DS (2.7) has a virus and had a bad attack of croup early this morning. He was really crying, which is why is got so bad. He's had it before (once so bad he had to have a steriod dose in hospital), but normally steam treatment helps him. The main thing is calming him down.
This morning, while we were getting him downstairs to the bathroom, he was crying in between barking coughs (with stridor on intake of breath) and his ribs were visible as he sucked in to breathe. My instinct was that it was so bad because he was crying, but for a few seconds we were deliberating whether to take him to hospital. In the end, I got him in the bathroom, got the shower on and offered him some raisins in a desperate attempt to stop him crying. At the promise of food (!), he immediately started to calm down. He stayed in there with the steam for about 15 minutes. Having calmed down, and been put in front of a DVD, the croupy cough completely went (and no stridor either; that seemed to emerge only when he was crying). It will probably emerge again overnight, when his croup is at its worst.
I know the current advice is to take children to the doctor now for croup and not try home treatments. However, provided I can calm him down, steam treatment usually works. What would you do in this situation?