Need a Stop to the Cough!!

Hi L.,
I read an article recently about the problems with cold medicines and small children. One of the options I read was putting a small amount of honey in water to help a cough. Maybe you could Google this. It might be worth a try.
M.

hi L.,

we just went through this at our house, you have my deepest sympathies! what worked for us was delsym. it worked absolute wonders for our 3-year old, it actually let her *sleep* which i think was a huge advantage. she had been waking up coughing every few minutes. along with the delsym we used the cool mist humidifier and also a vick's waterless vaporizer that takes those little square pads.

good luck!
J.

Is it a dry cough or a phlegm-y one? If it's the latter, I can tell you what we've been doing for our 2.5 YO who's just getting past it.

Elevate her head while she's sleeping, extra pillows, a wedge, whatever it takes.

Children's sudafed to ease the congestion that's draining and causing the cough (bonus: it seems to put my son to sleep--you could also try benadryl).

Vicks makes a plug-in "vaporizer" that really seems to help, too.

Anything you can think of to encourage resting w/o napping. We've been doing some extra movies. Running and laughing seems to aggravate the cough at our house, so we're trying to keep him a bit calmer. Ha!

Good luck. It may seem like an eternity, but she'll get better soon. Hang in there!

Is it a dry cough or one that sounds wetter like somethings in the chest. If it's dry, you should be able to use something like Delsym, they do make this for 2 and up. My daycare person was using this with her daughter a few weeks back, but the cough was dry, more like an irritated cough.

If its wetter, she does have something her body's trying to get rid of. Our son had one like this recently and we didn't want to suppress it all day, so I bought a 4 hour cough medicine that I gave him about 30 min before bed just before bed or nap. I made sure it was just for a cough though with no other medicines in it. It stopped the cough enough for him to sleep (just a little cough here or there while sleeping). It worked for the most part for us.

It sounds like she has a lot of mucus. You might notice that she coughs a lot more after she naps or lies down because all that mucus is draining down her throat and settling in her chest. If it is okay with your doctor, maybe give her some Benadryl. It is an antihistamine so it will help dry her up, which will help her coughing.
The reason they don't recommend cough medication is that now they say, they really don't work on children. They compared children that took cough medicaion, nothing at all and Honey (yes old fashion "a spoonful of Honey". The crazy thing the kids that took the honey were the only ones that had some improvement. Mary Poppins was actually right!!!
P.S. You might start seeing new children cough medications with Honey, but be careful...they also have a lot of other herbal products that she might not need.

It's tough-they've taken away all forms of decongestants for children, so if your doctor won't prescribe one then you are left with 2 options. One is Delsym - my son has allergies and will develop severe coughs when he gets congested and this is the one over the counter that seems to do anything. Ask your doctor about dosage - ours recommended that for severe coughs the dosage should be upped from the package instructions but please check with yours. The other thing that helps with the gagging and puking is mucinex - they have a kids version that helps thin out the ick in their sinuses. I know that everyone recommends comfort measures and those are great. But when your kid is up at 3 am hacking and puking these are other options you can try.
Good luck.

The reason for taking the meds off the shelf is because some parents don't know how to give the right dose. We give our 2y/o the Children's Sudafed (with the pseudoephedrine, it's behind the counter at the pharmacies). It works great. Just give the correct dose. Our doc recommends it highly. We also do the vapor at night.

Good luck!

Did the doctor offer an explanation for the cough? People don't cough just for fun. Poor baby! Doctor may be giving a chance to let her cough up the mucus. Probably expecting it to clear up on its own or for you to come back in a few days so he/she can treat the ailment, not just the cough. Honestly, I still think that's kinda dumb b/c there are expectorants that reduce cough that he/she should have prescribed. This way the child gets the right meds.

For this reason I wouldn't recommend an OTC med. I, myself, don't use them for my kids. They work fine at treating symptoms but the box cannot diagnose the problem. I've seen parents in my daycare give kids these meds to stop symptoms but they never find out what caused it to appear in the first place. Have seen lots of little ones wind up with ear infections because parents quieted a cough without realizing the child had post nasal drip. The same with upper respiratory infections.

Not trying to scare you or speak ill about OTC meds. They save money but should be used under doctor's supervision. The whole idea of parents not giving proper dosage is dumb. Did these geniuses not realize the same parents can still get prescription dosages wrong?

Also you may consider jotting down the times, events, foods she eats, etc. for a few days. This info is always the first thing my peditrician asks. May be an allergy. When my son was 4, he would sneeze a lot at preschool. Turned out it was because they laid carpeting. Using the journal helped out a lot.

give her the infant/child cough/cold medicine...just watch the dosage. we give our 2year old medicine throughout the winter, otherwise she would be sick all the time. just give her the appropriate amount and follow instructions (like one dose every 4-6 hours). also try the other things listed: humidifer etc...but if she is coughing so bad she is puking and not getting sleep, try some medicine.

I too have had great luck with the Delsym. It is strictly a cough suppressant so you're not over-medicating them with a bunch of stuff they don't need. The other thing that I have tried is Vick Vapor rub on the bottom of their feet. Sounds crazy, I know, but it actually works. The feet have the most pores in the body and it absorbs through their feet and really helps their breathing. Just keep socks on so it doesn't get all over the sheets.

We swear by Vicks on the bottom of the feet. Just slather it on, put on socks or footie-pjs, and then off to bed. Within a half hour, the hacking usually stops. If it's really bad we may have to reapply in the middle of the night (if the coughing wakes them up), otherwise we're usually good until morning.

This might sound disheartening, but I have this same problem- STILL! I think I must have some sort of allergies, because my nose gets congested, and during the night I think that "fluid" drains down my throat (yuck) and really irritates it and BAM, I am a coughing machine all night! I don't even notice it- I guess I've been doing it for years- but my roommates do. I would recommend checking out if she does have allergies- maybe you've done this already, though. But if she does have nasal allergies, that's going to always link to the coughing. There are some OTC kinds that you can get- I hope this helps!!

We have a a bit of the cough going around our house as well. We have our girls drink either hot tea with honey or just hot water with honey before they go to bed. This seems to moisten everything up in conjunction with the humidifier.
Good Luck.

Just a thought: With this dry cold air it's possible that her airways are getting tight and she could be developing asthma. I just found I have it, and was having similar symptoms of up all night with a hacking cough. The test is a breath test. Not sure if they test 3 year olds, but just thought it may be a possibility.
If it did turn out to be asthma, at least you could help her get over it pretty quickly with medication.
Best of luck :)

L.,
Have you tried any type of Vicks rub or adding an extra pillow under her head? Or I have even tried the vicks plug in vapor things. These have seemed to help a little with my kids.

H.