12 month old coughing every night til sick

[FrozenNorthPole]

For the last week or so, DD2 has been sick every night after being put down to sleep. She will spend about 30 minutes being restless, then she'll cough a few times, throw up dramatically then just fall asleep. Unfortunately I then have to wake her up to clean her.

She has had a constantly runny nose since starting nursery and is very congested, but I've been led to believe that this is par for the course when they start in communal childcare.

I've tried propping her up a bit, I've tried Vicks / Karvol and similar. It just seems like it's inevitable she'll throw up, no matter what I do.

She doesn't seem to have a fever (a bit warm sometimes) and she's eating okay during the day. At night she tends to binge on breastmilk, so when she throws up it tends to be pretty dramatic (she actually caught the dog with it yesterday). Sofa covers, cot sheets, towels, all her pajamas ... constantly in the wash or covered in smelly milk.

I ended up in tears last night. I feel so helpless - just want to know why this is happening. I'm emetophobic so the entire thing is horribly stressful, and DH has just left with the army for the next 4 months so I'm on my own.

Has anyone been in a similar position? Any ideas? The irritating thing is, DH is a doctor but I a) can't reach him, as he's in transit and b) know he will just say it's a virus, as he always does. As he did when she had tonsilitis and an ear infection both bacterial.

Oh poor you. I would probably pop to the GP to get her checked. My DS(2) spent the first 18months of his life battling coughs that turned into pneumonia 4 times, tonsilitis - too many time to remember and several ear infections. Sometimes he was desperately ill and other times the first sign he was coming down with something was the night time cough and vomiting, and like your DD sometimes he would not have a temp and be eating fairly normally, but then he would rapidly deteriorate. He tested positive for cows milk allergy at 19 months (which I had suspected since very early on) and since then has been reasonably healthy and a bowl of water on his radiator seemed to help the night time cough too. Good luck - god I know how frustrating it is and not sure I am emetophobic but many times my DS vomited - so did I as I was cleaning it up.

I agree you have tried all you can so now is time to see
What the gp thinks

Thank you for replying

ticklebug - thanks for the empathy, it's massively frustrating. I found myself literally begging her out loud last night not to vomit because I could tell she was about to. Re: the cows' milk allergy, that's interesting, thinking about this the vomiting has only really been happening since nursery started giving her cows milk (they say she won't take expressed breastmilk, but part of me thinks that they'd rather stick with cows milk as it's less 'weird'). I think I might try and reduce her dairy over the next few days and just see what happens.

Sirzy - I've got an appointment for monday morning: by the time the nurse practitioner phoned me back from my GP surgery there were no appointments left and I didn't think this warranted an emergency appt.

She's asleep on the sofa next to me, propped up in an almost vertical position. I tried a saline nose spray and have used one of those pipette-type bulbs to clear her nose out but she actually doesn't seem to have too much of a blocked nose per se. I think the congestion just drips down the back of her throat, making her gag. Every time she makes a sound I jump.

The nurse practitioner also agreed that there may be some underlying reflux here, although I'm really hoping not. DD1 had horrendous reflux (the root of the emetophobia) and I don't want to have to put DD2 on the same regimen of medication. Ugh.

I really wish DH was here. I know that sounds pathetic ... but I'm worried and lonely

Hi there,
the GP is definitely a good idea but there are a lot of things you can do to ease her symptoms. I would start with not giving her any cows milk: Even if she is not intolerant, cows milk is NEVER a good idea when you have a cold. It will increase the symptoms. Everything she drinks should be luke warm, - best would be herbal teas including thyme or/and fennel. Try Neuners baby tea for example. Plus a big spoon of honey - honey is antiseptic and soothing and will decrease the cough. A scarf, even during the night will help as well and a wet towel on the radiator. The bedroom should not be too warm! Never let her leave the house without a hat on, ears should always be covered.

Good luck to you. It can take some time, some bugs are really difficult to get rid off.

Thank you, about to take her to the out of hours GP as her breathing sounded more rattly than usual this morning and she's off her food (not her milk though, thank goodness). Will report back, thank you for the support

I think it might be better to take her to A&E to see a proper paediatrician in case it is pneumonia (they will take an X-ray). Hope she gets better soon.

Another possibility could be whooping cough, apparently there is a lot of it about at the moment, even in immunised children. Vomiting after coughing can be a sign of whooping cought.

Hmmmm. She's been diagnosed with a 'slight cold'.

I'm not hugely convinced of the GP's paeds credentials, he initially suggested pyloric stenosis til I pointed out that this would probably have been spotted, oooh, about 11 months ago. I then suggested reflux and he said "but in reflux they don't bring back whole feeds". This was such a nonsensical statement and so wholly in contradiction to our experience with DD1's reflux that I sort of mentally wrote him off and just asked him to please listen to her chest (both sides - actually had to remind him) and look in her ears and throat. All clear and apyrexic so will just watch and wait. He did say that I might want to discuss the vomiting with my usual GP as it was "entirely unrelated to the coughing".

I'm a big opponent of GP bashing for obvious reasons but I make exceptions on special occasions

I have found gps tend to be pretty clueless when it comes to babies. We are lucky to have a great peads a and e locally who actually listen to parents and know what they are looking for!

my Dd (10 months) just went through a week of this exact thing. She had a barky cough, a congested nose but was generally ok during the day. Her eating was off but otherwise she seemed fine.

At night she would have a little bit of dinner and then take a whole bottle of milk. She would go down to sleep and as you describe, be restless for half and hour, cough and then bring up all her milk and dinner.

I suspected and the GP agreed that the cough was probably triggering her gag reflex which is quite sensitive at the moment as she is teething. He suggested a wet towel on the radiator to ease the cough and told us to ride it out.

It lasted a week and then got better rapidly.
Her bedroom still smells of vomit.

Bumping this because it's started again. It stopped perhaps 8 days after it started and I breathed a massive sigh of relief. Hmph. Has been going now since Thursday, so six nights so far. Am running out of clean towels. She was sick on my head (and in my right eye) two nights ago. On one level I should be more relaxed about it this time because it has happened before, but on the other hand I'm frantically worried because she's eating very, very little during the day. Again, no fever and eyes, ears, throat, chest clear. It happened just after having antibiotics for tonsilitis though, so I'm also wondering whether it might be something related to her gut flora.
Aaaaargh ... why isn't this happening whilst DH is home?

Hello, we had exactly this problem for ages! Exactly down to the 30 minute timescale! We worked out my DS (11 months) was guzzling too much milk before bedtime and probably getting a little reflux. I seem to have solved it by:

• Feeding him supper no later than 5pm
• Last feed of the night starts half an hour before bedtime, so he has some upright time before lying down
• Burping him like a newborn before bed
• Gaviscon Infant (2 sachets dissolved in a little water) if the coughing starts, then backrub until a burp comes out. As the pharmacist for this as I think it's behind the counter.