DS2 5 months wont stop cough cough coughing... what can I do?

[2point4kids]

DS2 has had a cough for about 3 weeks now.
Its a wet sounding phlegmy cough and sounds horrible poor thing.
It keeps waking him up when he gets to sleep, so he is constantly tired

I took him to the Drs 2 weeks ago and his chest was clear. Doc told me to give calpol if he seemed distressed or gets a temp, otherwise just sit it out.

Went back to Drs yesterday as its been 3 weeks now and it seems to be worse rather than better. Same Dr. She says his chest is crystal clear still.

She heard him cough and did say it sounded nasty, but wasnt really sure what to do seeing as his chest is clear.
We talked about antibiotics but decided against them seeing as he's not had them before and is so young, plus no visible sign of infection.

In the end she prescribed him an inhaler as DS1 has asthma and she thought it could be that.
I have given him the inhaler last night and this morning and it doesnt seem to be helping much so far.

Any other ideas?

I've tried all of these for DS 16mths who seems to have permanent cough:

• leave bedroom window open, air can get dry

• leave bowl of v hot water in bedroom with a few drops of olbas oil/vicks - again moisture helps

• rub vicks (or baby snuffle stuff) on soles of feet before putting on babygro (was recommended this on mumsnet, and, bizarrely, it works )

Cant leave window open due to ds1 being escape artist, but will definitely try other two - thanks!

my dd was the same.choking cough, off 2 doc,no drugs given.
I changed her milk to goats milk and gave he "Sootha" by Nelsons, a homeopathic cough medicine. Warm steamy baths whenever I had the energy and plug in vicks vaporiser. All this helped greatly but I brought her to the acupunturist and she hasn't coughed since. she's 2. good luck

raising head end of cot sometimes helps - use books under the legs or put a pillow under the mattress

DS2 has recently had this at about the same age. Here's what we did:

Plug in vapourizer every night
Humidifier every night from bed time til we went to bed
Raise up top of cot (although he was a wriggler so often ended up the other way round)
Snuffle baby on chest
Milk just before sleep (seemed to help him clear all the crap just before he dropped off)
Some nights nothing helped so we just got him up for an hour or so, played for a bit, another milk then back to bed once he seemed to have 'dried up' a bit.

It took about a month to clear then he came out with a runny nose, that went after a week or so. Loads of kids round here had similar, doc reckons it was a virus.

Stick with the inhaler though, if its a steroid it could take a few days to see any effect

was going to suggest the Vicks on the soles of the feet at night, but Amazonian got there before me