2 year olds night time cough

[airconne]

Sometimes ok, he just has a cough- day time and night time too. Of course then at night it's worse. That all makes sense to me.

Other times, there's absolutely no cough during the day - it's just at night. He's not had a cough for a while and then the last couple of nights, he's just started coughing and was actually even sick from it.

Zero cough in the day though. This happens a lot. A cough, just at night.

I get that the mucus flow is aggravated by lying down and it's common for coughs to be worse at night- but to be there only at night?

Does anyone else have experience of this ?

I do. It was asthma triggered by dust mites (which cover bedding, plushies, pillows- so the coughing was mostly at night).

Can be a sign of asthma and/or allergies (post-nasal drip). Worth seeing your doctor about it sooner rather than later.

My little one’s cough was also asthma triggered. I had no idea it presented like that. Take to GP to check

My two both have it (5 & 2) it's asthma we Chang bedding regularly, hoover every day and hoover beds etc to try and help

We did and it turned out our DD was asthmatic, wasn't diagnosed until she was 4, one of the signs was coughing only at night or mainly. Her asthma is linked to allergies to grass and dust, so she has a daily antihistamine too

It could be asthma as others have said

Ah ok thanks everyone.

We have been to the GP a lot for his coughs in general. Because he used to have coughing fits a lot and vomit from them, a lot, since he was 8 weeks old.

Lungs are always clear when they listen to his chest !

Apart from once, where the doc heard a very mild wheeze and prescribed an inhaler.

I'm not sure if the inhaler really helps. It's also very very difficult to actually get him to have the inhaler.

He's not had a cough in ages, properly during the day I mean.

But the night time one comes and goes.

The GP just kept saying he's too young for an asthma diagnosis. Perhaps I should go back now I've noticed the night time cough thing.

Also change bedding more often and maybe an antihistamine is a good shout. He doesn't really have any allergies so far. He did used to have a problem with cows milk, but he seems ok now.

I went to the doctor about similar. With my four year old, it’s not coughing but permanent stuffy nose. It means he sleeps, waking himself up every 30 seconds when his mouth falls shut. Nose spray doesn’t work, it’s proper blocked and doesn’t always settle. He doesn’t really notice it as is quite a heavy sleeper, but I can tell it’s not restful for him at all.
I thought it might be dust mites and have been super ‚on it‘ with changing sheets, new pillows etc. thought it might be mould, so lots of airing, drying out, mould treatment, taking daily anti histamines for hay fever. Doctor looked at him for 20 seconds and said it will get better when he is older…. Sent me away.

That's so frustrating. I'm sorry 😔

They prescribed daily tablets- Montelukast when they were very young and had trouble with using the spacer for the inhaler.
Worked really well. Stopped the coughing.
It is also an option for allergy caused stuffy noses.

Hello.

I created an account to reply to this because this sounded so much like a dilemma I had with my youngest daughter.

She had a night time only cough, every single night (but nothing in the day at all) which got worse over time (years), and she'd sometimes bring up clear liquid. It got so bad we were holding her up right for hours every night to try and help her. Doctors originally said it was asthma but no antihistamine, dust mite repellent, extra bedding washing or blue inhaler did much at all, although the brown inhaler helped a bit. After a long time of grief (including a hospital stay when coughing so much resulted in a mastoiditis, a severe ear infection) it was finally discovered to be a milk and soy allergy with a delayed reaction (which comes on about 3 days after exposure, making it really hard to identify) which caused reflux and aggravated her airways . I had never thought of a food allergy causing a night time cough as the main symptom. About 3 days after eliminating milk and soy the cough was much better, a couple of weeks later it was totally gone.

I'm hoping this might help you as I wish we'd found out sooner. It took us probably 18 months of the cough getting worse and worse before we discovered it, and my daughter was neatly put on strong asthma drugs right beforehand.

One thing we did notice was her stomach was generally quite sensitive, although nothing major that I'd have expected with a food allergy.

Hope you get to the bottom of it.

My son was a night cougher to the point of vomiting on many occasions from very young, he was later diagnosed with both asthma and dust mite allergies.