children's night time cough, best medicine??

[alibo]

ds is nearly 2 and has a bad cold; but also a terrible cough at night. he was up from 4am till about 5.30am this morning and could hardly stop coughing. have tried tixylix cough and cold, and also tixylix night time, but not really helping much. his matress is propped up, any other ideas welcome!!

Try some damp towels on the radiators.
Puts moisture in the air and helps

OTC medicines are pretty rubbish, are basically just sugar, and there's no evidence to suggest they do anything.
Sit in a steamy room before bed,
I cube of ds favourite jelly dissolved in hot water..would work for me

thanks guys, did think about the towels, but he goes off to sleep not too bad; its the waking around 4am, when the heating is off anyway.

does he sleep on his side? if so maybe turn him over from one side to the other at night if you can without waking him, we have to do this to stop dd getting chest infections. also, we have been adviced by the hospital not to ever give a child cough medicine as all it does it stop a child coughing when they need to as it moves the secretions from the chest. in other words, cough medicine could give them a chest infection.