I wrote this post while participating in a blog tour conducted by Clever Girls Collective on behalf of Children's Claritin®. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program.

When Busy Girl (now 16) was an infant, she contracted RSV which she recovered from, but it left her with some asthma issues and her asthma is especially aggravated by seasonal allergies. Every time we think she may have grown out of it, a few days off her medicine tells us it's likely she'll be on medication for the foreseeable future. She's old enough to handle her own medicines and they do the job, but some times of year her allergies are worse than others.

There are a few things we try to do to keep her allergies at bay, most of them are common sense, and you just have to do what works for you by trial and error. Actually, the other 2 kids have seasonal allergies, too, but not quite as bad as hers. Nonetheless, we have quite the stock of a variety of medications.

We live in an old house, so we have to be careful with dust and such, and we have several pets, but they are mostly outside. People are always telling us we should take up the carpets in the house, but they are also people who've never lived in an old house in the winter. (Seriously, though her situation isn't as bad as some people's and we have some hard wood floors and some carpeting).

Oddly enough, pool chlorine gives her a little bit of a problem this time of year, which can be an issue since she's a lifeguard, but other than taking her medicines properly and showering promptly, there's not much she can do about that.

When she was younger, she used to have problems with allergy attacks in the car, but we discovered our car had a cabin air filter, and changing that made a big difference. Now that she's older, she's not quite as sensitive to allergens in the car.

We could improve on keeping curtains and other decor clean, but she always lets us know if it's a problem. There are a lot of special bedding items on the market that help with allergies, but outside of a pillow cover, we've never had to do anything along those lines, but it's always worth a try if you or your child are having allergy problems, especially at night.

For more information on allergies, be sure to check out, "Clear to Enjoy Spring: The Allergy Guide for Moms and Kids”:

For more tips on relieving allergies, visit www.facebook.com/Claritin. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.