Tips to stop a cough? 2 hours non stop

[SpottyBack]

5 year old DS woke up a few minutes after falling asleep and has been up coughing since. Not in a distressed way, he's sat up reading, but the cough won't stop long enough for him to be able to sleep.

I've tried steam, hot tea, honey, throat sweets, nose spray, propping him up...

This has never happened before! What more can I do? He's happy enough bless him but he's going to be exhausted tomorrow if he doesn't fall asleep soon!

I found some toddler cough syrup but it expired in May last year, not sure if I should still attempt it?

I was told cold air helps when my daughter had Croup

Sugar - chocolate is ideal. Seriously. Bit by bit, not loads, buttons are best cos you can feed them in slowly!

It depends on the type of cough - mucousy and productive or dry?
Cold air is better and less aggravating.
Weirdly, an onion cut in half always solves a cough for us. It has never failed me and is my go to.

A dry, completely unproductive cough.

What do you do with the onion? Just leave it in the room? I do vaguely remember an ex putting a mixture of onion and sugar in a jar on the radiator in the past, something like this?

I am so surprised about the chocolate! I have the very same cough, and when I had chocolate earlier it was the worst! It made everything so tickly I was coughing uncontrollably 😂

I hope it calms down soon as I'd very much like to go to sleep myself !😴he's complaining that his throat is really sore now.

Slather Vicks Vaporub over the soles of his feet. Pop on a pair of socks to keep it contained. Works nearly every time for me!!!

Totally agree with the Vicks feet advice. It works brilliantly.

Um….I resorted to airways chewing gum with mine 😂 made them get up and chew loads of it in the kitchen and then spit it out and go back to bed, with a pillow slightly elevated ( think it was running down back of throat causing cough). It’s not a perfect method but defo reduced the coughing ( poss cos he didn’t want to come a chew anymore gum?! 😆 😆 😆). It did take his mind off it and clear his whole head out tho! So maybe something in it. Good luck- awful when they can’t sleep
cos they can’t stop

Chocolate always seems to make my cough worse.

Op, there is scarlet fever going around my ds school at the moment. Only mentioning it as my ds has a sore throat too. Hopefully they both just have a cold or something though.

I'd started to hear snoring but he's coughing again now, poor boy. I am getting Vicks tomorrow!

@Byebyefattum that really made me laugh as I can totally imagine doing this! It's definitely running down from his nose and causing the cough but he won't easily let me spray his nose to clear it.

@SolverofPuzzles scarlet fever is definitely on my mind as he has a few random spots that have popped up (not like the rash yet) and I've also had strep twice in the last month which I think is the same strain of bacteria? It's making our life a misery!

Does he have asthma at all? I would definitely pop along to the GP in the morning

No asthma luckily @Bringonchristmas36 . It's not a distressing cough, he's not struggling to breathe and just happily chatting away. I think we're just stuck in a cycle of it being irritated so it makes him cough which makes it more irritated etc.

Maybe I need to bring out the airways gum like @Byebyefattum to break the cycle!😅

Albas oil in hot water for the steam, or on the pillow. Karvol was better but it's discontinued.

Rub vicks on chest and back also on neck both sides.

For ds1, the only thing that helped in the relentless nights was taking him out somewhere. We'd regularly find ourself having a quick ride to the local tesco in the middle of the night, a quick wander around the toys and then back home where he'd go back to bed and be able to settle enough to get some sleep. Not perfect, he'd still cough in his sleep but it at least let him get to sleep.

Nurse at out of hours also said calpol, piriton and cough syrup on rotation. We were all exhausted from the nights he coughed and she just said it's more important that we got some sleep in order to function so if a dose of calpol helped for give it a go cos it wouldn't do any harm.

Get a flannel or a sock and soak it wet with really cold water. Wring it out slightly and then place it on the front of his throat going aroynd his neck. It really works and is sooothing too.

Try iced water. That helps with me. Especially with a straw!