5 month old teething and has a horrible cold, please help!

[MotherofKitties]

My nearly 5 month old DD has a bad cold and is teething at the same time, and she’s so bunged up (blocked nose, sneezing a lot, chesty cough) her chest and breathing sound really heavy. She doesn’t have a temperature and she isn’t lethargic or weak/floppy, but she’s definitely not her usual cheery self!

I’ve been giving her 3+ months calpol and then 3+ months baby nurofen (she hates calpol!) not it’s not really made any difference. I don’t want to bother the doctors (who aren’t open until tomorrow anyway) as I know babies get cold all the time, especially at this time of year, but is there anything else I can do to help her get over it?

If anyone has any remedies or recommendations I could try I would be very grateful as we’ve had a collective 4hrs sleep in 48hrs...!

What about sitting in the bathroom running the hot shower? The humidity is suppose to help clear up such problems.

I think you need to call 111 if her breathing is heavy and she has a chesty cough. If they think it's necessary they'll get you an appointment with an out of hours GP.
Meanwhile, keep her upright and make sure she's getting lots of fluids. Poor thing.

Thank you for replying so quickly!

We had her a slight warmer than usual bath last night in the hope the heat would loosen up her chest a bit (plus she loved playing with all her new bath toys she got for Christmas!) but it didn't make any difference, but I will try the shower and see if that helps!

I've only just got her down after she woke up screaming at 5:30 so I'll see how she is when she wakes up and if she's the same I'll give 111 a call like you've suggested xx

Sorry to hear you have a poorly one. Calpol plug ins are amazing for helping to keep their noses clear and breathing easier. Snuffle babe rub on their chest and copious amounts of teething gel.

Agree with getting a plug in, I think Karvol do one too. Have you tried a nasal aspirator? Someone suggested getting one to me years ago and it really helped my DD. If her breathing is heavy, I would definitely ring 111 though. I’d ring now rather than later as the queue for callback might start to build up quickly

Oh and it’s the steam that helps breathing so yay to going in the bathroom with the shower running on hot so that the room gets nice and steamy.

Calpol Plug in, Humidifier, Snufflebabe on chest and feet, saline, snot sucker, wedge, Calpol, Baby Nurofen and teething gel. We get colds A LOT.

If shes snotty a nasal aspirator is gross but really effective- i use the snufflebabe one and really recommend.

Same advice as pp's- snufflebabe on chest and under nose, vapour plug in thing, calpol, bonjela for teething and a good teething toy to play with (sophie the giraffe is a favourite with my dd 6 months).

My DD who is 6 months, recently had a cold. She was bunged up and had a blocked nose. We used our made by zen diffuser with baby olbas oil in it. Worked an absolute treat. We found that when the central heating came on, she was particularly worse, so we kept the diffuser on at all times whilst she was sleeping in the night and for her naps. As per PP, we also used snufflebabe on her chest and throat, and a nasal aspirator.