Toddler coughing himself sick?

[Thedonkeyontherainbowsaidwoof]

Has anyone here experienced a toddler coughing themselves sick?

I have a 3yo DS, he is currently going to a nursery so he is picking up lots of colds and so on.

Recently he has been sick a few times, by which I mean a few individual times over the past few months, not a few times on the same day.

It seems to me that he doesn't have a stomach bug, but that he is coughing to the point that he is sick. It happens usually when he has a snotty nose and when he is sick it seems to be mostly phlegm. On these days he hasn't been sick a second time, he eats normally and behaves normally - running about and playing and so on. No one else in the house has been sick so if it was a bug we've managed not to pick it up.

Is this something that kids do? I kept him off nursery because they have a 48 hr D+V policy but I don't know. It's hard to know what to do.

If he is coughing himself sick because of his snotty nose, what can I do to help. I use a plug in Calpol vapouriser while he is sleeping and it seems to offer him some relief. I don't know what else to do.

[steppeinginto2015]

yes, ds used to do it.

I found that using Karvol at night helped, I squeezed it on to his pyjama top and it cleared the congestion. Also the old trick with vicks on the soles of the feet and socks on.

We weren't in the uk at the time, but I knew when it was coughing as opposed to stomach and probably would have sent him in to pre-school.

[Runningtokeepstill]

Ds1 now grown up, used to do this right into teenage years but he has severe allergies so produced lots of mucous. He was fine to cope with school and other aspects of normal life (going out with friends, eating) once he'd been sick.

Ds3, now 15, has a similar problem sometimes still but ds2 has escaped this. Sadly we've never found anything to stop it happening though.

[joanna120387]

Try Nobu baby snot suckers, once you get the snots out, he'll breathe more easily and probably won't cough as much.

[GotToBeInItToWinIt]

My DD is only 15 months but she does this every time she has a cough (and she gets them quite often!). It usually happens when she first goes down to bed or if she wakes up coughing in the middle of the night, meaning a change of pyjamas/sleeping bag.

[larryphilanddave]

DS does this, occasionally, although fortunately not often. GP says it is a bronchial spasm in his case, he gets a cold or similar, develops a cough, and then keeps coughing until he's sick not because he's full of mucous but because his lungs spasm. He's more prone to it due to strong family history of asthma. He has an inhaler and spacer and that helps wonders, when he's ill and gets a cough we use it a few times a day and he's usually fine.

[Wednesbury]

Yes. DD (nearly 5) has always done this. She also often vomits if she over exerts herself (have cleaned sick off several trampolines and bouncy castles!) It is worse in cold weather too. Like you I have done the 48 hour exclusion thing knowing it was not a bug.

The GP has suggested that it may be asthma (not all asthmatics wheeze - DD shows no other signs) and has prescribed an inhaler. I think its working. We've had a spell of cold weather and DD has also been full of snot the past 4 weeks. The only times she's vomited have been on days when she hasn't had the inhaler. We call it 'sickups' to distinguish between this and true illness (she's never had a sickness bug).

Does your DS vomit more if he is exerting himself /in cold weather? These were the elements that led the GP to suggest asthma.