte popsicles, I filled each popsicle mold (I bought mine at IKEA but you can find some great ones here) half full with the tiny strawberry cubes.  Then, I carefully poured the strawberry flavored pediatric electrolyte to the top of the popsicle mold fill line, stuck a stick in each, and put them in the freezer.

For the strawberry lemonade Powerade popsicles, I mixed 1/4 lb of the strawberry pieces with 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of raw honey.  This made a chunky strawberry syrup salsa, so to speak.

I continued by filling each mold half full with this strawberry-lemon mixture and carefully poured the Powerade in after.  Once they were all filled to the line, I capped each with a stick and placed them in the freezer.

I also decided to try making strawberry lemonade hydration drops using mini ice cube trays.  I took the same ingredients that were in the strawberry lemonade popsicles, blended them in a blender, poured them into the ice cube trays, then froze them.  I liked the way the blender aerated the mixture.  This made the drops much easier to bit into because they were soft even after freezing.

The first time I offer one to my sick girly… she ate the whole thing within five minutes.  The relief I felt was unmeasurable!  I know one popsicle wasn’t going to make too big of a dent but she ate it.  That was progress!  I even tried one… they were actually really yummy.

Do you think your sicky chickies would go for these?

These are popsicles you might actually want your little ones to eat all in one sitting.

Although these hydration popsicles weren’t her “saving grace,” they definitely made her feel better.  It gave me peace of mind knowing she was getting some fluids into that little body of hers.

So, the next time your little one gets sick, consider giving them lots of love, rest and hydration popsicles. 😉  This cold and flu season has felt like a doozy for us but these delicious hydration popsicles really took the edge off things.

Respiratory illnesses can be soooo scary especially when it affects a small child.  Have you ever had to deal with RSV, other respiratory illness, or your child getting dehydrated?  What did you do to help them through it?

*This post contains affiliate links. In order to support this blog and continue providing free content, I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post.

*Recipe originally posted 2/20/17