4.5 year old Croup for third time. Should I buy a humidifier?

[mumznet]

DS is 4.5 years of age. He had a Croup attack last year and had to call ambulance and then he was given steroid in hospital. This time round he's been coughing for 3 nights, last night slept fine. Thinking about what I need to do for next time when he gets it, as i heard kids keep getting croup untill 8.

Here is what I've been thinking to do:
Give him a good multivitamin,
Buy a humidifier
Get the homeopathic medicine (I read in an old post on mumsnet) about one, will check the name again

Does this sound good, is there anything else I have missed? Thank,
Mum of DS

Theres not much you can do to prevent croup, it's caused by inflammation in the upper airways triggered by a virus. The treatment of steroids works bu reducing the swelling so makes it easier to breath again. Some kids are more prone to it but generally the older they are the less they suffer with it as the Airways are bigger and stronger so the inflammation spent cause as much trouble.

Cold air is normally the best thing yoy can do at home, so often standing outside helps. I don't think a humidiwpuld help much but it wouldn't do any hard if it was something you wanted to try. Likewise with a multivitamin, won't do any harm but nothing will stop kids getting viruses unfortunately! The most important thing is that if you're ever worried about his breathing to get him checked out by gp/ooh/a and e.

You might find that he never gets croup again as it's most common in under 5s, but some kids are unlucky!