Coughing or Illness
Coughing or Illness
For the past week or so, Noah has been teething or going through some sort of regression. He wakes multiple times throughout the night and previously would sleep 10-12 hours straight. The past couple of nights, he has been coughing his brains out. Don’t worry, we went to the doctor and she said it is probably just drool or drip down his throat as he sleeps on his back and causes him to cough.
These sleepless nights are killing me, but this too shall pass right?
If you are like my husband and I and forget to give your child his cough medicine before bed, gently wake your child up, keep the lights dim and offer the medicine. We offer his straw cup with water after to wash it down and coat his throat a little bit. We then do an abbreviated part of his nightly routine and say goodnight to his Winnie the Pooh friend decals on his wall and off to his crib he goes.
We are not medicine pushers and try not to use it unless our son or we really need it. Here are the two that we do use, besides the occasional Tylenol for cutting a tooth. Make sure you purchase the infant kind. It will usually say 2 months and older. ZarBee’s does make medicines for older children but these packages usually specify use for ages 2 and up. They contain honey in some of them as well which you really do not want to give your child at least before they are 1 years of age. They are found at your grocery stores and pharmacies. We ordered ours from the Target app and had it shipped to us.
· ZarBee’s Natural baby cough syrup plus mucus
· ZarBee’s Natural baby soothing chest rub
Using a humidifier in your child’s room is a great idea as well. We turn the nightlight off that ours has and the mist runs all night. Be sure to put clean water in each morning or whenever you fill it back up for the next night. It is frowned upon putting Vicks or any other medicine or drop into the humidifier. I don’t know too much about any essential oils but we strictly just put water in it each night.
Also, when a baby is real young and not rolling or moving around in the crib, the doctor said that we could roll a small towel under the crib mattress to elevate it a pinch so that the baby is not completely flat. As babies get older, I worry about doing this with our son. He is a wiggler and we find him in all different spots of his crib throughout the night.
If this is something that you plan on trying, make sure the towel is under the mattress, not under the crib sheet or under their head. Do not put anything in the crib with your child until at least 1 year of age.
A quick note about regressions as I mentioned that must be part of what is going on with our little man. They are temporary and will eventually pass. Things will go back to normal at some point. The 4-month regression is permanent, so however your child gets through that is how they most likely will be for a while. I mean, help your child learn to self sooth so that the following regressions go smoother.
The 8-10-month regression is partially because your child is learning so many different things from sitting up, clapping, waving, and maybe pulling themselves up, crawling or walking. With regressions, babies wake more throughout the night. Think of when we have a lot on our mind as adults, whether it is work, planning a vacation, or just life in general. These thoughts keep us up at night, make it hard for us to fall asleep, and consume our brains. This adds to difficulty sleeping as well. With babies, it is pretty much the same. Babies want to practice all of these new tricks that they are rapidly learning, and what better time than in the middle of the night.
Be sure not to introduce old habits or new ones to assist your child in falling back to sleep. By that, I mean, if you were not feeding your child in the middle of the night, do not start doing that because you think it will calm them down. If you don’t rock your baby to sleep, don’t start, because that is something that they will probably rely on from now on.
By all means, please follow your gut, tend to your baby as needed, but keep night visits quiet, dim lit, and brief. Allow your child time to get themselves back to sleep and sooth themselves.
Until then, coffee is your friend, work as a team with your significant other if you have one, and just know, this too will be a memory someday. Hang in there, you got this!