5 month old with horrible cough and cold

[Cillapops]

My son is 5 months old and has a cold giving him a bunged up nose and horrible hacking cough that sounds both chesty and tickly.

Last night he also had a temperature but after giving him calpol and cough mixture he threw up and then slept most of the night.

The cough sounds terrible. Am I right to just look after him at home or should I go to the doctor? I don't want to waste a doctor's time or take him into a surgery full of bugs. My daughter, (2 1/2) has had it too and is now nearly over it.

Would you go to the doctor or just treat at home?

Is his breathing ok? if you are at all worried call NHS direct, they will advise you if you should take him to your GP, or A&E, they will even listen to him cough/breath over the phone (did this with my ds2 when he had croup and couldnt breath, they told me to put the phone by his chest, then told me to take him stright to A&E, kept him in for a week!)

I wouldnt worry about taking him in to see you doctor though, better safe than sorry i always say

sorry that looks like i am saying 'dont worry about taking him to see your doctor'

what i mean is dont worry about taking him/wasting doctors time/ bugs, just get him there, best safe than sorry

don't forget your local pharmacist might be able to advise you if it's something the doctor should see, if you've got a chemist's nearby you could just pop into. nhs direct are great too as VTT says.

There are some very nasty cough bugs going round, and most coughs will take at least a couple of weeks to clear properly - my 7mth DD has had a cough off and on for about 6 wks now, is now just tickly having started as a chesty (productive I think they call it!) cough.

the advice we had was if they're feeding ok, temp under 40deg and not struggling to breathe, then they should get over it by themselves (with maybe some calpol/ calprofen to relieve temperature/ discomfort)