With allergy season upon us, you may be one of the 50 million Americans who experience allergy symptoms. When your allergies act up, you could experience uncomfortable symptoms like itchy eyes, a runny nose, chest tightness, or even harmful symptoms like difficulty breathing.
While you may think you are safe from allergens by spending more time at home, your home could be the cause of allergy symptoms for your or your family. Unwelcome house guests like mites, mold, dust, and pet dander make themselves comfortable within your home and can be difficult to remove, if not done correctly.
How to Allergy-Proof Your Home This Season (+ Free Printable Checklist)
To eliminate your exposure to allergens while spending more time indoors, it’s best to add allergy-proofing to your regular cleaning to-do list. Not sure where to start? Download the printable allergy-proofing chore chart below to help you stay on track of essential cleaning tasks or click here for more tips on ways to effectively allergy-proof your home.
After allergy-proofing your home, if you and your family are still experiencing allergy symptoms, it’s essential to get to the root of the problem to prevent future reactions. Symptoms like chronic sinus infections, nasal congestion, difficulty breathing, drowsiness, fevers, or any interference with day-to-day activities are signs that you may want to pay attention to what may be causing your allergies or see an allergist.
An allergy log is a great starting point for figuring out what may be causing your allergic reactions to keep your family and children healthy. Download the allergy log below to track allergy-symptoms or any important notes that may be helpful when trying to identify what the source of your reactions is.
How to Get Your Kids Involved In Allergy-Proofing the House
We all know that spring cleaning, and indoor allergy-proofing chores can be a daunting task — especially for children. The key to successfully getting your children involved in cleaning the home and picking up after their messes is to get them excited about cleaning by making it more of an activity and less of a chore.
Below are a couple of printable activities to get your kids involved in spring cleaning!
Challenge your family to a Battle of the Bedrooms. Start the clock and give each family member or child one hour to clean their room. Whoever has the cleanest room at the end of the hour wins. The winner can hang their award (printable certificate above) on their bedroom door until the next battle.
Recruit your favorite cleaning detectives and have them investigate different areas of the house to determine what needs cleaning up. After inspecting a room, they can list out if a toy is on the floor or if the bed is unmade, for example. This is a fun and creative way to have children help identify messes and create a chore list that they can help tackle!