4 year olds and colds

[ImagineJL]

Does anyone have any tips on teaching a 4 year old how to blow his nose? DS2 has a nasty cold, and can't sleep due to being so bunged up. He just keeps sniffing, and I'm sure if he could only blow his nose he'd feel so much better. But I can't seem to teach him how to do it! Any ideas?

Not sure. Small children are notoriously bad at being able to blow their nose. Which is why when they shove something up it, it's hard to get out!

Can he hum? It doesn't blow with much force but it does send air out of your nose.

Get him to blow out a puff of air with his mouth, then ask him to see if he can do the same and blow air out of his nose. It took my ds1 a long time to get how to blow his nose - he is now 4.9yo and I'm not sure that he would reliably blow every time he tried now even, there would probably be some sniffs going on too!

Someone on here (I think) suggested "close your mouth, and blow out the candles with your nose". It works for my DD :)

Ah, I wish I knew the answer to this one; DS is almost 6 and still can't do it, though last Spring he finally agreed to (half-heartedly) try…

We have found that sticking a tissue soaked in Karvol or Olbas Oil near his bed seems to unclog him at night and let him sleep. It really does help; I've tried it on myself too.

Strawberrie has a good idea. With my now-4yo we somehow got him to learn to blow out of his nose and then made it a game where to blow out the snot(sorry) we said he needed BIG POWER! So the nose-blowing was accompanied by me shouting POWER! And ds doing a big fist-pump at the same time as blowing.

I can't now recall if this was a move he had seen on a cartoon or similar but he was able to do it (his older brother...not so much).

Can he blow bubbles through his nose in the bath water? It's just the same motion!

My auntie taught me to close my mouth and laugh! I was probably about 4 at the time.