As your child starts to feel better, offer a simple diet so that the digestive tract can easily process and absorb nutrients. Choose familiar foods that are easily digested and absorbed, such as pureed rice, bananas, dry cereal, crackers, toast, mashed potatoes (without butter), well-cooked vegetables, and grains.

Eliminate foods that are difficult to digest. Proteins should be avoided for about forty-eight hours. Fats should be eliminated from the diet during any illness. They are difficult even for a healthy body to digest, and a distressed intestinal tract makes it even harder. Undigested fats contribute to a toxic internal environment.

Eliminate refined sugars, especially if your child's diarrhea is bacterial in origin. Bacteria thrive in the presence of sugar. Sugar also makes the body more acidic. An overly acidic internal environment slows healing.

Nutritional Supplements
Lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidus restore healthy flora to the intestines and bowel, so they are helpful in resolving diarrhea. Give a child with diarrhea one capsule of either, twice daily, for five days.

Pro-Bio-Plex is a globulin concentrate made from whey. It contains antibodies similar to those found in mother's milk and helps fight off an infection. Pro-Bio-Plex is available by prescription only. Ethical Nutrients, the consumer division of the company that makes it, also sells a similar product, called Inner Strength, that is available over the counter in health food stores. For Pro-Bio-Plex, follow your doctor's prescription; for Inner Strength, follow the dosage directions on the product label and give it to your child four times daily until the diarrhea resolves.

Herbal Treatment
Powdered slippery elm bark is healing and comforting to intestines in distress. Slippery elm has little taste. Make the powder into a paste by mixing it with a little bit of water, apple juice, or applesauce. Give a child between the ages of three and six 1 teaspoon, once daily; a child between the ages of seven and twelve should be given 1 teaspoon, two to three times daily.

Goldenseal helps to control diarrhea that is caused by a bacterial infection. Give a child between the ages of three and six 3 drops, three times daily, for two days. Give a child between the ages of seven and twelve 10 drops, three times daily, for two days.

Curing Pills, a Chinese herbal formula, help to resolve a wide variety of digestive problems, including diarrhea. A child between the ages of three and six should take 1/4 tube, or 1/2 dropperful, three times daily. A child between seven and twelve should take 1/3 tube, or 1 dropperful, three times daily.

A cream made from kuzu root and umeboshi (salt) plum paste is helpful for easing intestinal upset (see Therapeutic Recipes ).